Game day rituals, part 2

It’s pretty easy to understand why athletes have game day rituals, but it cracks me up that parents and fans have game day rituals, too. Here are some fan behaviors recently observed:

• Closing eyes tightly during the team's free throws
• Moving to a new place in the stands if opposing team takes the lead
• Wearing a lucky shirt
• Wearing lucky underwear (I haven’t actually observed this one, which is probably good)
• Leaving the gym altogether and wandering the halls during a very close game
• Screaming like a crazy person at the referees (OK, that’s not a ritual, it’s just a bad habit)

Can fans (or their lucky underwear) affect the outcome of a game? I firmly in the camp of "no." Even if you agree, do you have game day rituals you secretly practice, anyway?

Game day rituals

It’s no surprise that athletes have game day rituals. Michael Jordan purportedly wore his Tar Heel shorts under his Bulls shorts. Kevin Garnett claps chalk at the scorer’s table and screams before his games. My son likes to eat soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for his pre-game meal. How about your athlete? What pre-game rituals do they have?

Parents now vs. parents then

I was a high school athlete in the late 1970s. Back when parents didn’t attended every sporting event their kids were in. (That's me high-jumping in 1978. Notice, no parents in sight.) I grew up 3 blocks from the high school and walked to and from every game and practice. No parents required. My parents attended 1 or 2 games/meets/matches per season. I don’t ever remember them setting foot at a practice. They never talked to my coaches. My folks were busy people and times were different. Hardly any other parents showed up for stuff either. When my mom or dad came, I noticed. I’d have one eye on the game and the other on them, trying to gauge their reaction. Often they’d leave after seeing just a portion of things. That night, we’d talk about the outcome. They cared, but from a distance. They were parent-observers.

Speed forward 30 years.

These days, parents attend every game, meet or match their kids are in, from pre-school tumbling up through varsity hockey. Parents attend practices. Parents coach. Parents offer coaching ‘advice’ from the stands as well as via email and phone. [I bet the real coaches just love that.] These days, a kid’s muscle seldom flexes without the watchful eyes of parents upon them. What’s happened to us? Why are we so involved? Do kids enjoy our attentiveness or does it get on their nerves? I don’t know, but I plan to ask them. Watch for future posts. After I interview a bunch of high school athletes, I’ll report back about what they think. In the meantime, parents, feel free to post what you think.

Mother’s Day in the gym

My sister was supposed to spend Mother’s Day in the gym this year. One of her basketball-playing sons had day 2 of that weekend’s tournament about an hour from home. Happy Mother’s Day, sis! She agonized about whether to attend or take a Mother’s Day pass. In the end, she took the pass. As any parent with kids in travelling sports knows, taking an occasional pass is a privilege. And Mother’s Day, of all days, is a good day to do that.

Where have all the cheerleaders gone?

In our high school, as in many others, cheerleading has been phased out. Seems many kids lost interest in cheering for others when they had their own sports to compete in. And I totally get that. In my high school days (many eons ago, when Title 9 was still a toddler) I, too, opted for sports vs. cheerleading.

I know, I know – cheerleading IS a sport unto itself in many schools. But at our school it went the way of the dinosaur.

I’d like to make a plea to bring back the cheerleaders. The kind who can tame a crowd by leading upbeat, positive cheers during sporting events, not the kind who became almost a cliché before they faded away.

George Bush was a cheerleader. And he became president. Cheering for others didn’t seem to hold him back from becoming top dog. FDR, Samuel L Jackson, Halle Barry, Steve Martin and Sheryl Crow were also cheerleaders. Not bad company.

Cheerleaders serve a very important purpose: Cheerleaders keep the crowd in the game and the players get energy from that crowd. Crowds need leaders and cheerleaders make great ones. Without them, a cheering crowd often descends into booing or name-calling. This makes school officials quite nervous.

Isn’t it time for cheerleading to make a comeback at the high school level?

Spontaneous cheerleaders

An amazing thing happened during the final basketball game of the 2007-08 season: Some students spontaneously stepped up and became cheerleaders. They dug up some outfits from cheerleaders past and stood in front of the fans in the stands leading cheers throughout the game. It was awesome. Maybe next year, we can conjure up a spontaneous pep band, too.

We need cheerleaders. Both genders and all skill levels are welcome. Any students with positive energy, loud voices and genuine interest in the game are welcome. No tryouts, matching hair ribbons or fancy dance moves required.

Progress report - basketball photos

The "how to operate your camera" books have arrived. I've read a couple of chapters. I guess all the really useful tips are at the end...

My camera is too good for me

My dad always said that a person's equipment should never outpace their skill. He said this whenever I asked for a new pair of track shoes, a new water ski or a new bike. Hence the reason I skied on an ancient wooden slalom and rode a bike that looked like the wicked witch of the west just rode into town. With my dad's words ringing in my ears, my skills have almost always outpaced my equipment. I just make sure I have crappy equipment and ta-da, I'm better than my stuff.
Fast forward to this year and you can see that I have a great new camera. It has 3,047 settings. I know how to use about 5 of them. And those just happen to be the wrong 5 for taking pictures of high-speed action at a low-light basketball game. Most of the pictures I take look like this - totally missing the action. In others, I manage to catch the action but the shot is totally blurry.
Somewhere, my dad is rolling his eyes. A classic case of a person’s equipment outpacing their skill. I ordered some ‘how to’ camera books from Amazon so I can rightfully deserve the equipment I already own. I’ll get back to you. You too, Dad.

