My husband, Kyle played basketball this weekend. He plays basketball often. If you know the guy or have had a chance to see him, you’ll understand why this sport is a favorite of his.
He’s 6’4”. This height gives him the title of “freakishly tall” on my side of the family. On his side, however, 6’4” makes him the shortest guy.
Freakish, right? Kyle told me back in our dating years that I just made his one foot rule. Meaning, he vowed to himself he would never date someone less than a foot shorter than him.
At 5’4”, I just made it. I’m pretty sure I would have won him over either way.
But back to basketball.
He claims his prime came too late to play college ball which is why he chose a different university and majored in journalism (sports broadcasting) instead. I too missed my basketball prime. It could be because I’m an average height (short if you ask Kyle’s family) and really terrible at the sport. Either way, our lack of basketball skills brought us both to the university to do other things than play basketball.
I’m thankful for that – because it’s where we met. And I’m sort of fond of the guy.
Unlike me (I did do an awesome job keeping the bench warm and cheering on the team) Kyle is really good at playing basketball; and not just really good for a 33-year-old.
Really good – period.
This weekend, I packed up the girls and hit the road to watch this really good basketball player in action at the local Whoopers and Hoopers tournament. His team won their first game. The second was a bit of a challenge.
When I first spied their opponents for the second team, I was concerned. When I overheard them talking as I walked by to search for tea and popcorn (basketball snacks are a must for a 6 year old a 4 year old and a 33 year old cheerleader, too) I was really concerned.
“They probably have good fundamentals, but we’ll beat them,” said one of the opponents.
This made me less than thrilled, especially when I know how they came up with that conclusion. Kyle’s team looked a little bit older. As in, 10 to 15 years older. These guys have kids and real jobs and fall asleep watching The Tonight Show. Their opponents were fresh from college and played together in college, too. Their evenings likely start when ours end.
Suddenly, I felt like a very old 33-year-old cheerleader.
The guys played hard. And my favorite guy looked pretty great on that court. His basketball fundamentals looked good, too. But in the end, the young team outscored and outpaced them and Kyle’s team lost.
I was bummed for him. And, secretly, I wanted the young team to lose; mostly as punishment for being younger.
A very mature reason of course.
As the old saying goes, win or lose, it doesn’t matter, as long as you have fun playing the game. Our girls had a great time watching their daddy in action and I was proud of my freakishly tall 33-year-old for keeping up with the young guys.
I’ll always be his biggest (albeit, shortest) cheerleader.