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Tag Archives: basketball

get them in the game

06 Monday Apr 2009

Posted by Jane Bretl in good reads, Motherhood

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Barnstormers, basketball, Get In the Game -- Read!, Loren Long, Lori Calabrese, opening day, Phil Bildner, Sluggers

This just in, and just in time for tonight’s big basketball game — and baseball’s opening day — a new blog that explores sports themed books for kids and teens:  Get In The Game — Read!

Author Lori Calabrese has created this new forum to focus on all the wonderful books that energize and encourage kids to practice sports and reading. Here is an excerpt from Lori’s “About This Blog”:

*

“If you think about it, sports and books just go together. The more

children practice, the better they become at sports. The more children

read, the better they become at reading. Both sports and books should

be inexpensive and accessible to everybody. They teach us about the

world around us, and overall, they’re just plain fun! So why not

combine the two? Avid sports fans can read a Sports Illustrated cover to cover, recite the

stats from the morning sports page, and read a program at a game. Avid

readers can learn about a sport, a specific athlete, or sports in other

countries. There are so many ways to incorporate sports and reading.

Make the most of all the resources that are available and waiting for

you: printed books, online books, magazines, etc…. Encourage

follow-up activities involving creative writing skills so your children

can expand on what they’ve absorbed and, at the same time, develop

their own creativity. As you help your kids appreciate the magic of

reading and the value of sports, you’ll find there’s a whole wide world

of fun and fundamentals!“

*

sluggers book threeWe’ll be watching her blog to see when she includes one of our family’s favorite sports series — Barnstormers, by Phil Bildner and Loren Long.  The series has just been re-released as Sluggers, but the stories remain as enchanting as ever.  As always with me, it is the emotions behind the sport that hold the greatest appeal.  Long’s illustrations are so evocative of baseball’s golden age gone by…

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mom madness

06 Monday Apr 2009

Posted by Jane Bretl in Motherhood

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

basketball, man cave, March Madness, NCAA, tournament

Tonight is the final game of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tourney.  Oh, there’s been lots o’ b-ball watching in this house, especially in the man-cave.  It really doesn’t matter who is playing (since the Badgers were knocked out early); we watch virtually all the games anyway, at least in DVR’d speed watch.  I say “we” in a loose sense;  I wander through, bearing snacks, and watch a bit if it is close.  I’ll get sucked in to the experience.  There is such intensity and emotion at the collegiate level, joy and tears and arms linked together on the bench.  I love that part.

Professional sports just cannot compare.  The Professor’s opinion is that the NBA is less interesting because the players don’t make many mistakes;  the game just goes back and forth and back and forth.  I think it is because there is, naturally, less passion for the game.  Rare are the professionals in any field (or arena) that can maintain such a level of emotional intensity.  Their heads would explode after while.  They have to pace themselves for the long haul.  (The NBA season does eventually end, right?   Sometime in June?  When did that happen?)

Plus, in the NBA, their mom isn’t always watching.

I know that the NCAA March Madness games are filled with brilliant moments of athletic prowess, coaching strategy, and tetris-tight teamwork.  It is so exciting when the lead trades back and forth, and the crowd is cheering wildly in that rabid college-allegiance frenzy that reminds us why fan is short for fanatic.  I don’t get as caught up in the game itself, and certainly not in the outcome, as I do in the emotion.  For every spectacular play by the offense or the defense, I see the elation or defeat on the player’s face… and I think of this young man’s mom.  Or their step-mom, or aunt, or grandmother — whoever the woman is that loves this boy like a son, and watches his face while the game goes on all around him.  When there are 10 seconds left in a tie game and the player is at the free throw line, I just about go nuts thinking about how his mom must feel.  My heart is in my throat.  In a fun way.

I realize I may not be a typical sports fan.  I think most people care about how the game ends, and they remember who was the champion, and the final score.  I rarely remember any of those things, even though I had been watching the game very intently.  Perhaps my game score hard-drive is full with other important numbers like the birthdays of people in my 6th grade class.  I think that my interests lie in a different aspect of the game, the one that is the interplay between young people so full of dreams.  And their moms.

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Some days, it is hard to score

30 Friday Jan 2009

Posted by Jane Bretl in Motherhood, seasons

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Tags

basketball, ice, score

Sometimes, when it is hard to make a basket, it may just mean that the net is frozen.

it's the net, not the shot

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jane, candid

In 2009, I started this blog to share my sometimes thoughtful, sometimes funny, occasionally irreverent thoughts on motherhood, writing for publication and myriad creatures that got along as cats and dogs.

One day, I felt like stepping away from living out loud for awhile. Eh, life happens.

Fast forward five years -- I'll gloss over the details for now -- save to say that lucky for me an unexpected detour has provided some new material.

So here I am, standing at the corner. I've been here before, wondering which way to go. This time I choose living.

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