Parent Night

Parent night is a night set aside to honor parents for helping their kids become basketball players. A good idea. And well-deserved. But don't you think the kids should plan and execute said parent night? I do. That's not how it works, at least at our school. How does it work at yours? At our high school, parent night is planned and carried out by the moms in the booster club. And they did a great job! It was a lot of work and we thank them. We received maroon and gold carnations, and notes from our kids during a pre-game introduction. Pictures were taken. A
half-time shoot out between the parents proved that most of our kids inherited their basketball skills from someone else. (Just kidding.) And to top it off, after the game that night, we had sloppy joes, chips and dessert. A wonderful evening. One I am sure each mom and dad will remember. Will our sons remember? I sure hope so.

Officiating

Do you ever notice that the one thing every fan at a basketball game can agree on is that the officiating is horrible? Only trouble is, both teams think the officiating favors the OTHER team. How can that be? Must be our vantage point. From where I sit, I can clearly see each time someone fouls my team and doesn’t get the call. And from the yelling all around me, I know my fellow fans see it too. But I am blissfully unaware when the same happens to the opposing team. When I hear the other side of the stands protest, I wonder what all the fuss is about. Hmmm. It must be that I have selective blindness. I appear to be in good company – everyone else in the stands suffers from it, too.

Spaghetti dinners

On Thursdays during basketball season, the team heads over to one of the player’s houses after practice for a spaghetti feed. From the kid’s point of view, it’s a great chance to unwind and eat together before Friday night’s game. From a mom’s perspective it is a rare opportunity to imagine what it would be like to run a boarding house – madness. In 5 minutes, 20 teenage boys grab plates and load them up with spaghetti, garlic bread and brownies. They drink 5 gallons of milk in the blink of an eye. It is a whirlwind. Then, before you even catch your breath, they are gone. And all that remains is an untouched bowl of salad you were hoping they’d eat, but knew all along they wouldn’t.

Breakfast with the Moms

The high school basketball coaches held their annual breakfast with the moms on Saturday, December 16, 2007. It was a great opportunity for moms to learn some basketball lingo and get to know the coaches and each other a little better at the start of the season. I love that the coaches do this for us.

This year the coaches taught us the meaning of all those hand signals they use during the game. Of course, I promptly forgot what these complex charades stand for. But at least I know the coaches and players are actually communicating using these signs and not just waving to each other. Perhaps I'll develop some hand signals to use at home. I have a good one planned for "clean your room." Anyone out there have a hand signal for "take out the garbage"?

Long basketball shorts on the way out?

Since all fashion is cyclical, I'm pretty sure basketball shorts will stop being knickers someday soon. Recent photos of the pros show that basketball hemlines appear to have bottomed out and may be heading up again.

Basketball Fashion Timeline

Our kids may look back in horror at the long, sagging, gouchos they call shorts today. They'll ask, "Mother, why did you let me wear shorts that hung down past my knees? Those were hard to run in! I had to keep pulling them up throughout the game and it broke my concentration."

Until then, we'll continue hearing our teenagers snigger when they see images of basketball players from the past. And with our superior knowledge of fashion trends, we'll resist the urge to say, "I told you so." a few years from now.

Cheering vs. yelling

My daughter told me I yelled too loud at the last game. Oops. Fact is, I do yell at basketball games. But I call it cheering. She was sitting right in front of me so maybe it was just my volume that got on her nerves. Or [self-analysis here] perhaps I was yelling and not cheering. The truth is that one person's cheering is another person's unsportsmanlike conduct. And it's a lot easier to tell the difference in others than it is in yourself. We've all heard someone in the stands yell "Defense!" and by their inflection knew they meant "Go team! Play good-D!" And we've also heard someone yell the the same word "Defense!" and knew from their tone that they really meant "You idiots, do you even know how to play defense?!!!" I'd rather be in the first group. So maybe at the next game I'll just clap. It's hard to misinterpret a clap.

Are you a psycho sports parent? Take an MSNBC quiz to find out.

Shopping for Basektball Shoes

It's that time of year again - time to shop for basketball shoes for the upcoming season. Whether you buy your shoes online (Eastbay is my favorite) or at the mall, the quest is on. Four competing forces make this purchase a challenge: 1. Fit & performance, 2. Cost, 3. Team colors, 4. Cool factor. As a mom, I tend to focus on the first three. My high school basketball player, however, puts a lot of emphasis on #4. And when it comes to cool factor, I admit to being completely out of my league. So last year when Stephon Marbury launched his $15 line of basketball shoes I wondered if they would pass the cool factor test among teenagers. The shoes launched in Oct'06 with a lot of press. So one year later - what is the scoop? Are they cool enough for teenagers? Are sales strong? Should we buy them?