Yup, the Haines women won the Gold Medal tourney in Juneau this weekend, and after we all arrived home on the ferry at noon yesterday, took naps, and had a quiet Easter dinner, we all went to bed. I was asleep by eight. I didn’t even play and I was exhausted by the energy in the gym and with the four little girls (and three big girls) when we weren’t in the gym. It was a very intense four days. The games are rough, and the gym is full of passionate fans. As one fan said, Gold Medal is the football of basketball. “It’s a contact sport.” I was so proud to have three daughters on the team, and Stoli made the all-tourney team as well.
Of course playing basketball is not about winning or losing, it really is how you play the game, and how they played the game all winter long together in the high school gym every Sunday evening. But winning does make everyone smile, and they played so very well, coming back to the championship game from the loser’s bracket to beat the fine team from Craig who had bested them previously took heart and skill.
But what I really want to say about watching my “girls” — women I know– (and the whole team) play basketball so well, is how strong and graceful and quick they are, how I admire their ability to pay attention so completely, and the way they are moving before thinking about it, using the sixth sense of basketball, how they know when to pass and catch and run and pivot, and especially how to shake off a slight or an error and start over in a matter of seconds with no time or temper for apology or guilt, and how I am a little jealous I will never know how that feels, having never played basketball beyond a half court game, wearing skirts, in Jr. High. I am even a little jealous that basketball taught them these life lessons, without any help from me at all.What lucky children they have, to see them do this, and to take for granted that they can, and no doubt will, play like their mothers and aunts someday.
