My kids are playing sports at the high school again. It's exciting. Well, it's as exciting as it can be when you're watching from a screen at home and you're squinting a lot because you aren't sure which one is your kid. Considering the alternative, I'll take the eye strain.
Reggie is the only freshman that made the sophomore b-ball team. He was pretty pumped. The kid is b-ball obsessed. It's what he does in his spare time. Before the snow, he was on the driveway 24/7- ish.
Remember when I shared his awesome game on his 14th birthday? I just re-read that post and winced at: I can't wait for him to start high school to make new friends. Ugh. I also mentioned the mean kid in his class in that post who thinks he is hot stuff, guess who is on the freshman team? And that's all I'll say 'bout that.
No one can attend sophomore games. Amusing since typically, when we were all breathing on one another, no one really went to those games anyway. Hardly, pack the place events. It'd be very easy to social distance. They didn't ask me to make the rules though, oddly enough - so bring on the squinting at the screen.
One thing this pandemic has done is introduce me to the HTMI cord. Look at me, sounding techie and all. I now know how to plug my laptop into my TV to do my FB workouts. We even brought it to Arizona so I could workout, and we watched Netflix movies from my laptop. We're crazy hip. This means we also get to watch their games on our larger TV screen. Still, hardly NBA footage and they look tiny.
Perhaps the athletic department failed to consult me on which games should allow spectators because they've heard of how I've occasionally lost my cool at a ref in a water polo game. Just a theory.
Let me explain . . .
Coach insists my photo is hanging in the athletic office of one particular high school in our conference with a warning: DO NOT ALLOW THIS NUT JOB IN THE BUILDING.
Ed was in the pool that day (so was Lad) in 2016, and I was in the balcony with the other fans. Um, raging. I apologize to those of you who think of me as cool and collected. Not sure I pulled off that persona, but if I did, I just blew my cover. It was a water polo playoff game and the refs didn't know the game. Understatement. Or they knew the game, but wanted us to lose. They kept calling our guys for holding, but the other team was clinging to our guys as if they couldn't swim, and they weren't getting called for it.
Anyway, Ed said afterwards that he was treading water, looking up at me LOSING IT. He says he shook his head, thinking: SHE'S COMING OVER THAT RAILING. ANY SECOND. SHIT, SHE'S GOING TO JUMP IN THE FREAKING POOL.
Well, I remained in the balcony, but my voice carried. Coach may or may not have moved to a different row in the bleachers so he wasn't associated with me.
Holy digression. But seriously, it sucked to be taken out of a playoff game for bad calls. I'm over it moving on . . . (after I share the video below - which is not from the game where I lost my cool).
This is a snippet of the video I made for Lad when he graduated high school. The full length video is full of baby pictures and funny little kid video clips. I thought I'd insert the water polo highlights here. This was such an exciting season. You can see Reg jump up in the stands in front of me to point to Lad when he scores. I no longer have this on my desktop, so I had to video it playing on my TV. Not gonna lie, watching this whole video makes me cry. Beautiful memories from Lad's happy childhood. Simpler times. Well, not totally simple. We were just starting to walk on egg shells, but in these games our guy shined so bright and we enjoyed cheering him on so much.
Back to present times: Mini is on the varsity girls' b-ball team. Two family members can attend her home games with fingerprinting, a quick organ donation, a background check, and a special lanyard. Her away games can be viewed online. *She just played in an away game and her team lost by over 50 points. Ouch.
Tank will play volleyball in the spring. He's missing his time to shine in the stands during varsity boys' b-ball games as the lead heckler spirit guy. It's his thing. The senior class is invited to social distance in the auditorium and watch the games live streamed . . . while the team plays in the big ass gym across the hall. (excuse me while I wipe my tears).
Remember how they combined sports seasons and it messed Mini up? Big Mama wrote a letter. The theme: IF EVER THERE WAS A TIME TO MAKE AN EXCEPTION, IT'S NOW.
It worked. She can play two sports, or can she? She rarely gets to play badminton. B-ball is her #1 priority. After they said, GO AHEAD AND DO BOTH, she skipped a b-ball practice (at her b-ball coach's urging) on a Saturday in order to attend a badminton match. The other team ended up not having many players and Mini never played. Ouch. It was understandable. She hadn't been allowed to practice, so the coach couldn't really play her and sit someone else. (Exhibit A: I'm not crazy. I understand fairness. She says as she tries to regain her good name with her readers).
So we're back to practices and games and deciding who can drive who to which practice, oh and blocking the sidewalk with one of our 4 cars for a bit while we jog in and out of the house before our next drive.
Translation: Officer Friendly still shows up when an ass hole neighbor complains about our sidewalk obstruction -EVEN when there were several feet of snow on said sidewalk and no one was walking on it. Get ready neighbors, I'm gonna put a sign in my yard and invite whoever it is to SHOW THEMSELVES by coming to the door and admitting that they can't walk 2 steps around a parked car in lieu of calling the police. Grow.A.Pair.
And, Curly has been playing travel ball for awhile now. She usually plays two games on Sundays. She practices on the two nights she doesn't dance, because the gods don't believe that I should ever relax.
