Batter Up!

Second week of sports camp – baseball is in and lacrosse is out. I watched the lacrosse players, much fewer this week, maybe two-thirds of the number they had the week before, maybe half. They’re in one group and not two anymore but they still have three coaches.

On the other side of the field, where M-ito, Momita and I went was filled with kids from 6 years old to 14. There were four age groups and M-ito was with two friends and about 18 other 8-year olds. He had three coaches. They warmed up. The coaches coached and kept discipline. One kid pushed another and the head coach for the group pulled him aside and, within my hearing (I had to listen carefully) told the kid the two rules of play. 1) Don’t push anyone ever again. 2) If a kids calls you a name you come to him (the coach) and he’ll take care of it. Then the head coach pulled the other kid aside and told him the same thing. There were no more problems the whole day. They broke up into three groups, one with each coach and they did 8 minute drills moving from one station to the next every 8 minutes. They learned how to throw a ball, how to pick off a runner, how to do a “4″ slide, and then went to the batting cage for practice hitting. It looked like so much fun I wanted to join in. After another cycle of drills and the snack station where nutritious snacks like seventeen kinds of candy and popcorn in addition to Gatorade and ices were served – they played a game for the last hour putting all that they learned into practice. The coaches said, “good try” to every kid who made a mistake and there was a ton of individual attention.

Every morning I packed a cooler for M-ito with ice, water, cut oranges, and a snack. By the end of the week both of his friends were sending their water bottles home with the cooler and I had to put extra money in the side pocket for them too. Cold water and ice was at a premium.

It was like night and day compared to the lacrosse.

Don’t get me wrong there were some low points.

• The hardest part was watching M-ito strike out each time he was up at bat. I know he hit the ball the day before but it was hard to watch him walk off with his head down. The coaches all gave him “good trys” and I have to say he did a good job of shaking it off.
• On the last day a kid on the other team threw his helmet onto the ground after striking out every time also and the coaches only told him to stop it one time (I thinnk they didn’t see the other times – perhaps because of the heat haze). I would have benched him (even if that would have left them with only 6 players).
• A really good player on M-ito’s team kept playing M-it’s position for him. M-ito was playing third and the boy was at second. He kept wandering the field because he was good and he knew where to go – but this didn’t help M-ito to learn what to do or get him the ball. The coaches missed that.
• I’m ashamed to say this but it’s true. The same good player is a great hitter who had a home run and a double and single. The last time he got up he struck out and the other team cheered. The boy laughed it off – his ego strong enough to survive with ease. He took it as a compliment. Me, I gave him a silent cheer. I was glad he struck out. I told M-ito later, “You see, even the kid who was really good – he struck out too at the end!” It was all I could come up with.

M-ito gave it a 10 – both the coaches and the playing.

I watched him play most of the first morning and all of the fourth and last.

His team won the last game on the last day – billed as the world series of the games and like the kid he is, he jumped up and down with the rest of his teammates, happy to have been a part of the game and winning regardless of how big or small a part he’d played.

Final outcome – I didn’t have to coach. I just watched.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I took out my camera and took some pictures. What else is a Dad-dito to do?

M-ito said he wants to play on both a lacrosse and baseball team. But… he’s had enough of sport camp for a while and is glad to be done for the summer. We think he lost five pounds sweating in the polyester baseball pants. He also has a wicked tan from all that time in the sun, even with sunscreen. When he got home he picked up the first of the Harry Potter books and started to read.

Lacrosse – Sideline Observer

I swear I was only watching my son play lacrosse. It was just past the midpoint of the second day of lacrosse camp and over 90 degrees again. I was baking so I knew the boys must have been feeling the heat. The boys were just finishing up a water break and four kids from the older group were sitting and fiddling with their pads. M-ito was out with the less experienced and younger group. Two boys asked me to help snap their helmets on.

One boy, frustrated, asked me, “Why can’t I snap these on? All the other kids can do it. Why can’t I?”

“Keep at it,” I said, snapping first one side then another. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

“And why do you need a chin-strap anyway? It doesn’t do anything,” he added.

“First it protects your chin. Second it keeps your helmet on,” I said.

“Protect it from what? Nothing can reach in there.”

“You never know,” I said, tapped his helmet and sent him on his way. “go get ‘em.”

After a few minutes there were only two boys left. I turned around and asked the closest one if he needed help getting his pads on. “No,” he said shrugging and letting his shoulders sag forward.

“Did you drink enough water?” I asked noting the red face.

He nodded, took a big breath in and played with the grass for a few moments.

I went back to watching M-ito. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the boy put his helmet on, snap the straps, and stand up. He hesitated a moment as if deciding whether or not he was going to play or leave, then, head lowered, moved slowly towards the pack of boys in the older group.

The last boy I went over to, to see if he needed help also. I couldn’t help myself.

