November 26, 2009
a sappy thanks to the w
Since its Thanksgiving Day, I’ll be a little sappy, the biggest thing the W has given me is time with my mom (she’s alive and well – it’s not one of those tear jerker stories) As I said in my about me and first post, I haven’t had a real friend to share my W experiences with – some may come to a game with me and maybe know Parker and Taurasi’s names but they’re not really into it. Luckily my mom has more than filled that void. She grew up wanting to play, and played that antique ball where players couldn’t cross half court and underhanded foul shots. She played in softball leagues when I was a kid and encouraged me to get out and play as much as possible. It’s funny now, but when I was like 10ish I used to use an old basketball as a soccer ball, then when I finally got a soccer ball and I started wanting to play basketball, I think it was more I could finally throw the ball close to the rim. But she was out there playing with me. In fact 99% of all my sports memories involve my mom. And it wasn’t cuz she was a single parent – it was her choice. The 1% memory of my dad tho is him coming to a game slightly intoxicated and almost getting kicked out for arguing with a ref – easily my most embarrassing moment on the court.
Anyway, my mom’s the one that watched old Celtics or bulls games with me, she got me into another town’s league cuz mine didn’t have one, she found basketball camps and AAU teams. She rebounded for me and asked my neighbor if I could use their hoop cuz we didn’t have one, she drove me to parks because the one within biking distance didn’t always have rims. She bought me Sports Illustrated for women and any other basketball literature. And to this day, we go to the occasional Celtics, Red Sox, and maybe a hockey game if we get free tickets, we go to championship parades and Patriots’ open practices. If I need someone to talk to about the W she’s the one i go to. We love/hate the same teams, players and coaches (except Becky Hammon – she disapproved of the whole Russia thing, I say if team A doesn’t want you, play for team B) we drive the two hours to sun games to see our fav players. We watch all the games on tv as much as possible. My playing time has ended so there’s no more weekend AAU trips together, instead the W has given us day trips to Mohegan, Hartford, or BC, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
