A few days ago, and not for the first time recently, an old
friend was asking if I was running into a lot of old boyfriends now that we’ve
moved home. I told him I see a couple fairly frequently, and he asked if it was
awkward seeing old loves. I told him no, and that they weren’t “loves.” I told
him Cameron was the only man I’ve ever loved. “No unrequited first love?” he
teased.
Oh yes, there was a first love, but it wasn’t a boy. My
first love was basketball.
From the time I was very, very young, I was head over high tops
in love with basketball. Eating and breathing and dreaming about it kind of
love. Basketball and I were going to spend the rest of my life together. Quite literally,
for you see, it wasn’t playing
basketball that I was so passionate about, though I loved that part of it. I
was truly, madly, deeply in love with coaching
basketball.
I remember the very moment I decided that I wanted to be a
basketball coach. I was 7 years old, and we were living in Ira, Texas, where my
dad was coaching. Every season, right around the holidays, Ira held a
basketball tournament for other itty bitty schools in the area. And for the
first time that I realized, I saw a GIRL coaching. In my little bubble, I guess
I assumed that Daddy and Coach Cook were the only two coaches in the world,
since they were the only two we had at Ira. But this woman was young, beautiful, with big hair, colored Rockies and colored boots…. very 1991. And she
was giving that game everything she had. She paced up and down the sideline, willing
each shot in the basket, constantly instructing her girls, trying to talk the
refs out of and into calls. I’m pretty sure I just stared the whole game. The clouds
opened and angels sang. THIS is what I wanted to be when I grew up.
For the next 12 years, I don’t think I ever wavered in my
career ambitions. And I realized I was equally as excited to coach other
sports, such as softball and track. Oh, how I loved to coach track. It was
entrenched in my bones. So much so that it escaped every now and then, which made
my teammates just LOVE me! Every new coach I played for, every new school, I
watched and studied the good and bad. I came very, very close to not playing
basketball my senior year of high school, but realized very quickly that the
bench offered me the best possible position to learn from a very good coaching
staff. I chose to go to Angelo State, partly because it was home and
cheapest, but mostly because it’s known for producing some of the best coaches
in the state of Texas.
But, I never coached a game of high school, or even junior
high, basketball. I coached some 6th grade summer league while in
college, but it was never my job.
Because when I was 19, I did fall in love. Real, deep, world
starts spinning, love. The kind of love that made what I felt for any sport
seem like a playground crush. I only thought God had designed me to be a coach.
I knew then that He designed me to be Cameron’s wife, and the mother of his
children. I always knew one day I’d have a family that I’d spend time away from
during a season, but now that hypothetical family was very real, and the
thought of them consumed me.
So I decided that coaching other peoples’ girls was not the
path for me. I’d have children of my own that I could coach at home until they
were old enough to play organized sports, then I’d coach their teams. Boys or
girls, didn’t matter to me. They’d be the most fundamentally sound 4th
graders around J I
hope they don’t hate me K
People have asked me a lot lately what I’ll do when Brynna
starts kindergarten in the fall. Will I go back and coach? Nah. The fire for
coaching is still there, but I have no desire to step into a classroom right
now. Plus, coaches don’t always have the luxury of handpicking where they’ll
coach, and I will not move our girls away from Wall. I honestly don’t plan on going to work right
away. Maybe in a couple of years, but I’ve loved being able to be involved with
D’Laney’s school, I want to do the same for Brynna.
I think I would have been a good coach. I’ve helped my nephew
a little with high jump this year, and I realized how much I miss it. But it
doesn’t compare at all with the life I have now. I guess it is like that first
love. You think about it every now and then, get a little nostalgic and miss
things about it, but know that God had bigger and better plans for you, and are
thankful that you followed where He led.
