Growing up, sports was my world. When I was at home, I was thinking about sports. When I was at school, I was thinking about sports. When I was at my friend’s house, I was thinking about sports. Everything revolved around sports. I remember during the summer, my days became a pattern.
The mornings consisted of going to basketball camps. I went to different camps and learned how to perfect certain moves so that I could become a better basketball player. After each day at camp, they would send us home with different home drills so that we could practice at home. I remember going home and practicing on my outside basketball hoop and working on the moves that I had learned. Once I was tired of basketball for the day, I would eat a snack, and then go right back outside to play a different sport with my neighborhood friends. We played all sorts of sports and different games such as Wiffleball, Flag Football, Pickle or “Hotbox” (Referring to baseball when somebody gets stuck between two bases), and any other spinoff of a sport you can think of. After we were completely spent from being in the sun for a few hours, we would go inside and trade sports cards and read the “athlete spotlights” in ‘Sports Illustrated for Kids’. I was convinced that the more I knew about Jason Williams, the better chance I had to become as good of a passer as he was, or the more that I knew about Larry Fitzgerald, the better my routes would be and the better my hands would be. This usually went on for a couple hours until my mom would call asking me to come home because I had football practice. Football practice was like a dream. In my mind I was Reggie Bush breaking tackles and scoring touchdowns on the park field. In my mind I could hear the crowd going wild.
I was absolutely and completely consumed by sports.
However, the best part of the day happened at night when my dad would get home from work. I was always SO excited for him to be home so that I could drag him outside and show him the spin move that I had learned in basketball camp, or tell him about the athlete spotlight from Sports Illustrated and how they were similar to me, or run him through the juke move that I had at football practice where I made a kid fall and ended up scoring. He was always so interested in what I had to tell him or willing to play catch with me at home no matter how exhausting his day was. It always made me feel like I was the most important kid in the world.
When I think about my memories of playing sports while growing up, I think about the countless nights I spent playing sports at home with my dad. That relationship that we developed because of our connection through sports has turned into something much more than playing catch in the yard. Our relationship became much more than just a typical “Father-Son” relationship. He became one of my best friends. To this day, I still consider him to be one of my best friends.
HomeSports encourages the development of relationships between parents and their kids. I work here at HomeSports because I am a believer in the fact that sports is a way for parents to develop stronger relationships with their kids because I have watched my relationship with my dad grow and it all started with some sports in the backyard.
