Basketball...

I get super nervous for him when he's at the free throw lines.  So far he's made them all. :)

I like to consider myself a lover of sports, but I've recently learned that's only half true.  I love outdoor sports.  But inside one's, not so much...  With basketball in full swing here, I'm trying to change my attitude.  It's just not happening quite as easily or fast as I would have liked it to.  I don't love the gym smell, and can't get past feeling confused watching 10 boys (most at that awkward  clumsy stage) run up and down a court that just seems to small for all of them.  I get super agitated hearing a whistle being blown at what seems like every 10 seconds to call some type of a foul.  There boys for petes sake!  Let them play!! 

But this story isn't about me.  It's about my ever growing 13 year old son who just happens to be loving the sport.  He is doing really well, (so I've been told) and is starting at guard.  A position that seems to be doing the same thing that all of the other players on the court are doing...  I really can't understand why they've even got positions in this game.  I mean isn't everybody trying to either make a basket or rebound the ball?  I clearly don't have a clue when it comes to this sport.  I do know that yesterdays game was a nail biter and even I was cheering and getting into it.  I know the coaches get super heated and I think are even more intense in this game then they are during football.  I've learned there is a lot more contact then I had imagined there would be and sometimes I wish I could wrap my boy in padding.  The elbowing that goes on, out on that court can get pretty intense.  I will never again think of basketball as an "easy" sport. 

And, while I have tried I've failed terribly at getting any great pictures of JK playing this game.  I have taken the camera to only one game only to realize that the battery was dead.  Thank goodness for cell phone cameras and of course some live action I was able to capture with my favorite new toy. (I'm sure there is a way to get still shots out of the footage, but I haven't mastered that yet.)  We've still got a few more weeks of uncomfortable bleachers, so I've still got some time.  Then it's on to baseball.  Oh how I heart Spring baseball!  

See that!  I think they hit harder here then in football.  Where's the pads and helmets?!