My oldest son’s first-ever basketball practice was held last night. It was a mixture of chaos, some glimmers of raw talent, cuteness and a touch of frustration.
One kid never took his hands out of his pants the entire practice. I’m interested to see how that technique will work in a game — you know, a game where you kinda need your hands.
The coaches are two amazing fathers who have just the right combination of toughness, light-heartedness and drive.
While the kids were taking shots and balls were flying everywhere, they were very encouraging. And when someone put a little too much muscle behind a shot and it went soaring too fast at the basket one of them screamed, “You ate too much steak tonight, son!”
It’s funny because those kids knew exactly what that meant the first time he said it. And they tried to back off a little bit.
This happened a lot because, after all, this is a group of 6-year-old boys. No one is exactly Shaquille O’Neal quite yet.
And since the coach had to use this phrase about a million times throughout the night he decided to just shorten it. Then he started yelling simply, “Too much steak, baby!”
So after all the high-fives and the “attaboys” were done and we were back in the car I was SERIOUSLY hungry for a steak. Those kids are either going to have to get really good in a hurry or I’m going to have to ask the coach to change his phrase to “sea squid” or something. I can’t face a whole season of daydreaming about steak . . .
