Onward and Upward

My son made a basket during the final game of his fifth grade basketball season yesterday! It was a beautiful shot, let me tell you. I was holding my breath the entire time. He jumped up, grabbed the rebound, did a half pivot and launched the ball into a perfect arc that ended with a swoosh. No rim, no backboard, no wobble. This shot had been his goal going into the game: “I just really want to make at least one basket, Mom, just to show the guys I can do it.”

Unfortunately, he earned the two points by shooting into the other team’s basket. Those two points went on the board under the other team’s score tally. He felt incredibly embarrassed about it, as he told me later and as his face told me in the moment.

“What did your teammates say?” I asked him after the game.

“Uh, they said it was a really good shot, just too bad about it not being our basket and all,” he replied, looking abashed with his sweatshirt hood pulled all the way up to his hairline to hide his face.

“You showed them you could do it,” I reminded him, in the typical supportive-mom fashion that likely makes coaches – and some dads – cringe.

“I guess so,” he said, a tiny smile perking up the corners of his deep frown.

And in my heart, I offered a small thanks for this team, this season and this league, for being the kind of place where my son could play and learn, despite his not-quite-there-yet basketball skills, for being the kind of place where a basket at the wrong end of the court could be an embarrassment, but not a catastrophe.

He’s a tall kid. He has big man-size feet and wide palms. His dad is an excellent baller and gifted athlete who will happily join in any pick-up game he can find, so the possibility of a genetic talent inheritance wouldn’t be out of the question. When my son was born, the nurses commented on his long fingers. “He’s going to be an athlete,” they told us. “Or a piano player,” I kept saying, but I was happy for him to excel in athletics as well, as long as no concussions were involved.

Over the years, we’ve done multiple seasons of youth soccer (during one game, my son’s father told me I needed to “calm down” and “remember the kids are six, Erin!”) My competitive instincts were alive and well, that’s for sure. Then came Little League with its long nights sitting on cold benches, both for my son and those of us in the stands. He was a good hitter with a powerful swing, but showed very little hustle on the field, dooming him to the cycle of ‘not great, so he doesn’t play, so he doesn’t get better, so he’s not good enough to play, so he sits on the bench.’

Even so, I really wanted him to continue in some kind of athletics, both for the physical skills one develops and the character building activities being on a team can provide.

“Have you thought about Upward?” asked a friend, also a mother to a tall kid who hadn’t yet grown into his basketball body. She told me about the ethos of the program, run by a local Baptist church, that encourages kids to develop personally, not just athletically. “All the kids get to play,” she added. “And they practice every week, all of them. Nobody just sits on the side.” I was in!

According to the About Us section of its website, www.upward.org, “Upward Sports, the world’s largest Christian sports league for children, provides a fun kids sports experience based on healthy competition. Last year, nearly 550,000 K5 through sixth-graders had a great kids basketball, kids soccer, kids flag football or kids cheerleading experience through one of over 5,000 leagues or camps.”

Upward isn’t like city league sports, and for incredibly talented players, that difference might well be frustrating, though the three stand-outs on my son’s team didn’t seem to mind scoring basket after basket to the sounds of cheering parents in the enormous church gym. It’s run as a ministry, its volunteer coaches, referees, concession sellers and half-time devotional speakers coming from its sizable congregation. And this ministry is run extremely well. Practices start and end on time. The same with games. All players receive two-sided jerseys and shorts that can be reversed easily, whether the players’ teams are designated home or visitor. This year, the building was awash with silver and maroon-ed boys and girls running, shooting, missing, shooting again, and high fiving each other after the final buzzer of the games. Though the ministry staff is Baptist, the participants do not have to attend that church. I saw plenty of Mormon kids on the courts and in the halls during our three month season.

Can I share something with you that I am usually, and appropriately, reluctant to verbalize? Living in the Bible belt has made me wary of a certain type of evangelical Christian (just as I’m sure an evangelical Christian, or, say, anyone who was not Mormon, would be wary of moving to Sandy, Utah). I know what many of them think of me. Some have told me to my face in less than pleasant ways. Well, what they think of Mormons. The fact that I’m not like other Mormons (we all say that, right?) doesn’t matter. (And they would probably argue that they are not like other Bible thumpers. Touche!) Still, in my nearly two decades living in the shadow of the buckle of that Bible belt, I probably thought I knew a thing or two about the congregants at this large, enormously successful Baptist church. Yes, I had even judged them for moving from a beautiful brick church near downtown to a sprawling, business-park looking ‘campus’ closer to new subdivision development. I’m sure I thought I knew a thing or two about their hearts.

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” reads Matthew 6:13. And I have seen through my now two seasons as an Upward parent that the treasure of this program is the relationships found on the teams, particularly between coaches and kids. Our coaches have been fantastic, teaching plays, offering feedback, and running drills. The coaches also award stars for things like ‘sportsmanship’ and ‘best offense.’ Last year, my son received the white star after a game, the star given for ‘Christlike behavior.’ I did not realize how meaningful the receipt of this star was until I read in his end-of-school journal that the thing he was most proud of during the school year was the earning of that star. Upward even requires a man on man defense that makes it possible for every kid at every level to be at least somewhat competitive. The whole program is designed and executed as a way to build kids up. Upward.

During the past two seasons, my son has improved as an athlete, yes. Maybe next year he can make a basket for his team! But regardless of assists or successful free throw shots, I will still give thanks for a church and a sports program whose heart is in such a place to benefit children in its community. I thought I knew about the kind of Christians who attended this giant church, but now, having spent many Saturday mornings inside its facilities, I have seen their hearts and their treasure, and I know better.