This is Flat Julia. She is hoping to go along on some adventures this holiday season, collect some photos and text about her adventures, and return to school in January with the real Julia, who will explain where her flat alter-ego went and what she experienced.

Julia hopes her big sister Laila, who lives in Santiago, will take Flat Julia on a Chilean adventure or two. Thanks to the magic of scanners, email, color printers, and digital cameras, this little story may come true.



My younger basketball player got in for three minutes in today's game, and he is starting to feel more comfortable. Although he again did not touch the ball or create stats of any kind on the score sheet, he told me afterward that he felt confident that if he had gotten the ball, he could have a made a shot.



He posed for me outside of the gymnasium, which is located on the sprawling new UCSF campus that is becoming visible below Potrero Hill along Third Street from the Giants' baseball stadium all the way out to 16th Street.



After Dylan's JV game, which his team won, 35-21, the bigger boys took the floor.



The outcome for the Varsity was less satisfying. They lost, 50-29. My shooter scored just two points with one assist and so felt afterward that he had failed, terribly.

Parenting young athletes requires a set of skills, most of which we have to acquire along the way, in real time, without any guidebooks or angels to show us the way. My way is to gently urge the boy or girl out of his/her funk, and point out the good things (s)he did in the game.

Then I change the subject. Sports are only one type of the activities that we want our kids to experience. Art, theater, music, dance, community involvement, charity -- there are so many others.

A game like basketball is among the simplest of experiences. You either win or you lose. Regardless of the outcome, another game looms. So, the goal is to help your kid learn to just keep competing. Each new game represents a blank slate, maybe the moment he or she will break out and have a great game.

Or maybe not.

Either way, (s)he are part of a team. True team members are unselfish and focused on the common good, not individual accomplishments. Later on, no one will remember who won or who lost, but everyone will remember how good it felt to be in it together.

I knew my Varsity player felt a lot better when I dropped him off at his Mom's later tonight when he said, "I love you, Daddy. Thanks for a great night." Usually I am "Dad," so this was a sweet surprise.

His next game is Thursday night. Stay tuned; I suspect he will have a big game...

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