My middle daughter is our athlete. This year, she joined a travel soccer league and right now, she is ending her rec basketball season. At the beginning of the basketball season, after her first game, I emailed the coach after a lot of contemplation. Before I explain, I’ll preface with, I am not a sporty girl. I don’t know the rules. I never really played on a team of any kind. But after the first game, where the coach subbed out five girls for the alternate set of five girls over and over, with one team consisting of the two noticeably taller players, it was clear that one half of the halves was going to outshine the other. It wasn’t until Adi came home from school reporting that a classmate, who is also a teammate, said “our team was better than your team,” that I even thought to reach out to the coach. But when I did, I expressed my gratitude for his coaching and shared Adi’s story from school. “I just want you to know how the girls are talking off the court. We just want them to come together and be a unified team.”
The coach misinterpreted my words for feelings about Adi not starting and that the team had lost the game. “I just want her to learn to play on a team and be a kind human,” I replied.
If you were to look at the teams’ stats this season, you probably wouldn’t be impressed. Not with the typical stats that are reported from a game. However, here are the stats I’ve been jotting down and keeping track of:
The number of times players check in on someone who has been hurt, an arm around a crying teammate or an “are you ok?” after a rough play.
The passes to the younger players on the team, giving them a shot at getting their hands on a ball when they otherwise might not.
The quiet high fives celebrating shots made or shots attempted.
The number of passes made instead of taking the shot for themselves.
The camaraderie and smiles shared on the bench.
The number of “good games” exchanged among players, parents, and coaches after every game.
If you ask me, this team, including the coach, has won more than they could have even if they had won the championship game. They’ve learned what it means to be a team.
Where There Is Joy 
Way to find the silver linings. For most things in life, it is often more about the process than the product. Go Adi, she’s like Maura in that way, too!
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Oh, I love your stats! My father coached all five of his daughters’ soccer teams. One season, the team was particularly, ahem, overmatched. My dad, bless him, started setting reachable goals: make three successful passes in a row; do two wall passes; dribble ten feet without losing the ball. The team lost almost every game, but they had a lot of fun and almost every girl came back the next season. Some stats matter more than others. Somehow I’m not surprised that you know that.
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And that is the power of team sports right there.
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So much power in team sports. And so much power for coaches also. We should talk! It’s wild how many parallels there are between Larkin and Wren and Julia and Adi. I love reading about them.
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Amen to this. I’ve been involved in lots of sports and am still a big fan of baseball, basketball, and hockey. I think it’s okay that we’re sort of sports obsessed in this country, but my thing is that we have to consider sports a metaphor for the bigger, more important contests…I’m not thinking of wars. I’m thinking of the daily struggles, individual and community, that require teamwork, supportiveness, sharing, creativity, hard work. If every sporting event was looked at as practice for being better citizens, then being obsessed would be fine.
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There you go again. Your comments outshining my post! Yes! Exactly this. “If every sporting event was looked at as practice for being better citizens, then being obsessed would be fine.” I may put this on a tshirt. Wear it to games.
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I come from a sporty family and have a lot of my adult life hearing about performance and winning. These are my kind of stats and having two kids who “only” played to the high school level intentionally, seeing them be compassionate and lovely in the world is my greatest joy. I wish I would have kept those winning stats.
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Jessica, what lovely stats to keep. I’m smiling here imagining these sweet interactions between the girls. I’m thinking the coach must have taken to heart your suggestion and mixed the girls up a bit. Is that true? Did the talking off court diminish? Though you didn’t mention it, I think so because they learned some powerful teamwork values, didn’t they?
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Yes. After many exchanges, I think I made my point! Things have improved!
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Jessica,
I wish the coach had not misinterpreted your note but understand how that could happen. I know in the past few years lots of coaches have become defensive because they have been beaten up on by some parents. I like your measurements of success better than the W-L metrics. I have long believed too much emphasis is put on school sports in this country, and I believe we are reaping the effects of that in many ways now.
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As a fellow “sports mom” I couldn’t love this more! What a great way to help your girls focus on what really matters and the skills they’ll take far beyond the playing field.
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These are the stats that actually matter in life! I love your response to the coach that “I just want her to learn to play on a team and be a kind human.” I wish all sports-parents felt the same way.
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