A Star is Born

(Aidan, in the blur of an inside basketball court)

Every parent knows there are plenty of low moments, scary moments, anxious moments.

Then, there are the euphoric moments. Tonight, I had the gift of two. First, 11-year-old Dylan got to play seven of the 24 minutes in his JV basketball game. He grabbed a rebound, had a steal, and took a good shot! All of us on the sidelines, including his coach stood and hoped it would go in, but it just rolled out.

His team won 27-7.

Nevertheless, regular readers of this blog will recall that Dylan's decision to compete as a basketball player was a really big deal for our family. So, I was so proud of his effort tonight!

Then, for dessert, his big brother, Aidan, emerged as the star I've always known he could be. One of the goals he and I established for this season, his first of two on the school's varsity team, was a ten-point game.

For the first two-and-a-half quarters, he was scoreless (0 for 6) and pretty banged up by the bigger, stronger team he was playing against. Both his coach and I have been urging him to use his athletic ability and his speed to start driving to the basket. He's listened to us, but he is still so inexperienced at the game that he has found it hard to do what we want him to do.

Tonight, his team was behind the entire game until the fourth quarter, when Aidan suddenly started driving in for layups: one, two, three! He also started grabbing rebounds and stealing the ball. He was getting fouled regularly and sank two swishes on his first foul shots of the season. His third basket tied the game and we headed into overtime, 27-27!

The crowd, the players, the coaches, and the referees were all excited. This is what kids' sports is all about: Heart. In overtime, Aidan scored his team's only basket on yet another layup, and caused the two biggest players on the opposition to foul out, while never getting called for any fouls himself.

In the end, the ball rolled every so slightly the other way and his team lost 30-31. But he was the game's top scorer with ten points, plus 5 rebounds, 5 assists and four steals. None of these statistics capture the intensity with which he played. In one sequence, he saved an errant pass from a teammate by diving headlong out of bounds, crashing into the wall, but not before pushing the ball with his fingertips back to a teammate.

"I don't even believe that!" the referee said to me afterward. "I have never seen someone do that."

It's impossible to describe the excitement of watching your child emerge as a real star on a night like this. I've been blessed this way before; my oldest son, Peter, gave me many such thrills. But do you know the best part of tonight's game? Dylan came over and watched and rooted next to me at the scorer's table. He is such a loyal little brother, and somehow I think his presence helped Aidan.

Many of you, I know, are not sports fans, and many also are not parents. Yet, tonight, this story is one that I hope transcends those differences. We all yearn for excellence, no? Although some of us are not very competitive, we appreciate amazing performances, I hope.

I hope I do not sound like a bragging parent, though of course that is exactly what I am. Tonight my son Aidan became a star, and I was lucky enough to have been there and witnessed it.

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