Pantser Panic

It's unlike me to prepare for anything, but I figured I should at least skim the coaching manual policies and playing rules a few hours before the first game. I accidentally read that after the end of each game the coaches get rated and that "disciplinary action may be warranted for multiple below average ratings."

Holy shit! I didn't know I was being tested. I can't even remember all my girls' names, let alone the rules. Am I going to be the first 3rd grade basketball coach to get fired from a volunteer gig after their first game?

See, my friends. This is why it doesn't pay to plan. When you just wing it, you don't have time for any sort of pantser panic to set in. Isn't that a great word? Pantser. As in, a person who does things by the seat of her pants. I recently read it and decided it describes the anxiety I experience when I try to plan things. I am a total pantser precisely because I'm an obsessive planner. I get too bogged down in worry and give up too easily if I plan things out. If I show up unprepared, I can blame my awful performance on my lack of preparation and just have fun.

But I guess when you're a supposedly responsible adult coaching your daughter's basketball team it's different. There are so many freaking rules.

 

Left: Becky, age 13, seventh grade. Right: Katie, age 8, third grade.

I don't remember there being many rules when I played on teams as a girl. I just remember running back and forth across the wooden floor, dribbling, and passing, and catching, and shooting and having a lot of fun. I thought that's what it's all about. Fun.

So what's my plan for the first game? I'm going to try to remember what it was like to be a girl on a team having fun so I can understand how my girls out on the court feel. It's about them. Not me. Not the parents. Not the officials. It's about them, and making them love to work together and have fun.