There was a parent's meeting this morning for freshman basketball. You know...meet the coaches, go over a few guidelines, the basics. This year is already pretty cool because one of the freshman coaches (Brendon's coach) is former Iowa stand out Kenyon Murray. They stated at the meeting that each week they were going to award the player who showed they were the "toughest" in practice - hussled for the most loose balls, took charges, snagged the most rebounds, etc - that person would be given a jersey that says "TOUGHNESS WINS" to wear all the next week at practice and they get to be co-captian at the games that week. At the meeting, they called all the players up, introduced them, then awarded the jersey. When Kenyon introduced Brendon he called him Mighty Might and when he started to talk about who was getting the jersey for the 1st week, he says...
"if you look at this kid, you might think ah maybe he can't play the best. He is the smallest kid on the team but he's got the most heart. He got 3 offensive rebounds this week, he is climbing right over these big guys. You can't always tell a player by his size and this kid showed so that"
...and he award the jersey to Brendon. I may have paraphrased the last couple words...by then the tears were welling up in my eyes and I realized maybe I should pull myself together before my lips starting quivering into that ugly crying face. It was a very proud moment.
It's no secret Brendon is the smallest kid on most his teams. And I do worry about him because of it. All I want is for people to give him a chance to prove he's got game cuz he does. He was cut once from a friend's baseball team because the parent coaches cared more about winning then friendship. His next team, he was invited to play. After a couple years, they decided to have tryouts instead of automatic placement on the team. I was worried they would cut him because of his size. When they didn't I was thankful and told the coach so. He said basically the same thing Kenyon said this morning, "it's not so much about size but heart". Brendon is a scraper and he has natural talent. Does he have to work harder than the other kids to show it, yeah. But being recognized today shows that he isn't afraid of putting in the work. Of course he is going to swim in that jersey but who cares!
He also won this week's free throw shooting contest making 10 out of 10. He won a school free throw contest when he was in 8th grade and advanced to the city all around but then bombed out. O/well...even Michael Jordon had off days !
There are only 16 kids out for freshman basketball this year and they are broken into two 8-man teams so he will be seeing plenty of playing time compared to middle school when 60 some kids went out. I think this is going to be a good year for him. Proving you don't have to be 6 foot tall to be one of the best. He could be the next Muggsy Bogues or Spud Webb (I actually knew those names...no one had to tell me who they were...I get points for that.)
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Anyway, I was a very proud momma this morning.
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