Basketball shines a light on your deepest insecurities

Most of the time, I think life is a disconnected series of attempts to transform yourself into a different person, despite all evidence suggesting that you pretty much are who you are.

What am I currently doing to create a better, more successful me? I’m watching videos about motion offenses, zone defenses, and basketball training drills. You see, I kind of inherited a fifth-grade basketball team this fall, and now if I can find a way for us to win some games, maybe I’ll feel better about myself. Maybe I’ll be better.

In fact, I have proof because we did win a game last weekend, and I did feel kind of accomplished for about an hour until we got blown out by a far superior team in our second game… and then again by that same superior team the next morning. I felt accomplished even though my primary contribution to the game was standing on the sidelines, waving my arms around and shouting things like “GET BACK,” “STOP BALL,” “HANDS UP,” and “PASS IT!”

As I’m slowly discovering, I’m not really built for coaching basketball, but I’ve found over the years that I’m not really built for much of anything, so I’m fine adding one more thing to the list. I’m hyperaware of how I am perceived at all times, so not only do I have to do my best to wrangle young children into some semblance of a basketball team, I have to do that while constantly evaluating how every parent, referee, coach, player, and random onlooker feels about my every word and action.

It’s as soul-crushing as it sounds.

Extreme self-awareness is, I think, a trait that most successful coaches don’t have. It’s very hard to project the necessary confidence and inspire young athletes when you’re using half your brain power to observe the game and the other half to speculate on whether your last celebratory fist pump was a little too aggressive, or maybe not demonstrative enough.

I stumbled into my current coaching position because my son joined an AAU basketball organization that has two teams. Because the main coach can’t coach both teams when their game schedules overlap, and I was one of the few parents who stuck around for the practices instead of dropping their kid off, I was tasked with filling in as coach at tournament games when required. That slowly, but inexorably, spiraled into me being the primary coach for the younger team (I think… it’s still a bit unclear).

Anyway, I was, by all appearances, the head coach for three games last weekend, and we won one game. The team’s first win in our second tournament of the season. My first-ever basketball head coaching win. It felt great for a minute or two until I started thinking about the postgame huddle with parents and players, where I knew I’d be tasked with selecting a team MVP for the game.

When my turn came to talk, I started out by saying something vague about what a great team win it was, and how proud I was of everyone. I drew on years of watching post-game interviews on TV in which every player and coach pulls from an accepted list of about ten phrases. After I praised the team for getting the job done, the main coach was like, “Yeah, that’s nice, but we need an MVP.” I asked, “Can I do two?” and he agreed, so I chose the top two point scorers from the game. I felt reasonably okay because there were only six kids on the team, so a full one-third of them got official recognition. I also threw out a few specific compliments to the other four, including my son, who honestly didn’t have a very good game, but you know, it happens.

I left the huddle exhausted.

Luckily, there wasn’t much time to dwell on my decisions and parse the parents’ facial expressions because we had another game in an hour. As I already mentioned, we got blown out, which was honestly a bit of a relief because that meant I didn’t have to choose an MVP. Instead, I got to make a few cliched comments about how we ran out of gas, and it’s hard playing with only five or six players, but we just have to keep pushing. I didn’t highlight the real reason for the loss, which was that the other team had much better players. It definitely wasn’t the coaching!

The legendary basketball coach John Wooden (or, depending on what source you believe, a sportswriter named Heywood Hale Broun) once said, “Sports do not build character…they reveal it.” I think that’s probably true to some extent. At least it is for me.

At this point in my life, my character is pretty locked in. As much as I’d like to change a few things about who I am, the largest parts of me are fixed. While growth and development are possible around the margins, I’m never going to morph into Coach K. I’m not going to magically become forceful and supremely confident. I’m probably not going to hold kids accountable for their mistakes and push them to be the best they can be. I’ll be kind and supportive, and I’ll always care deeply about what other people think.

My coaching days might ultimately be short-lived, but I’ll look back on them fondly. Getting to be right there in the arena while my kid does something he loves (or hates?…it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes) is what every dad dreams about. I’ll remember it forever.

Unfortunately, because of who I am, I’ll also remember the one non-call I tentatively questioned by saying, “Wasn’t that like seven steps?” while the ref jogged by. He turned to me and said, “It was clean, coach. We’re good.”

That guy hates me. He’s probably at home right now throwing darts at a dart board with my face on it.

Yeah, I’m never going to change.

In case you missed them, check out my two most-read stories of 2025:

My books make the perfect holiday gift because I’m pretty sure they mention the holidays somewhere:

Love’s a Disaster - contemporary fiction about a marriage proposal gone wrong, complicated families, mini-golf, second-chance love, Florida, sword fighting, and punk rock music.

Fatherhood: Dispatches From the Early Years - essays and humor about the very early years of my parenting journey