The Big One

This past weekend ended up feeling like a very unorthodox weekend.  It was a full couple days but it was far from a normal one, so the usual weekend routines never happened.  I got to Monday and sort of felt like I missed something! 

We were set to get hit with a storm Friday night into Saturday.  That looked to complicate a number of things, including Jacob's sectional final game, Craig's travel to Canada for a Knighthawks game, my travel to Buffalo for a baby shower, and my parents' travel to Rochester for Jacob's game and coverage for my baby shower absence, since Carter had a game on Saturday.  Well, due to the forecasted storm, Section V rescheduled all of the Friday games to Sunday as of Wednesday, so we knew that took Friday's mess off the table.  I felt a little better about that, but the rest of the weekend felt very precarious and wouldn't really be settled until about an hour after I woke up on Saturday and could determine if both my parents and I could shovel out and safely drive on the Thruway in both directions...and even then there were still a couple things to work through!

The snow started around dinner time on Friday.  Craig left around 7pm to meet his colleagues at the park-and-ride for the trip up to Hamilton, which ended up being longer than usual.  I stayed up until 11pm watching the snow and then headed out to shovel.  I wanted to wait as long as possible to do one full shoveling session to give myself a little bit of a break in the morning.  The forecast had been all over the map, looking as high as 15 inches and as low as three.  There was a lot of question on rain vs. sleet vs. snow, but it seemed like the northern counties (which included us and my parents) would get the worst of it.  I was worried about my ability to shovel given my tennis elbow issues--which are better overall but finicky--and to some degree how much my heart rate seems to elevate with activity and stress these days.  I'm watching it closely, trust me, but a bunch of snow I had to shovel myself (because of the timing and not wanting to somehow injure Jacob right before his big game) did not seem ideal.  When I got outside, there were a couple inches, but it became apparent very quickly that the bottom layer was a heavy slush.  It was so hard to shovel.  It cleaned up nicely, mind you, but you couldn't push it much, so it meant a lot of individual full, heavy shovel-fulls.  It was also really windy and I was keeping an eye out because we had quite the moment of thundersnow earlier in the evening--a quick flash and a loud, long crack of thunder.  I was out about an hour, but only about five minutes in, I noticed it got darker.  At first I thought it was just our temperamental street light, which did go out, but then I realized the entire house was dark, and I definitely left lights on inside and out!  Ugh, power outage.  Just what we didn't need.  Oddly, across the street was still on and fine, but I could tell our side (which we know is on a separate line) was darker.  I cleared the driveway, came back in, retrieved the flashlight, and checked the internet to see if our outage had an estimate or if there was a new snow prediction through the morning.  Thank goodness for cellular data since the WiFi was down.  And thank goodness the outage was when we all just needed to be sleeping, warm in our beds, not needing the refrigerator or anything for another seven hours.  The initial prediction was 2:15am, but it came back on around 4am--I remembered to turn off every light switch in the house except for the one in my room, so it woke me up immediately.  

My alarm went off at 7am, and it was back out to shovel again.  It was clear we had gotten more snow, but it didn't look too crazy.  Sure enough, two more heavy, wet inches, but this time with the extra wet slush mess the plow left behind.  Another hour of shoveling and the driveway was clear.  I confirmed the Thruway looked okay--still a bit snowy but only wet roads, from all I could tell on the cameras--so I got myself ready, left the kids with instructions leading up to my parents' early afternoon arrival, and left for the 11am shower in Buffalo.  The drive was uneventful--a couple slick spots en route to the highway, but fine after that despite a constant light snow.  Just as I got to the shower, my parents were leaving for my house!  The shower was lovely--great to see a bunch of Craig's family and exciting to celebrate his cousin's impending first baby!  One sad moment was seeing Craig's cousin Matt, who's a Buffalo firefighter, because they lost a young firefighter in a big fire this week and it turned out he knew him.  So tragic.  I headed home while getting text updates from Jacob on Carter's basketball game--another loss, boo.  Two games left, so I hope they can pull one out.

My parents decided to stay overnight again in Rochester for Jacob's game.  That was the plan originally when we found out he was playing Friday and they were already coming Saturday, but we weren't sure once the game got moved and the weather was funky.  Originally my dad wanted to sing in church on Sunday, but in the end they decided to stay over, and at our house this time despite less-than-ideal guest sleeping arrangements.  They were probably more optimistic about it than I was, and I tried to give them options, but it was their choice!  We grabbed Jersey Mike's for dinner, Carter and I played some Mario Kart, and we started heading off to bed because Jacob had a game and Craig would be getting home at around 2am.

Despite the late arrival, Craig and Jacob were out the door by 8:45 for training, my parents watched their church online, and I got ready so I could run to Wegmans.  I started to cook pulled pork in the instant pot when I got home, then baked some banana-oat-peanut butter-M&M cookies while I waited.  Just as the pork got done, Craig and Jacob left for the game.  They never eat before anyway, so it was fine.  We very much enjoyed our pork and some last leftovers from last weekend's birthday party, then headed out.

It took a while to find parking and get into the arena, but we got there just in time to see the postgame festivities from the game before us.  It was a very nervewracking half hour or so, just waiting for our game and hoping it was us on the winning side of the next ceremony.  As I sat there I pondered my history in that arena--meeting Craig, starting my career, watching big games and a couple championship games--and now adding watching my son's big game to the mix.  It's pretty amazing when you think about it.  Even funnier was that our wedding DJ, a former Amerks PA announcer who has done work for Section V for nearly 40 years, was sitting at the scorer's table across the way. 

