April 2025

We gathered outside the community center, soothing our wounds while we absorbed the shock of an unexpected loss. We were the favorites to win, by a large margin. We could’ve won, we should’ve won, but we didn’t. It was a hard pill to swallow. My kids do not have the emotional resources to shrug off defeats like this… to look in the mirror and examine what you see. It’s always somebody else’s fault. Unfair treatment by the refs, the other team cheated… it’s never mistakes that you yourself or your team committed.  It was a blessing to be able to process it as a group, together. At the end of the game tensions were high, both teams in their feelings, they almost came to blows, but they didn’t. In previous situations my guys would’ve succumbed to their emotions and the urge to violence to vent their feelings… but this time they did not. A significant sign of growth. During the game I had to talk one kid down, then another. It’s always a touch and go situation when deep feelings and wounds are stirred. But they chose to rise above frustration and anger. I was proud of them and told them so.

So as we stood outside the building in a group, we struggled to process feelings and emotions. Still primed for aggressive action… being taunted by passersby… but they held it together. Nobody understands that the emotions primed are not simply at losing a game… it’s the violence you may have experienced that week: a gunshot thrown your way, a fight at your school, a threat made to you, dissension at home… How constant and near is the threat of violence in their personal lives! After overcoming my despair at seeing how close to violence they were, my disappointment that they were not showing more growth after many years with them, I began to realize that I was witnessing that growth right in front of me. As they spoke to their pain, frustration and disappointment. As they recognized their own flaws even as they listed the injustices against them. As they considered inappropriate ways of expressing themselves, but at the same time rejected them.  A woman, a parent from the other team, passed us by. She praised the boys for their physical skill on the court and for the emotional composure they showed. A rarity.

We’d been at this juncture as a group many times and the platitudes and advice I offered were anticipated by them, not new. But then, my coach spoke up, a young man who used to play for me and has now coached the team the past couple of years. After showing deference to me, he spoke to the boys, making clear that, unlike me, he was coming from the perspective of being one of them. Having been in their shoes, this particular situation, playing for me on a team for many years… “Listen to what I am saying”, he says, “because I am one of you. I came up like y’all. This is not the path to the kind of life you want to have. Sometimes it seems like everything and everyone is against you. You want to cuss and fight and scream… but that won’t help you get where you want to be. Your feelings are your feelings and you have a right to them, but don’t let them control you. I feel the same way as you and as a grown man I continue to have those feelings and situations, but I am learning to overcome them. I’m a dad now, in a committed relationship with two kids… and I have to do better. We have to do better.”

In the silence which followed I could only say, “Amen.”