Photo Credit: Gopher Athletics
There are basketball tournaments where nothing extraordinary happens.
Your child’s team wins or loses. Sometimes they play well. Sometimes they don’t.
Then there are weekends when something happens that makes all the practices, long drives, hotel stays, missed weekends, and countless hours in the gym feel worthwhile.
Actually, let me correct that.
Not just worthwhile.
Sometimes a moment happens that stays with you for the rest of your life.
I experienced one of those moments recently, and I wanted to share the story.
The Life of a Shooter
The story really began the weekend before.
My daughter had developed a reputation as a very good three-point shooter. She was normally fairly consistent, but that weekend she fell into one of the worst shooting slumps she had experienced.
She went 0-for-8 from the three-point line.
As the misses accumulated, her playing time began to decrease.
I have always told my daughter something very simple:
Shooters shoot.
If you are a shooter, you cannot become afraid to shoot simply because the last few attempts didn’t go in.
Thankfully, she played for a program that supported that philosophy.
We had been through shooting slumps before, but that didn’t make them easy.
They were mentally exhausting for her.
And, if I’m being truthful, they were difficult for me as a parent too.
When shots stop falling, a shooter begins questioning everything.
Is something wrong with my mechanics?
Have I lost my touch?
Should I stop shooting?
Am I letting my team down?
That little voice of doubt starts getting louder.
I continually reminded her that she could not completely control whether a shot went through the basket.
What she could control was how much work she put into preparing for the next opportunity.
During the following week, she went back to work.
She shot until she had made more than 1,000 shots.
I figured the following weekend had to be better.
Basketball, however, had other plans.
Same Old Song and Dance
In the first game of the next tournament, she attempted eight three-pointers.
She missed all eight.
She was now 0-for-16 from three over her previous four games.
That little voice in her head was probably screaming by this point.
In the second game, she finally made one.
You could see the relief on her face.
Unfortunately, the basket came during a 30-point victory. It felt good to see one go through, but it wasn’t exactly a pressure moment.
After the game, I reminded her of something I have told my daughters many times.
If your shot isn’t falling, find another way to help your team.
Play great defense.
Get an offensive rebound.
Make the extra pass.
Set a good screen.
Sprint the floor.
Those things are always available.
That is good advice.
But if you have ever been a shooter, you also know that good advice doesn’t completely take away the frustration.
Shooters want to see the ball go through the basket.
One for Twenty-Two
The final game of the evening was against one of our in-state rivals.
The first half came and went.
My daughter went 0-for-3 from three.
The second half began, and our team started falling behind.
With about ten minutes remaining, we were down by 17 points.
She attempted two more three-pointers.
Miss.
Miss.
At that point, she was 1-for-22 from three-point range over the previous five games.
Think about that for a moment.
For a player whose identity included being a shooter, that had to feel enormous.
But she kept playing.
And our team kept fighting.
Slowly, the lead began to shrink.
Seventeen became twelve.
Twelve became eight.
With about four minutes remaining, we had cut the lead to five.
Then the basketball was kicked out to my daughter in the left corner.
She caught it.
She rose up.
And from my seat in the stands, I stood up with her.
BANG!
She buried the three.
I screamed.
Loudly.
Probably loud enough to scare the person sitting next to me.
We were suddenly down by two.
And for the first time in what probably felt like forever to her, one of those shots really mattered.
The Shot Falls Again
The game continued.
Three minutes left.
Two minutes left.
Our opponent scored a layup, and suddenly we were down four again.
The clock kept moving.
With less than a minute remaining, my daughter came off a screen and received the basketball near the top of the key.
She shot.
BAM!
Another three.
We were down by one.
Now the gym felt completely different.
The other team ran its offense and worked the clock.
They took a shot.
Miss.
Thirty-nine seconds remained.
We came back down the floor and moved the basketball around the perimeter.
With approximately 12 seconds left, we attempted a long three-pointer.
Miss.
But we got the offensive rebound.
Our shooting guard dribbled toward the right elbow and stopped.
She pivoted.
The clock continued to disappear.
Five.
Four.
Three.
She put up a shot.
It missed to the right.
And there was my daughter.
She grabbed the rebound and put the basketball back in.
We were ahead by one.
Our bench exploded.
The parents exploded.
I probably completely lost my mind.
The officials put 0.4 seconds back on the clock.
The other team attempted a desperation shot.
It missed.
We won.
Why That Moment Meant So Much
Someone looking at the box score might simply see a close basketball game.
I saw something completely different.
I saw a young player who had missed shot after shot after shot.
I saw someone whose confidence had been tested.
I saw a player who could have stopped shooting.
She could have become afraid.
She could have allowed the previous 20-plus misses to dictate what happened next.
Instead, when the opportunity arrived, she still had enough belief in herself to take the shot.
Then she did it again.
And when the biggest shot of the game missed, she found another way to help her team.
She got the offensive rebound.
That may have been my favorite part of the entire sequence.
The shooter eventually became the rebounder.
And the rebound won the game.
The Next Morning
Basketball has a funny way of changing quickly.
The next morning, the team had two more games.
My daughter shot 5-for-11 from three-point range.
Just like that, the slump seemed to be disappearing.
Was it because she suddenly remembered how to shoot?
Of course not.
The skill had never disappeared.
Confidence had.
And confidence can be fragile.
That is one of the hardest things for young athletes—and their parents—to understand.
A bad game does not mean you suddenly became a bad basketball player.
A bad weekend does not erase years of work.
A shooting slump does not mean you have lost your ability.
Sometimes you simply have to keep working long enough for the results to return.
What We Can Control
One of the lessons I have repeatedly tried to teach my daughters is that there are two things they can control every time they step on a basketball court:
Attitude and effort.
You cannot force a shot to go in.
You cannot control every referee’s decision.
You cannot control how well the other team plays.
You cannot always control your playing time.
But you can control how hard you work.
You can control your preparation.
You can control whether you take good shots.
You can control how you respond after a miss.
You can control whether you defend.
You can control whether you rebound.
And most importantly, you can control whether you continue believing in yourself.
Keep the Faith
The lows of being a basketball parent can be painful.
When our children struggle, we struggle with them.
We want to fix things.
We want to say exactly the right thing.
Sometimes we even want the success more than they do.
But there are moments when the best thing we can do is remind them of the work they have already put in and encourage them to keep going.
Our children are going to experience slumps.
Not only in basketball.
They are going to experience them in school, careers, relationships, and life.
Things will not always go according to plan.
They will fail.
They will become frustrated.
They will wonder whether all the work is worth it.
And sometimes they will need someone standing behind them saying:
Keep going.
Keep working.
Keep believing.
Keep the faith.
That night, my daughter happened to hit a couple of big three-pointers and score the winning basket.
I will always remember the shots.
But I hope she remembers something bigger.
She kept shooting when the shots weren’t falling.
And eventually, one went in.
Then another.
Sometimes that is all confidence needs.
One more chance.
One more shot.
One more reason to believe.