- January 21, 2025
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I arrived at the basketball court with my 6-year-old son, Luke, expecting to help him practice some shooting drills. He had other ideas.
“Let’s play one-on-one,” he said.
“Like a real game?” I asked.
“Full court,” he said.
It was early on a Saturday morning. I had attempted to sneak out of the house without waking anyone else up, not because I wanted to be alone, but because I didn’t want to inflict the early hour on the rest of my family. I don’t mind shooting baskets by myself because it’s one of the only ways I can find to motivate myself to exercise.
As I was about to leave the house to head to the court, though, I heard a noise from Luke’s bedroom.
I peeked in, and he was already awake.
“Want to go with me?” I asked, holding up my ball.
He nodded and jumped up to put on his shoes.
As we played at the court, I got a look at him from the opposite hoop, and I paused for a moment. I realized how rarely I see him from such a distance. Typically, I’m either sitting next to him on the couch, or I see him from across the family room, but never from 75 feet away. From this viewpoint, the ball looked extra large, and the hoop seemed even higher than 10 feet tall, making it seem like scoring a basket was an impossible task. How did it look from his angle, standing underneath? The fact that he was so determined showed me that he believed. He wasn’t afraid of losing. I wish I felt like that more often.
I couldn’t resist doing some coaching, so I showed him how to stay between the ball and the basket on defense. And I eventually got him to do a drill, starting at the free throw line, taking a couple of dribbles and heaving the ball up while on the run, coordinating his forward and his upward momentum. He made a few shots and kept asking for more.
A couple of days later, we went to a girls high school basketball game. My family sat together in the bleachers with a few other clusters of people, but the gym was mostly empty. Not exactly an NBA atmosphere, but to Luke, it felt like the big time: those bright lights, the huge logo at midcourt.
Luke sat there, his lips blue from a lollipop, following the action with his eyes.
“How high is that hoop?” he asked me.
“Ten feet,” I said. Of course it was ten feet. Every court is the same, which is why sports are such fertile ground for dreaming. If I can make a shot by myself in a gym, I can make the game-winner in a playoff game: same ball, same lines, same rim. I can control how good I get by how much I practice. And yet, there is also something wonderful about sports being larger than life, impossibly grand, something you can chase forever, whether you’re 6 like Luke, or 45 like me.
He was quiet, soaking it in.
“Think it might be higher?” I asked.
He nodded. “Ten and a half.”
