B-ball

It is hard to believe it is December already and another year has almost passed. There will be much activity to celebrate the holidays around here over the next few weeks. I received an email today with the schedule of upcoming events, and it was a long list. I'll post it here if anyone is interested...leave a comment to let me know if you are.

In the meantime, I enjoyed a non-holiday-related island event today - a home basketball game. Both the girls and the boys teams played hard, although unfortunately neither won their respective game. The girls team coach said he expected the matchup with Jamesville to be the toughest one of the season, and it was. I had fun cheering on the team anyway. One of the great things about Ocracoke is that most of the people in the audience were cheering on the players by name. So in addition to "Go Dolphins!", there were shouts of "Good job Luke!", "Great rebound Aaron!", "Nice shot Tristan!", etc. I was one of the shouters, and I almost wore out my voice. But I can't think of a better way to do that.

One of the not-as-great things about Ocracoke basketball is that the school doesn't have a regulation size court, because the gym is too small. It does make for a very involving experience, watching the game. Because there's no room for traditional large bleacher seating, some spectators are sitting literally right on the edge of the court. That's where I found myself today, and believe me it has a way of motivating you to watch the game - you need to know where the ball is because you may need to catch it if it heads out of bounds in your general vicinity! So I've added "new gym for Ocracoke School" to my list of things I would do if I won the lottery (or had some other great financial windfall) and money were no object.

As I watched the game, I reflected on how well rounded many of the players are. Basketball is not all they do. Many of them are good scholars, one is an excellent musician, and at least two are surfers. The coach of the boys team is the High School English teacher, which I have to guess is reasonably rare (I don't know about your High School, but at mine all the coaches taught PE, Shop, or Health classes). I think this is good. It keeps things in perspective. Yes, the team plays hard and yes, they are probably disappointed when they don't win, but they have other things in their lives which are important too. I hope the fact that their lives are rich and full will be reflected in their developing adult selves.