Have you ever lost your cool in response to a bad call? Would you like to help me draft the message for the yard sign geared to the neighbor who keeps calling the po-po? I welcome your suggestions. One idea: IF YOU DON'T LIKE OUR CAR HERE, CROSS TO MARY ANN'S SIDE OF THE STREET. SHE'S SUPER DELIGHTFUL. PROMISE.
18 comments:
I did not miss practices and such. I am not excited for these things to commence. Ella is back into horseriding again and has her first horse show Friday and I feel like the event won't be COVID friendly. So Mike has to be the tribute since he is an essential worker anyway. I can't wait until everyone has shots so this is easier.
So does your neighbor literally stand by her window and wait for this stuff to happen? I feel like I should already know the answer to this question.
You lost your cool? At a ref? I LOVE that.
I had known my MIL for a lonnnng time before she attended a travel softball game Lolo was in and Coach was coaching. My eyes were opened WIDE when she started yelling at the referees about bad calls. I was all WHAT? WHO IS THIS? The coach said, oh, yeah, she did that my entire childhood while I played baseball. I never had the guts to do it myself, so I'm a fan of YOU and my MIL.
Clarify this. In Water Polo, is that a standard pool? Like deep on one end and shallow on the other? Do they swap sides if so, and at one point you are really treading water? It looks amazingly challenging.
I'm sure those are sweet memories of seeing Lad in his element doing his thing.
I can't believe your effing neighbors are still on you even with ALL the snow. Lazy asses with time on their hands. The only sign I could come up with would be full of four-letter words and it might cause more problems.
In Florida, everything is open and things are happening like it's 2019. But lots of testing and of course, masks. Coach gets tested weekly and has to wear a mask during all practices and games. The girls get tested weekly and then a rapid test before each game, so things are really moving forward and people are happy about it.
I'm glad you wrote the plea letter and it worked. GO YOU!!
Kari - All the games I go to require masks of fans and players and temp checks upon entry and people hand sanitize upon entry. I feel safe and I'm happy to get back out there and watch them . . . the driving and juggling of who is going where is always a hassle especially with 3 cars for 4 drivers (Lad's car is not part of our rotation). Sometimes the garage door goes up and I think "Wait, who's that" and then one of my kids walks in and I go "Oh, I forgot you were at (such and such)".
I wish I knew who the neighbor is that keeps complaining about the car blocking the sidewalk. Who cares? Cross the street. Walk around the car. What on earth?
Suz - Mini took a charge at her home b-ball game Friday night. Keep in mind there are only a handful of us fans in the gym. The refs were consistently awful the whole game. They called it a block on her. WHAT? She was planted. Noodle-arms straight up in the air. She got knocked on her ass when the girl with the ball plowed into her. Um, I guess I did you proud, because I LOST IT.
"She was PLANTED. THAT GIRL PLOWED INTO HER. SHE GOT KNOCKED DOWN. THAT'S A CHARGE BY DEF-IN-ITION. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" Coach had just left the game early to pick up Curly from b-ball practice. He missed it, so he didn't need to get up and move to another seat. We were down by about 30. They called a foul on a girl on the other team for blocking a shot and it was really all ball. No foul, and I recognized that that TOO was a bad call. Anyway, I basically lost my voice at that game. And my mind.
Look at you watching that clip and noticing all the details -you are picking up on a major issue in playing wp in older pools. Yes, our hs team plays in a shallow/deep. That means we switch sides after every quarter so everyone gets an advantage because the goalie doesn't have to tread. While the ball is in play if a kid is in the shallow end, they aren't allowed to stand on the ground. That's a call that refs make often - stepping on the ground. It's a little hard to tread water when you are over 6 feet tall in the shallow side. If you don't have the ball, or between active play - then the kids stand on the ground. The players tread water the whole time in a deep/deep pool. Games are fast - like less than an hour. Another reason we loved wp.
We've had great weather recently, so the snow has mostly melted. It is going to be in the 60s today. I might get my sidewalk chalk out with the tots and LEAVE A MESSAGE. Coach is better than the teens at parking the car so that it is not fully obstructing the sidewalk. I walk a lot. I've never been upset with a homeowner for leaving their car blocking the sidewalk. I will not rest till I learn who it is that's calling to 'tell on us'. So weird.
It is starting to feel like things might be normal soon. And people are getting the vaccine. My folks got it. Coach registered me to get it. Until then I sit and wait. I wore double masks on the plane to AZ.
B-ball ends for Mini after this week, and then she will have 3 more weeks to just do badminton. We are like: HEY THEN YOU CAN SQUEEZE IN ANOTHER SPORT IN THE SPRING . . . LIKE SOCCER. Mini winced.
We got a surprise notice that school is going back to in-person on 03/15. Kid 2 has already started playing tennis (she's not good, it's a no-cut sport, but we are PROUD OF HER FOR TRYING). Kid 1 thought soccer was not going to happen this year, only to find out that they expect her to show up at practice on 03/22 at 7 AM. If they have a season, she'll probably play on Varsity (she's a Junior). Third kid doesn't play sports but we're trying to get her to play softball.
