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Being Enough published in Women Today, November 1995 I am a mathematician, not a ball player. My sport of preference is swimming; moving with grace and finesse through the myopic, gentle underwater world. Yet, for most of the third decade of my life, prominently displayed on every bulletin board I worked under, was a picture of an anonymous nine year-old girl at bat. It moved with me from dorm to apartment to job - a yellowing newspaper close-up, the girl under the batter's helmet, bat poised, eyes focused, ready. I don't know her name, but she was my hero. Her gaze said: 'I am here and I am ready', and she was, all nine years of her. Whatever was pitched to her, she was ready to give it all she had; that was all, that was enough. She was no muscular superstar, no batting wizard; she was a nine year-old girl poised to hit the pitch. In my fourth decade, my own nine year-old daughter came to bat. Sitting on spring grass, I watched the game on lazy Saturday mornings with other parents, almost forgetting the photo until my daughter put on the batter's helmet, and gazed out, ready for the pitch. In my fifth decade, she entered high school sports. Now you must remember that my daughter is the daughter of a mathematician; her mother gets excited doing algebraic word problems that take an evening to solve. Distance freestyle is my idea of sport. My daughter, however, loves basketball and softball. I have taught her many things, but those two are not among them. The Bench She is good, and she works hard at it, but she's spent a lot of time on the bench. While blessed with many gifts, on this team of gifted athletes, she was third string. But blessings come in unexpected packages, and unexpected places. Shawn Prather, before being their coach, was himself a gifted athlete at Magruder High School, in both football and basketball. There are fifteen girls on his basketball team, ten occupying the bench, while five are on the floor. High school is a competetive time, and a predominant memory for all of us is that of being left out. In high school sports you get left out a lot. Your teammates get played more than you, and it seldom feels fair, and it never feels good, and it's hard to feel like a team when you wish so much to have what they have. I teach math. I love math. But it's come to my attention that this affection is not shared by everyone. Math has its own bench, and if you're not making it, you don't feel part of the game in math either. You struggle, you work hard, and you feel like everyone around you is faster, or more natural, or more able. And you struggle under the certainty that if you don't make it, they'll take you out of the game. "I try so hard, and the kids around me barely need to look at it and they get it, why can't I?", my students lament. It's hard not to be first string. In a world that praises the accomplishment and not the struggle, anything less doesn't seem worth much. When you're not a star, when you don't get to play much, when every second on the court is a thrill, you worry that if you make a mistake, you'll be taken out of the game. Everyone's watching, and everyone's better, and what you are isn't enough. The team Mr. Prather inherited lost 31 of their last 36 games. Winning isn't everything. But Mr. Prather hates to lose. "Don't like to lose," he tells his team, shaking his head. "Not a bit. Not one bit." He teaches his athletes how to shoot, how to maneuver past obstacles, how to use what they've got, rather like what I try to teach my math students. "You're not girls," he tells them. "You're basketball players." They don't play gentle, they don't play afraid. They don't play like girls vying for a spot on the coveted floor. They play like a team. How does it happen? How do fifteen girls on fifteen different journeys come together in plays so smooth, you hardly hear the motor hum? How does a man barely ten years out of high school have strength enough to let them borrow some, attention enough they don't need to compete for it, and kindness enough to make the path golden? Under a light that's bright enough, everyone shines. Third String When you're third string you count your playing time in seconds, and you're usually not put in the game until the end of the fourth quarter when the first and second string have built up a safe lead. But early in the season, Mr. Prather put his third string in the game near the end of the third quarter. Their faces and their posture showed the thrill, and showed the tension. Joy to be in, fear of being pulled out at the first mistake. The end-of-quarter buzzer sounded. Girls who were used to standing while the players sat, had their chance to sit while their teammates stood. An honor not lost on them. Each savored the moment, expecting to be replaced. But their coach talked about plays and he talked about strategies. As the seconds ticked down to the start of the last quarter, he made eye contact with each player, and told each what he expected, what he wanted, what they could do. He was putting them back in. In their almost inscrutable young faces, there seemed to be a disbelief, a question: 'us?' As if answering the unspoken question, Mr. Prather told them, "This is your quarter. You're not going anywhere. I'm not taking you out unless you want out. Signal me if you do." The buzzer sounded and they were back in. Like foals that have found the joy of moving on their legs, they stretched out into athletes. No one signaled out. Mr. Prather won that game. His fond memory of that season may be that they won 15 games and lost only 2. Mine was watching what can happen when the third string is told, you're enough, this is yours, take it, no one's taking you out, do what you can do. They did. |
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