Nine seconds left. Bucks are down two. 

They’ve got to get it up the floor quickly to tie or win the game.

The coach has a timeout to burn but decides not to interrupt the flow of the game because his team has been on a furious comeback. The point guard brings it up, dribbles to space, looks for teammates. No one’s open.

6.

5.

4.

3.

He struggles to get a shot off.

2.

1.

His shot’s blocked. Buzzer sounds. Game over. 

The opponent’s bench clears as they scream in celebration; the Bucks collapse, many of them in tears. The coach peels his players off the floor to line up for the handshake, then directs them to the bench, where he begins his postgame speech. He looks into the teary eyes of his players, trying to think of the right thing to say, but he can’t speak. 

Because he’s starting to cry too.

That team? The 2nd/3rd grade Ann Arbor YMCA Winter Session Bucks.

That coach? Me.

This was an emotion I had truly never felt before. It wasn’t sadness or anger, or even disappointment. It was some odd combination of pride, regret, and guilt. I was proud of them for caring so much, for trying so hard, but I regretted not putting them in a position to win the game. I also felt guilty that I cared so much. And on top of that I was absorbing the weight of the moment, in the context of their lives. Yes, this was just a Rec basketball game, but to them, in that moment, it may as well have been the NCAA Championship. 

Luckily my wife/assistant coach bailed me out and gave a great speech about how all the best teams lose, that this was good for us, that we would get another chance at the other team in the playoffs. 

As someone who’s railed against the Youth Sports Industrial Complex for years, I was experiencing some cognitive (and emotional) dissonance. I’ve made fun of people just like me – coaches and parents who care too much, who take it too seriously, who, at their worst, can actually ruin sports for their kids. Andrea had to check me on the bench at a few points in the game when my tone with the boys was particularly harsh.

I lay in bed that night thinking about whether I should have called a timeout, or put the ball in someone else’s hands, or had a play drawn for end-game situations. Perhaps it didn’t help that A Season On The Brink: A Year With Bob Knight And The Indiana Hoosiers sat on my bed stand. I wondered how high school or college or pro coaches did it. 

Watching those kids cry after that game tore a small piece of my heart out. I wanted to do everything I could to prevent it from happening again. So in that way coaching is a wonderful metaphor for parenting: my kids will lose more games, they will be dumped, they will fail tests and not get into colleges and be passed over for jobs, and the older I get, the less control I will have over any of it.

In those moments I need to let my kids experience those painful emotions, the ones that, like mine after that game, they’ve never felt before. I need to listen to them and provide support and feedback and sometimes just the truth.

I also probably need to not cry.

Epilogue: The Bucks lost two more games but made it to the playoffs and finished 3rd after losing in the semifinals. The players cried less. The coach did not cry at all.