As the teams lined up to do the obligatory handshakes after the game, her eyes were already welling up with tears. I stood at mid-court with my arms outstretched, but she was waving me off. She said she didn’t want a hug, but within seconds her head was buried in my chest as I walked her off the court. No one takes a loss like my daughter London. I like to joke that she hates losing more than she actually likes winning.

It reminds me of that scene in my favorite movie Love & Basketball when Monica first plays Quincy as a child and the game ends in them rolling around in the yard outside. She has that kind of dog in her. In her first season of playing basketball we learned that she’s a defensive specialist. Don’t ask her to score a lot of points. But what you can count on her to do is bring the high octane energy. She probably averaged at least 3 steals a game along with several rebounds, assists, and blocks (I say probably because no one kept track of these stats).

One lady came up to us after a game and told her, I always love to see you on the court, your style of play is so exciting! Think a young Dennis Rodman, but without all the phycological drama, though, to be fair, she did mention how her favorite part of the game is making other players frustrated. Despite being one of the smaller players on her team (she’s short but she’s stout with muscle), her coach always assigns her to the opposing team’s best player. During one of the games, she frustrated the other player, (who was at least a full head taller than her), so much so that the other girl threw the ball at the ref and earned a technical foul. I’ve never seen a tech called at a youth rec league game. That’s next level mind games, but that also speaks to how competitive London is. She plays to win and I love it.

So after every loss she took it hard, as if she let the team down with not playing her best. The fact of the matter is, the team just wasn’t’ that good. To be honest, they didn’t have any business making the playoffs, but here they were squeaking in by winning their last game of the season. And then they inexplicably won their first playoff game. Last night they were playing with house money, against the best team in their league and their luck finally ran out.

After waiting the obligatory time for her to cool down, as we drove home I asked London, so, how do feel about the season now that it’s over? Her immediate response was, I hate ending the season on a loss, and I hate that we lost by so much. It was like the team just gave up once we realized how much we were down by.

She’s not wrong. By the fourth quarter the game had pretty much collapsed and when the coach pulled the starting five, he told everyone to come off the court except London. She was the only one left playing hard. She still made the last few minutes of the game exciting initiating a few fast breaks and several steals, despite the game being out of reach by that point.

I told her the story of last year and how her older two sisters were a part of a JV volleyball team at school that lost every single game. It was the school’s first year of volleyball and it showed. They weren’t even close to compeititve. Despite that tough year, every player committed to growth in the off season, they did camps, joined traveling clubs, and they practiced on their game. The next season, not only did they come back better, but they made it within one game of the state championship in their playoffs. What a turnaround.

So, how do you want to handle this?

I want to work on my game, and I want to get better.

She never loses, she only learns. I can’t wait to see what next season brings.

SDW3