Evansville Courier Press, December 13, 2009
As you prepare to find Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers for your young athlete or parent coach, make sure to put Mike Lupica’s TRAVEL TEAM on your shopping list.
Lupica is probably more famous for his column in the New York Daily News or for his role on ESPN’s The Sports Reporters, but he is also an accomplished author of books for young readers – TRAVEL TEAM has already reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List.
TRAVEL TEAM is a feel good story that is a youth basketball version of The Bad News Bears or The Mighty Ducks. Danny Walker is a twelve-year-old pint-sized point guard that, despite his tremendous dribbling skills and keen vision, is cut from his travel team because he is ‘too small’.
To the rescue is his father – Richie Walker – who led his own Middletown travel basketball team to a national championship on ESPN when he was Danny’s age, and later went on to stardom in college and in the NBA. Seeing how passionate his son is for the game of basketball, he opts to make his own team for his son to play on, along with a number of other castoffs who wanted the chance to play.
The story takes a series of twists and turns, but hits its climax when Richie’s car accident puts him out of action to coach. With no other options, the team turns to their true coach on the court, and 12-year old Danny Walker coaches them the rest of the season.
Without giving away the story completely, I will share with you some of the general impressions I had while reading this story-
Why do fathers coach little league sports? Danny asks this same question to himself about Mr. Ross, the coach of the Middletown team that he was cut from. I know a number of fathers who are ‘weekend warriors’, and love the idea of both spending time with their children as well sharing their own love and enthusiasm of sports. The reality is that there are more parent coaches like Mr. Ross than you think. At one point during the story, while watching Middletown Vikings and Piping Rock duke it out, Danny found himself studying both team’s coaches in disbelief.
“Why were they even doing this…It was just that neither one of them seemed to be having any fun. They looked like they were working.”
“Without ever getting near each other, or really looking at each other, Danny still got the idea that they were competing against each other. It was like watching a college game on ESPN sometimes, at least until he couldn’t take it anymore and had to turn the sound off. Even if it was a game he really, really wanted to see. Because the more he listened to the announcers, the more he started to get the idea that it was Coach Kryzyzewski of Duke competing against Coach Williams of North Carolina instead of the Blue Devils going against the Tar Heels.”
“He always came back to what his dad constantly drummed into his head: It was a players’ game.”
What really struck me about reading this story was, as it went on, you saw that it wasn’t becoming fun anymore – for either the players or their parent coaches.
I was taught at an early stage of my career as both a soccer coach and as a parent that it is important to take your job seriously, but not to take yourself seriously – work hard at what you do, compete and strive for success, but don’t for a second think that your role as a player or coach makes you a more important person than someone else.
Adversity reveals character – I heard the saying long ago that ‘Adversity Builds Character’. As years go by and I look at my own children, as well as my own teams, I don’t know that tasting failure or struggles make you stronger. In reality, it is how you respond to those challenges that show your true character.
Too many times, we as parents try to problem-solve for our children when things don’t go right in their sports challenges – complaining to their coach when they don’t play as much, or the position they want to play; make excuses for poor individual or team performance. I think you would be surprised by how strong your child is when they are faced by adversity, and it is really only the ones who have been given the opportunity to try and fall down that are able to pick themselves up and taste success.
There is something in TRAVEL TEAM for any youth athlete or coach, and I hope you are able to share it with someone during the holidays.
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