They did the anthem and a ceremonial handshake...

And then it was time to play!  We ended up getting out to a nice little lead.  It was a close game but we were making nice progress.  Jacob missed a couple threes in the first half, unfortunately, but I thought the rest of his play was solid.  I took about the worst action shot ever once Jacob got into the game.  I promise he didn't drop the ball, I just managed to get it at the exact second it bounced on the floor.

Since my skills are clearly lacking, here are a couple more cool pics that his school posted from the game:

We took a nine-point lead into halftime.  It seemed doable but we had lost bigger leads, so it was still scary.  Andrew, our senior captain, took control of the second half, and at one point we had an 18-point lead!  But Avon slowly but surely crawled back.  We've seen that before, and were hoping the coach reacted more quickly.  Jacob did make it back into the game but missed a foul shot late, which was a bummer, but in the end, we won by eight!  Section V C-1 Champs!

Jacob ended up with an assist and a rebound.  Not what he wanted for sure, but seeing them win was a great moment.

Getting the trophy

Jacob getting his goodie bag 

There were a number of awards and plaques presented, and imagine our surprise when Jacob was named the winner of the sportsmanship award!  It's essentially used as a sixth man award, and it was a nice gesture that he received that considering the season he'd had.  He's still frustrated that he lost his spot as a starter, but Jacob definitely contributed to this team and he should be proud.

The presentation from behind

How it looked from the front, as posted by the school

It was a big honor for an 8th grader to get that, and we were so thrilled for him and very proud.  If that wasn't cool enough, Andrew got the MVP award, which was a great way to end his sectional career.  It felt so appropriate and I know it made his parents happy as well.  He's not moving on to college--he can work for his dad--so this really was his big moment.  Still not his last game, as we had to move on to a state regional game now, but probably his last great moment as the next one is going to be...challenging at best.

Andrew with a net on his neck (they gave each team one rather than have them cut down) and getting his MVP award

Postgame was a little awkward as families couldn't get on the floor for any team pictures (although Craig did since he had an arena pass) but the one social media group that heavily covers Rochester high school sports sort of took over that experience.  In the end we got shooed out of the arena and had to meet them out on the street where the professional players usually exit.  

The second we ran into Jacob, he said something about wanting to go work out.  At first I thought maybe he was just bummed about missing shots, but it became clear there was a lot more going on, and his experience was nothing like the jubilant teammates he left behind.  Being a parent in a situation like this felt really, really hard.  You're expecting a happy kid and yet you have one that isn't enjoying the experience at all.  On one hand we get it, on the other we were pleading with him to try to put his issues aside for a few minutes and appreciate the moment.  He may never get to this point again.  The team is losing its best player and there's a chance another player or two might leave, but there aren't really a lot of talented players waiting to take their spots.  To be a sectional champion as an 8th grader, let alone to win an award in the process, is something special.  But he doesn't like how the win sort of validates his coach--who, to be clear, is not very good and has mishandled a lot this season--and leaves him out of the mix a bit.  It's not so much that he wants the glory (although he would probably enjoy it) but more that it frustrates him to see other people who may be less deserving--be it due to skill, effort, or the coach's misconceptions--succeed.  He knows he works harder than anyone else on the team, and he feels slighted that the coach can't see that.  He does everything that is asked of him and demonstrates stronger play than other people, but the coach continues to believe he can't play defense or takes him out after a single mistake, even though his teammates can make countless ones and stay in the game.  It seems everyone else except the coach sees his potential (and his current skill), so it's hard to understand why he continues to not play much.  I think sometimes the coach writes him off as an 8th grader, that he has time to develop and doesn't need to push it, but Jacob wants more.  He wants to be challenged, he wants the chance to succeed, and he actually understands the game better than maybe anyone else.  He just wants some respect and this coach doesn't seem willing to give it to him.  So to see the success, to see the bad habits and decisions still allow for a sectional title, I think he finds it all a little disappointing.  He knows he has bigger fish to fry this spring, so he's mostly just ready to move on, but that's not happening just yet.  They play again tonight in the state regional play down.  The odds of them winning are slim to none because the team they're playing averages about 20 more points per game and only lost once this year, to one of the few teams ranked ahead of them in the state.  Jacob is hoping that it's enough of a blowout that he will get to play, and maybe his three-pointers will be called upon to make it a closer game.  I think he's also hoping his coach's shortcomings will be exposed, because he thinks it's one of the only ways they'll actually get better.  I honestly hope that things do work out to give Jacob a chance to show what he can do, because more than likely they will need to use him next year if they want to have much offense.  Might as well start laying that groundwork now to get the coach thinking about it in the offseason.  

 

Either way, it's hard to believe this first season is almost over, but what a ride it was.  Lots of ups and downs, and sure, we wish things would have gone a bit more smoothly along the way.  But I hope someday Jacob realizes how special this was, and I hope he gets another chance to experience it, but gets to be a bigger part of it.  But first things first, one more game tonight.  It should be a tough game, but we'll see. At least we know that win or lose, Jacob has something good waiting for him on the other side.