Todays game was the usual fare. H took C to practice, and the game would start an hour later. I arrived 15 minutes into the game, right as C was stepping off the court, no biggy, I didn't miss much. We were up 12 to 4, which is pretty close as far as our games go. I knew I would get to see C play 2 more "periods" before it was all said and done and that's about all the time that B will sit for anyway. Well, this is where things get a little weird.
Our coach is a lovely former college player who is focused on teaching the girls to pass, have fun, and play defense. I'd guess she's 25 at most? Young, fresh, upbeat, and totally gets with the "rec league" idea. She's black. I only mention this because I think if she'd been a white woman, today would have gone a lot differently.
The other coach is a white HighSchool Basket ball coach who is focused on the WIN, and today he freaked out on our coach. Because, he said, we weren't playing our "bad players enough" and he wanted "That GIRL" (mine) put on the court because she (the coach) hadn't rotated the bad players in enough. Uh. Excuse me. I don't care how flippin' bad at B-ball C is, do we really need to make her feel like she's THAT BAD?
I would have vaulted off the bleachers and been arrested and on CNN for sure, except that if I'd done that who would bail out OUR coach? Really she was mad, but she restrained herself. About 10 minutes later, when our team was up again, by only about 7 points, he pulled another temper tantrum because his star player hit one of our star players in the face & though no foul was called, our player left the court and got into her moms lap (hey, she's 9, why not?). Technically we didn't have enough players on the court, and his team should win by default/forfeit. The Ref blew the whistle and said that wasn't how it was played, but the coach got into our coaches face... And enough was enough... the ref backed out and said, "Hey, I'm not getting involved, I'm just here to ref a girls b-ball game".
Coach Tia stood up and said, "Fine, if this is how you want to play, we will forfeit the game. We don't need to win to have fun, do we girls? Your team can have the win, I'm not going to let my girls get beat up over 'this'." ("this" being the WIN) Our girls were a little confused but they all agreed that sportsmanship was better than winning. The parents were pretty much in agreement, that our coach was right - it's a rec league, the record doesn't matter. It's about sportsmanship...let's get out of this before it gets ugly.
So we all basically started to gather our children to leave. And then, the County Representative who is in charge of making sure these things are fair arrived out of NO WHERE and stepped in, and I'm glad he was a big man because we did sort of need a bouncer to contain the other coach who was fuming and foaming. TCRep forbade our team from forfeiting with only 2:27 left in the game, and told the other coach that he needed either shut up and sit down, or he would shut him up and sit him down.
Our game ended, our team won because frankly, our team is better. There's nothing you can say about it. The teams are randomly assigned, and we randomly got a really good team. The best player in our team is an 9 year old girl, & she's easily the shortest on the court. Our coach gathered up our girls and said, "line up, shake hands with the other team, and be good sports". UHG. This made the other coach go into some kind of state, I swear he was panting, until the TCRep removed him from the building. But he was in the parking lot, waiting for our coach. I hate to say this, but you know those CNN reports about violence after kids sports? Well, today I feel like we were only a few minutes away from one of those "And in RICHMOND today, after a girls basket ball game...."
And say a little prayer of thanks, because exactly Nothing happened. Probably because we all walked out together, and frankly, while my H & I are small of stature and did nothing to protect Tia, we were flanked by a few Dads & GrandDads serving as front guard. *and one mom in that mix who I wouldn't want to go up against.
Today was a bummer. C felt after B-ball that we all needed to get out and practice so she could be "not the worst one on the team". Up until now I don't think she'd noticed, but that coach made sure she knew. Regardless the whole event really tainted me for the rest of the season. I am dreading the next time our two teams play in about 3 weeks.
I think... yes, I think some phone calls are in order. A lot of phone calls. This County is going to be tired of me by the end of next week.
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