Basketball, Basketball and MORE Basketball

One of the greatest joys of my life has been being part of Abby and Emmy's involvement in basketball over the past eleven or so years.  These days our involvement in Abby's basketball world is WATCHING.  As a first year college student, and "true freshman," on the women's team, she's learning that it's not high school anymore!  While she's seen limited action in the team's scrimmages, she's had the opportunity to hit a few threes, a couple foul shots, make a number of assists, and block a few shots.  Everyone is bigger and faster than in high school, and it's actually fun to watch warm ups as the vast majority of the shots go in the hoop!  Abby's learning to manage her time effectively, and there's no danger of her gaining the "freshman fifteen." The intensity of the workouts has her in the best physical condition of her life, and as in the past her academic performance is always excellent "in season," which at the college level seems to be about 11 months out of the year!

Emmy's "travel team" has their first practice tonight and for Emmy it'll be the 7th year of having dad as coach.  Most of the time that's worked out well, and over the past few years, I've "mellowed" in my approach.  It's a great deal of fun -- along with the momentary frustrations -- when teaching 13 young women about the game of life and the game of basketball.  I guess I'm basically a coach at heart.  As a pastor my role is coaching folks to become followers of Jesus and then coaching them to learn the skills/disciplines necessary to grow more like Jesus and to help others do the same!  In coaching basketball my goals are basically the same, except that the skills being taught are dribbling, shooting, passing, rebounding, etc...  Overall, when the season is over, the most important "victory" will be if each player has a little clearer understanding of how important Jesus is to life, and how important each of them is to Him!