It Takes More Than a Cape to Fly

My granddaughter got a cape for her birthday last week.  She put it on, stretched her arms out in front and said, "It doesn't work."

Yeah, I get that a lot.  The laptop was supposed to make me a writer, but it didn't work.  The exercise clothes were supposed to make me exercise.  The camera was supposed to make me a photographer--and I do get a good picture for about every 100 bad ones I take.  You know, digital is swell.  I wish there was digital fitness where you could make 100 bad choices but as long as you made one good choice, you could manipulate it, photoshop the heck out of it, frame it, and put it on the wall as the "finished product." 

If your kids play high school sports the only thing better than the kajillion games you get to watch is the year-end banquet which lasts just about as long only you can't yell things like, "Box out!" or "Hey ref, you forgot your seeing eye dog," or "Check your cell phone stripes because you've missed a few calls!"  But you do get to eat some breadsticks and too many desserts and if your head coach is as funny as Brian Regan on valium it all makes for a pretty enjoyable night especially since somebody else made dinner besides you.

Which makes me think that wearing the uniform, being a "starter," and being a breadstick-gorging m.v.p. does not necessarily make you a team-playah, just like that cape doesn't make you Superman or Woman. 

These "playahs" took first in their region with a record of 9 and 1 after the Deseret News ranked them 4th out of 6 teams in their region.  These chicks made it to the final-four, but for me that was not their greatest accomplishment.

My season highlights were when they went Christmas caroling to a homebound, older gentleman in our neighborhood who followed their games in the paper, and today when they went in their uniforms to the funeral of one of the player's grandpas who came to all their games even though he was on hospice.  His family said the games were what kept him alive--kind of like a basketball-adrenaline i.v. drip.

That's what I think made those girls fly, not the jersey, not the points, not the rebounds, but all the plays they made off the court because when it's all said and done and the fat lady sings, those are the points that matter.  Those are the points that make a difference; that is, if you're keeping score.  Because in the end, we all put our socks on one at a time and nobody really cares how many points you scored or how many rebounds you had except for Uncle Rico.