My 14-year-old son Ryan has always loved basketball. He loves his Philadelphia 76ers. He loves the NBA 2K video games. He can recite the lyrics to Kurtis Blow's "Basketball."
"Basketball is my favorite sport/I love the way they dribble up and down the court..."
However, Ryan's career playing basketball is rather limited. He played -- with the handicap of me as his coach -- in the Alsip (Ill.) Park District league in fifth and sixth grades, but was out in the last round of cuts when he tried out for his junior high team in seventh grade.
Ryan skipped eighth-grade tryouts, but that was because of what had been his first love: the theater. As with seventh-grade, he was the male lead in the school musical, whose practice schedule runs the same time as basketball season. He didn't want to risk losing the lead because he had to split his time with basketball.
As the school year went on, though, it was clear that Ryan couldn't shake his basketball jones.
He spent much of his free time playing hoops, especially hours and hours on the weekends at the Apollo Recreation Center in Alsip, site of his organized basketball days. He shot on our driveway hoop. He shot at his neighborhood park hoops. He played anyone and everyone. He watched videos online to learn basketball tips. He did this with very little of my involvement whatsoever, except to drive him to Apollo. This has only accelerated as Ryan has entered the summer before his freshman year.
And this leads us to an experiment of sorts: can a self-motivated gym rat, with little organized basketball experience, much less any travel-ball play, and with parents that are well south of the Lavar Ball line, make his high school basketball team? And I'll add that Ryan's high school, Richards in Oak Lawn, Ill., is the alma mater of Dwyane Wade.
If you're the sort of parent who has spent a lot of money on travel ball for your child's sport, you might answer: my gosh, no. Or maybe: my gosh, I hope not. Because Ryan making the team could show all that spending was a waste of time, right?
I'm not naive: Ryan is going to have some stiff competition from more experienced players when basketball tryouts come in November. But here is why Ryan has a good shot -- and I hope what I'm sharing is helpful to anyone who has a child who is truly passionate about a sport or activity with little or no parental pushing whatsoever.
He grew. A lot.
One big difference between now and his seventh-grade tryout: then, he was around 4-foot-10. Now, he's about 5-foot-11. OK, it's not a sure eye-catcher like 6-foot-5. But you can't argue with that pace of growth spurt, and at least now he's a height that doesn't have the coaches dismissing him the moment they see him.
He is passionate about the game. A lot.
You hear a lot about kids who, by the time they get to be teenagers, are burned out on a sport because they've played it so much, and because the decision whether to play wasn't ultimately theirs. Now, I'm a big basketball guy -- I grew up in Indiana, after all. But all of this work at the gym is Ryan. That I coached him in elementary school is merely a footnote now. Of course, you can be passionate and still not play well, but Ryan has channeled his passion into teaching himself all he can about the game (through practice and YouTube videos), and listening and learning from more experienced players, such as the players from various high schools he plays against at Apollo.
He is confident about his game. A lot.
Every sport requires some amount of confidence and swagger in order to play well. After all, if you don't think you can do it, you won't. Ryan does not lack for swagger. When I pick him up after one of his gym sojourns, I hear from him how well he did. The same for when I talked to him about his time recently at Richards' freshman basketball camp, which involved a lot of sophomore and varsity players as well. There's a fine line between confidence and cockiness, and Ryan walks it. When I asked Ryan if I would be OK to write about his road to the freshman team, he said, and I quote: "Sure. I love the media attention."
Height, passion and confidence don't guarantee a spot on the team, of course. But so far, it seems to be working. At the end of his high school basketball camp, one of the coaches asked Ryan what his name was. That seems like a good sign.
My point in writing about this is not to make parents who do involve their children in travel sports that it's automatically a waste of time. Instead, I want to appeal to parents whose kids are late bloomers, or who discover a passion sometime after the age of 10, that their child can and should pursue what they want to do. Does it mean my child, or your child, makes a team? In my case, I'll find out in a few months. But the worst thing would not be being cut -- it would be me dismissing Ryan from trying out at all.
