Jim Moore: For parents and kids playing sports, the finish line isn’t always about winning
“The Bothell gym, dad, this is where it ends,” my son Michael told me last Friday night after he came out of a tearful Issaquah High locker room.
The Eagles had just lost a loser-out game to Bothell in the Kingco Conference boys basketball tournament. This time there was more of an emphasis on “loser out” to some kids, as in the loser’s out for good.
If you’re a parent of kids who play sports, you never think about the finish line when you’re playing in local gyms or community centers or traveling to out-of-town tournaments over the years. It’s your way of life.
Maybe you’ve already been through it, maybe you’ll experience it in the coming years, or maybe you’re like me, living it now, with the finish line feeling like a brick wall that appeared out of nowhere.
Michael and his twin brother, Steven, have played on various basketball teams since they were 5 years old when it was pretty much complete chaos with kindergartners running around the court at the Bellevue Boys’ and Girls’ Club.
It’s not just the joy you get from watching your kids play hoops, it’s all the other stuff too: the family time together and the pre-game and post-game get-togethers in bars with other parents when we talk about tournaments like they’re really important when they’re really not.
Steven would tell you that one of his highlights was being on the Hazen High seventh-grade feeder team that won the state tournament in Spokane. Michael would disagree because he was cut from that team, telling me before the championship game against Tahoma: “I hope Stevie plays well, but I want Tahoma to win.”
Maybe you’ve experienced that too, the sad look on your kid’s face when he tells you he didn’t make the team. It was tough at our house, trying to congratulate Steven while consoling Michael at the same time. Mikey cried himself to sleep that night, but looking back, it was one of the best things that ever happened to him — he worked hard to improve his game and made every team he tried out for after that.
Michael would be happy to talk to you about his career highlight, swishing a three-quarter-court shot at the halftime buzzer against Skyline last year. But truth be known, if you ask kids what they liked most about playing sports, their greatest memories aren’t about upsets recorded or championships won. They’ll tell you about the fun they had and the friendships with buddies they’ll hang out with long after the lights go out in the gym.
There’s nothing that can truly prepare you for a Friday night in Bothell or a Thursday night in Everett or a whatever night it is in whatever town or city somewhere else. You don’t know how you or your kid is going to feel until it happens. Michael was pretty much in an “oh well” mood, and sensing as much, I told him we could still play hoops in the driveway.
But Steven took it a little harder. There were tears in his eyes and he later said that it was tough because he knew it was one of those markers in his life that signaled the end of his childhood.
Zach Eastern, another senior on the team, struggled with it the most. His parents were there with comforting hugs, and it was hard to watch, knowing what was going through all of their minds.
Even some of the juniors who still have another year of basketball ahead of them had tears too. Tate Smith felt like he let the team down because he didn’t have one of his best games, but that kid had a great season and I’ll bet his dad told him as much when they got home.
Will Kodosky, another junior, felt bad that he missed the three-pointer that would have sent the game to overtime, but I’m telling you, that shot was right on line and came up a little bit short, just like Issaquah. Plus Will went from not playing at all earlier in the season to being a major contributor down the stretch.
As we left the gym, it helped to know that I still had baseball fields to go to in the coming months with Michael and Steven playing for Issaquah and their summer team, the Washington A’s. But when August arrives, all of that will end as they go off to college, putting baseball behind them too.
I also thought of our head coach, Brad Valentine, as I walked through the parking lot, wondering what was going through his mind. “Should I have played so-and-so more than I did?” “Should I have called a timeout?” “Should I have done this when I did that?”
In the coming days he’ll probably hear from disgruntled parents who weren’t happy with something he did or didn’t do if he hasn’t heard from them already. I can tell you this, he’s not gonna hear from me, and if he does, it’ll be to thank him for doing his thankless job. Coaches can’t possibly please every parent, and with what they’re earning, i.e. next to nothing, they don’t need our grief when they’re probably second-guessing themselves.
As I go through these milestone moments during my kids’ senior year, I’m trying to remember what The Oregonian sports columnist John Canzano told me a few months ago. Parents look back while kids look ahead. “Look ahead with them,” Canzano said.
That’s great advice, but last Friday night in Bothell it was hard to get past the old cliche: easier said than done.
Jim Moore has covered Washington’s sports scene from every angle for multiple news outlets. You can find him on Twitter @cougsgo, and on 950 KJR-AM, where he co-hosts a sports talk show from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on weekdays.
This story was originally published February 7, 2022 at 5:30 AM.