Kara- Back on the 15th - hurray! Have they been hybrid? Tank and Reg did play golf in the fall, but we aren't the type of parents to wander around a golf course trying to watch them play. Coach would at least know where to go and what to look for, I would be like "Where's the defense?" I hope she does softball. I wish I'd done more sports in high school. Not that the high school missed out on much by not having me participate. Just saying.
Nope. They haven't been in a classroom at all since a year ago. They've been online only since March 2020.
Kara - Yikes that's crazy.
I'm glad for you that your kids are back at sports, I know it is an important part of their lives. No sports here yet!
Funny about the pool issues. (Well not funny if you're tall and trying to tread water in 4 ft.
I wish we had video/audio of you yelling at the ref and losing your mind. :)
Still no sports here, although Eve quit basketball in grade ten when she couldn't balance school, the musical and sports any more (in grade nine she was literally dashing around between practices and rehearsals at the same school like some sort of High School Musical extra). Angus played his first double header in somewhere New York though, and Matt was glued to the crappy feed on the tv for seven hours.
I was a coach's wife in baseball so I wasn't allowed to yell at the refs - it usually just resulted in parents being asked to leave anyway. But we've had some really bad ones. My dad had to stop coming to the games for a while because he didn't trust himself not to hurl invective at the officials.
Nicole - No sports yet? Oh man. So weird how different parts of the world are getting back to some things before others. I feel like everyone's school is approaching it differently. I keep telling Coach that one day our grandkids will be calling us to ask us how the pandemic impacted us, or what we remember of it.
Suz - Yes, the different pools that the kids played in was challenging. The teams with the deep/deep pools were always in such good shape. That made playing them super difficult. Enter bad refs, and well. . . the rest is history.
The next time I lose it, I will ask Coach to film me from his new position in the gym as he tries to pretend that he doesn't know me. That won't look nutty or anything. ;)
Curly still talks about a game last year. The refs came over and told me to be quiet or they were going to ask me to leave. The gym was so quiet. I was FIT TO BE TIED. It was the championship game. Curly had a breakaway layup. A girl ran after her and tomahawked her on the arm. THEY.DID.NOT.CALL.A.FOUL. We lost. It was out of state and Coach wasn't there. Pretty sure the ladies who sat next to me wished they hadn't.
Ali - I felt busy in high school back in the day - but nothing I did compares with what these kids manage to put on their schedule. You are not allowed to tell my children that.
I remember trying to watch Lad's wp games on a live streamed feed. To no avail. Then I joined a parent chat and one parent who attended the game updated us every 5 seconds via text. One afternoon while at a dancing competition I got like 300 text messages. Mind blowing. It was Lad's first year so he hardly played.
I've been at some basketball games that I felt were so poorly officiated that I feared someone would be hurt. I definitely have an Irish temper. I don't remember either of my parents losing their cool at games when we were kids. Coach's dad though - tossed out on the regular. He was also not afraid to complain LOUDLY about other people's children and their athletic ability. Have I mentioned that he's a real peach?
For some reason it said the video was unavailable for me so I couldn’t watch it, which was a shame. Sports in the UK for the school kids is sadly really not such a big deal. The schools only went back this year on Monday and not many sports started back up. I would definitely be yelling at the ref though! In other news, I had my vaccine on Friday! I felt really quite emotional afterwards, as it’s real proof the world is starting to get back to some sort of normality.
I've never lost my cool at a sporting event. I get angry and annoyed but I've never let it show. But I think it's just because I'm not a very competitive person. Here in NC you are allowed to play two sports this season because they are cramming so much in at one time. But I think it's messing things up. Kids need to be at football practice but they are at lacrosse or soccer instead. Our football team is even more horrible than normal this year and I think this is the reason. Oh well....If I dwell on all that COVID has messed up I get angry when I should just be thankful that my family is healthy and alive.
Charlie - I am going to find a way for you to see that video. It's pretty cool. Stay tuned. Maybe I just need to classify it to be watched by everyone, instead of anyone with the link - but if you have the link it SHOULD work. We'll blame your status as an international reader. Why would you tube not count your overseas-self as one of my 'have link, good to go' people, confuses me. Again, I'm on it.
Sports not a big deal for school kids? What a shame. Is chess a big deal then? Or what do they focus on? Wow, just going back this week. Goodness. Mini is going to stay home tomorrow even though she could go in person. Sometimes it isn't worth it. One of her classes is asynchronous (sp?) because the teacher can't be in school and it's a shortened day anyway.
Hooray for the vaccine. So happy for you. I'm hopeful that things are going to start becoming normal again. Maybe sooner than expected.
Beth - I like to tell my kids they get their crazy competitive-to-a-fault characteristic from Coach's side, BUT . . . I do have a competitive streak that shows up most consistently when refs suck.
Kids being allowed to do 2 sports sounds like a good fix, but it isn't really all that doable we are finding. Sadly. Kids on Reg's b-ball team have quit now that football practice has started (they weren't starters so the team is continuing on without much difficulty and I totally see why they want to do football - it's their main sport, it's just tough to finish the season without all your teammates).
Post a Comment