“My elbow pads don’t fit,” he said as soon as I came over to him. I started to adjust his straps for him and fit the velcro. I tried to help him a few times and each time he said they hurt too much and pulled them off. The velcro wasn’t working. Then he threw them onto the ground.

“You all right?” I asked.

“I’m not good at this and none of my equipment fits. My shoulder pads don’t cover my shoulders, they’re too big and these elbow pads hurt. And I keep trying but I’m no good at this game.”

“That’s what camp’s for – to help you get better –”

“I’m better at baseball. I don’t play this well and I’m not getting better.” His voice lowered to almost a whisper. “I don’t want to hurt anyone either.”

“You don’t have to hurt anyone to play.” I hesitated a moment. “In a good game there’s not so much checking,” I said. “Some of the kids get carried away here. A good team passes the ball a lot and moves the ball up the field that way so there’s not as much contact. You don’t have to hurt anyone when you play.”

He nodded and stood up. “Nothing fits,” he said and walked off to join the pack. I went back to watching M-ito play.

Revisiting Day 1 of Lacrosse camp

Just to put things in perspective. On a gut level I knew the coach working with M-ito was not very good from the moment I saw him. It was the nervous energy and the swinging of the lacrosse stick around and around that was the clue. He was posturing and that’s never a a good thing for a coach to do. The flips, the shooting at the goal himself after telling the kids not to shoot, the no guidelines for checking, the no seeing if the kid who was wiped out was okay – all came after. On a practical level, it took me all day to figure out the details of why that was so and why it would be good for M-ito to play with the younger less experienced group. Mom-ita knew instinctively what was what from the moment I started explaining the day to her. The first thing I said was, “It was okay overall… ” She knew. She trusts her belly barometer more than I do. And she knows me. I minimize and she zero’s in.

Lacrosse Camp – Day One

9:15am

Momita and I are driving out to Long Island for lacrosse camp – day one. M-ito is in the back seat all geared up. We’ve got shoulder pads, shin guards, cleats, helmet, stick, and mouthpiece. We hear a knocking sound, like a knuckle on wood. It’s the sound of M-ito knocking on his cup. It’s his first one and he’s been fascinated by it ever since he put it on.

“This is so cool. Can you imagine if you got hit super hard with a ball right here?”

“It would hurt,” I say from the front seat.

M-ito ignores me and keeps knocking on his plastic cup.

I can’t remember the first time I wore one, but it was probably when I was seven and played my first year of football. I don’t remember it being anything fun to explore. But for my son – it is.

Knock, knock, knock.

9:55am

All the parents have pulled out, the moms, the dads, the aunts and uncles. There’s thirty kids and three coaches, and me. M-ito goes with the older kids, sixteen in all and one of the coaches. the younger group goes with the two other coaches. I talk to one coach about my son and how new he is but the coach assures me they’ll figure out his skill level and put him in the right group soon enough. M-ito’s friend from school is four months younger and goes with the younger group.

I last sitting on the sidelines for half an hour, watching the young man with a lot of energy but not a lot of skills when it comes to keeping sixteen rambunctious kids of all different skill levels occupied, try to coach them through some drills. He’s young enough to still try and show off, doing back flips to impress the boys. He yells a lot and is constantly trying to get the kids in line. But he’s alone and doing drills with one boy going at a time leaves too many idle. That means fifteen are waiting around looking for something to do while they wait on line. That’s trouble waiting to happen. The temperature is high, already over ninety degrees. When he ends a drill I yell, “Water break,” and the coach says, “Good idea. Go get some water!” As he passes me I offer to help. “I’m going to be here all day so if you need any help, I’ll be glad to. Just tell me what to do.” The young man hesitates a second, then says, “Sure.”

I walk on to the field and I hear my son say, “Why does it have to be you?”

I know he’s talking about me and it stings but a Dad-dito’s gotta do what a Dad-dito’s gotta do. I get placed on a line and tell the kids to shoot on goal when they get to me while they’re doing drills. I tell kids to chase the ball they threw past the goal. I ask kids to get in line. I help them put on helmets , snap chin straps, put on elbow guards, put on mesh jerseys, hand out oranges to the kids who want them because I brought extras. I tap each one on the helmet when I’m done helping them with their equipment and tell them to “go.” One boy makes two comments about girls that are as old and sexist as they come. Some of the kids laugh. The coach asks him to watch his mouth the first time. The second time I go over to him on water break, tap him on the shoulder, point his face up to me a few inches away, and quietly say, “I don’t ever want to hear that language again. You understand?” The boy looks at me then nods and looks away. I tap him on the helmet and he keeps his mouth shut the rest of the day.

Mostly I keep my mouth shut and watch, do what the coach tells me to do and try to make sure no one gets hurt.

