drawing the charge

I’m not in shape! I played in last night’s Flight father/son/alumni game with two college freshmen, a good adult, and 13-year old Charles Norman, for a quarter. Took one poor shot…my shoulder’s been hurting since the Christmas football game. But athletic Kevin, who’s great inside, got the ball outside and started to dribble in. I stepped up from near the basket to block his path. He kept coming, so I got set. He ran me over. I fell back, and looked at the ref…John Hoffer from Tech. Not many fouls had been called up to that point. John hesitated, then called the charge. The crowd went wild.

Will played more, and had several rebounds and a few baskets. He had one real nice twisting inside shot that just missed. There were plenty of players, of various skill levels…a few dads and more Flight alumni. The younger alumni later played competitively against the few varsity players there…Connor got to play with the varsity, and made a buzzer-beater three. Joel also made a rare three-pointer.

Normally subdued coach Hoffer made a funny statement. The score was kept from all night, a running score. The alumni went ahead in the last quarter of the JV game, making the confused varsity players think they were doing terrible…so they were frustrated. Coach Hoffer said loudly “Do you guys want to go home?” DJ had played 2 hours earlier, then played much of the middle school game, due to a lack of players available during the early hour. He and Willis, who also played the MS game, were quite tired. DJ and older brother Ben had some violent collisions.

The girl’s game was fun. Kara blocked 2 or 3 of her older sister’s shots. Kara got some baggy shorts and shiny black/teal personalized Nikes (UGLY!) for Christmas. She looks better in her uniform and white shoes. Once she was called for walking…I said it was because her ugly shoes attracted so much attention. Mostly the younger alumni girls played, but late in the quarter the older moms went in…including Becky Norman, in street clothes. The moms started a later quarter. When they were subbed out Becky didn’t understand, and stayed on the court as the ball was inbounded with six defenders…Becky bouncing around trying to guard the ball. She was finally hustled off the court to a bench full of laughter.

Josh’s big brother was reffing, and when a mom was fouled, there was no whistle. On the way back up court I called out “You wouldn’t call that if it had been your own mother, would you!” His mom was on the court at the time.

Tonight Coach Henry and his sons Willie and David are having a party…Matthew likes their little dog. Catcher Andrew is having a party in the same neighborhood…many of the same people will go to both parties. I just want to watch Tech, but may be forced to drive boys home from parties late. Usually Ceil won’t want to stay out late, but if she’s somewhere, she’s slow to leave, as you know. My parents may come back up…they have a funeral in Rome Saturday.

Still some work to do today, but we’ll be leaving early.