Our daughter is a basketball player and for the past two years we have led a basketball team in our neighborhood. Jeff and our friend are the coaches while our friend’s wife and I are the managers. We started the team because the four of us wanted our daughters to play in an environment that valued team work, fun, and positive reinforcement. We didn’t intend to set out to live the way of Jesus with the basketball team, but what I realized when the season ended this year is that is exactly what we had done.
I first began to realize how unusual this team was when I saw our girls take the initiative to go thank the referees after the game. A game they had lost. A game where I was pretty sure a lot of rough fouls against us had not been called properly. These girls, following what they had seen their coaches do, began to make it a habit every game to be grateful for the time the referees gave so that they could play. Win or lose (and there were a lot more losses than wins this year) the girls were grateful for the chance to be able to play. Their graciousness and poise was learned not by the coaches forcing them to be grateful, but rather by modeling that gratitude.
When they lost by over 50 points one game we were all a little worried. What a terrible feeling it must be to lose by so much, but parent after parent reported to me that their daughter didn’t seem too bothered by that huge loss. Rather each player was focused on what she and her team mates did well, and the fun they had enjoyed together playing the game. This again was because the culture the coaches had created in the team was one where routinely at practice and during games the girls were invited to say what they had done well and what they were enjoying about the practice or game. Helping the girls to focus on what mattered and not winning meant that losses simply rolled off their backs. Success was not found in the win, but in personal growth and joy.
The coaches had invited the team to set some goals for the year at our beginning of the season party. They came up with two goals, that everyone on the team would score a basket, and that everyone on the team would steal the ball. It was lovely watching the team work hard over the season to ensure that they passed to everyone so that there were opportunities for each player to make a basket. At the second to last of our 8 games, down by 6, when the last player to score made her basket, you would have thought our team had just won the championship by the way our crowd cheered. Even though working to get her the ball during the game might have contributed to our loss that day, it was wonderful to watch how the whole team glowed at the achievement of this goal and how the parents all got on board with the team’s vision of success, rather than winning.
At the end of the year party I walked in on the whole team gathered together in the basement, taking time to compliment each player on what they appreciated about her as a team mate. This community of love and support was created not by us lecturing the girls about Jesus, not by mandating that they be kind, not by spouting cliches about how winning doesn’t matter, it’s how you play the game. This community was formed by adults who model what they value in the world, kindness, care, teamwork, joy, gratitude, fair play, equality, and compassion. For Jeff and I in everything we do, we try to act with the love of God, remembering that we are witnesses by our actions to what it means to shine holy love. Our friends probably wouldn’t explain what they do in the same way, but it’s clear to me that these are people I want my daughter to learn from, for they are people who make the world brighter for all who know them.
Our work in this community means finding holy moments in the everyday and coming across partners and allies who live love. I know that the lessons of this basketball team will be with many of these girls for years and I’m so grateful to have been a small part of this holy time.
-Eilidh
Recent Comments