M-ito does well in the drills, is tentative in the skirmishes as he should be as a first timer, needs help on where to position himself on the field  on both offense and defense but the coach is hot and tired and hasn’t explained the rules or any team tactics so he along with the other inexperienced kids are left to guess. I shout some suggestions during the scrimmage. “Spread out. Pass to the open man. Some concepts are the same no matter what sport.” Maybe the tactics talk will come tomorrow. There is one kid who knocks another kid down, cleans his clock actually. It was uncalled for and done not while he was going for the ball. He’s made to take a lap. He head checks another kid a few minutes later and I see it but the coach doesn’t. I let it go even though there are words between the players. It’s the same kid I talked to about his mouth earlier. That one’s trouble.

The first day of camp ends in a deep sweat with the kids getting hosed off with a power washer and the coach glad his first day is over. I wonder what he’s got in store for tomorrow. I talk to Mom-ita and we both agree M-ito ‘s going in the younger group with the newer players tomorrow. He argues at first, but his friend convinces him. He signed up to play with his friend in the first place and it’s a good reason to play with the other two coaches, who seemed to be a little more adept at what they were doing.

1:31pm

Gino’s Pizza and M-ito and his friend are laughing and fooling around, tickling each other and chomping their pizza alternately. The air conditioner is on. It’s 96 degrees outside. They both said they had a good time and want to go back tomorrow for more.

I hear it’s supposed to rain.

At least it’ll be cooler.

The Contact in Contact Sports

I asked my friend, Big A (father of Little A), to put on a small lacrosse workshop for M-ito and a few of his friends. It was supposed to be an informal afternoon of learning the basics and maybe a little game playing. Big A played in college, was the captain of his team and coached when he got hurt. As he would say, “I wasn’t very good, there were a lot of others way better than me.” Sure, Big A. Sure.

Five kids and three parents with lacrosse sticks and Big A in the lead at Mik-ito’s house out on the Island. He’s got a good size yard and two goals so we went out there to practice. The rain held off. M-ito got frustrated after about a half an hour because one of his friends kept stealing the ball from him when they were supposed to be having a catch. I didn’t see it coming. Tears came to his eyes and he melted down. After we figured out what had happened the drills went on and then we played a game. There wasn’t supposed to be any stick checking (we had no pads and no gloves so that made sense). We should have made it the kids against the adults. That would have been a good idea but I didn’t think of it at the time, and neither did the other dads. Big A refereed and after another half an hour of play M-ito, in a scuffle to get the ball with sticks hacking at it on the ground, got hit in the shin and nose and went down in tears again.

There are so many parts to this experience that were both good and bad for my son. The good thing is these things happened with his friends and not at his first day of lacrosse camp with some strangers whacking him . The bad thing it they happened with his friends and he doesn’t understand why they hit him. I told him they didn’t do it on purpose, they were just going for the ball and got carried away. My son has never played a contact sport before and there is a certain energy to them, a certain amount of testosterone that gets plugged into the equation that helps things like this happen. I played until when I was seven, full pads (because my brother played and I wanted to do everything he did – go figure), tackle. I remember getting upset at the violence and being scared much of the time. It took me three years to get my footing with the idea that I was going to hit people and they were going to hit me – tackle and be tackled, block and be blocked. It took me that long to trust the pads to protect me and to find allow myself to use aggression in my game. One year I quit because the coach was a maniac and I developed twitches because he used to have us do tackling drills that were like gladiator fights with everyone watching (not the first time or the last I’d play those kinds of games with coaches). I played eleven years of football through the end of high school.

So I sat next to M-ito on our friend’s couch with Mom-ita on the other side as he cried and let the intensity of the experience run through him. It raged then settled and a rain came down outside that mirrored the tears falling inside and ended the game just in time. My son has not learned to be aggressive in sports yet, and he is only just learning to get his sense of this game called lacrosse. For that matter I’m learning how it’s played too. Team sports are good vehicles in which to learn about aggression and assertiveness, using your temper in constructive ways to play better but still within the confines of the rules and without hurting anyone. He started down that road today. Man it’s hard to watch.

What I noticed about my son’s lacrosse game is that he passed the ball when his friends did not – one pass to me scored us a goal. After running forward he stopped when he was cut off and looked to pass the ball to his team-mates. He played a good defensive game, covering well. He just hadn’t counted on getting hit in the face and shin. Maybe the shin was okay but the face was a surprise. One thing he doesn’t need is a nose like his Dad-dito’s. Mine’s been broken twelve times (once by a doctor so it could be pushed back into place from the far left side of my face back into the center – that was ugly).

I wonder how he’ll do in three weeks when he starts lacrosse camp. He’ll be helmeted and padded up so the knocks won’t be felt so much. Gloves will help. I hope the coaches are good and teach the kids to be good sports. I’m going the first day in any case so I can watch over the experience, and pick up the pieces if need be. I’m proud of him in any case for trying something new and different and for learning something about himself in the process.

Declaration of the Playing of Sports

M-ito wants to play lacrosse. He learned about it in gym class – which is really neat if you think about it. I remember in gym class doing 8-count burpees (squat thrusts I think they were officially called) and then not much else. And that was in high school. I don’t ever remember being taught skills in gym – though we must have been, right? How else did I learn how to throw a ball and play football and basketball? My brother didn’t teach me everything, did he? Well, in M-ito’s school this year they did skills practice in baseball (t-ball), basketball, soccer, and lacrosse. By 5th grade every child must choose a sport and play on the school team. There are two teams, a traveling/serious team and a for fun team. though it sounds very much like an A-side B-side kind of thing. We’ll have to see how it works as we get closer to 5th grade. Thankfully he’s only finishing up 2nd grade now.

But back to the gym class. They brought out lacrosse sticks and the kids were taught how to throw the ball, scoop and rake the ball into the net of the stick (what is that part of the stick called?) and somehow M-ito liked it. He came home and declared he was going to play lacrosse in 5th grade. “You know you get to whack each other with a stick?” he told us.

“That’s why you want to play?” I asked.

“It’s fun.”

“The whacking?”

He didn’t answer.

I have two reactions to this. The first is, wow, that’s great. He’s got some interest in a team sport and wants to learn more about it. I played lots of team sports and overall they were a good thing for me to do. The second reaction is, did it have to be lacrosse? It’s one of the few sports I really don’t know anything about. I didn’t play it – never actually picked up a stick and threw a ball or had even a catch with one. I know nil about it. How am I going to get involved coaching and all that kind of thing if I know nothing about it? Okay I had a third thought. Did M-ito pick this sport because he knew I knew nothing about it? Naaaa, that’s too much about me and not enough about my son.

We learned that a friend of his from school was going to a week-long summer sport camp in lacrosse and baseball (one week of each) and Mom-ita quickly looked into it for M-ito. M-ito said he wants to do both. The camp has a lot of college students and coaches working with the kids – a 3-1 ratio is advertised. They’ll be arranged by age and skill level. It’ll be four days each week 9am-1:30pm each day. A number of phone calls and emails later and Mom-ita had two other friends and M-ito signed up for a week of each. Mom-ita is a wonder at these things.

Since then I’ve watched some lacrosse on TV (we all did last night – a college game), talked to two friends who played in college and picked up a stick and played a little with a ball. So I’ve learned a few things about the game even if I’m still just an inch away from knowing nothing about the sport. My concerns are:

• It’s a contact sport and M-ito hasn’t, up until now, really been a very physical sport player – though that may be changing. He said he didn’t like soccer a month ago because in recess they played too rough. This was after months of saying he liked the game. I had to explain to him that in a real soccer game there were rules and a referee and that kind of play wasn’t really allowed. He has told me he’d never play rugby after watching a game when he was 3 and hearing about all the injuries I received over the 16 years I played. “That’s too rough,” he’s said many times. Mom-ita was thrilled to hear him say that.
• As a follow-up to point one above – they wear shoulder pads and helmet’s and gloves on their hands and there is something called stick-checking that speaks to M-ito’s earlier comment about “whacking each other with their sticks.). Oh yeah and he has to get a mouthpiece.
• I have no idea about the coaching – whether it’ll be good, bad, or indifferent. And coaching is so important to both a good sport and a good social experience. Will they promote good sportsmanship? Will it be age appropriate?
• There’s a lot of running in the game – always good for kids to run around. And he’ll be outside playing the whole time and in the summer kids should be outside playing on grass and running around. This is not a concern but I had to add it here to balance out the rest.

I’m glad he’s going to try these two sports, both lacrosse and baseball – he should try different sports. And baseball is a whole ‘nother story. I still remember the first time I tried to have a catch with him. We bought mitts and a ball (a hard ball – what was I thinking?) and the first time I threw the ball to M-ito it hit him in the chest and that was all we did for another year with baseball. It didn’t occur to me how much skill and hand-eye coordination goes into having a catch with a ball and mitt. I should have thought that one through. But recently, in gym again (yeah gym!) they’ve been playing t-ball and he’s become interested again. We’ve had a number of catches down at the playground with soft rubber balls and as of yesterday a denser one – working our way back up towards a hard ball. So… he’ll have the chance to learn the skills of both games and play with some friends without committing to a long season of play – which he would have to do if he played on a team. So… again, this seems like a good thing too.

And… I think Mom-ita will have to work that week so I should be able to take him to the first few days and watch the whole thing. I’ll bring my lawn chair, a good book, or maybe my computer and some work (no, no… don’t think that way!). Or maybe I’ll bring my stick (we’re going to get one for each of us today I think so we can have a catch) and my mitt, just in case they need an extra hand. You never know. When you’re a Dad-dito it’s good to be prepared.