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Spring 2011 : Fail
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Oregon Humanities: Spring 2011
A Losing Record
The Basketball Thunder were in trouble. Observing ten minutes of the first practice, I knew it was going to be a long, long season for my third-grade son and his teammates. Knew it when my son—a head smaller than other kids his age—somehow landed on the same team with the second shortest guy. Knew it when the town’s most irritating third grader also showed up and immediately began doing handstands when he wasn’t jabbing a teammate in the gut.
My fear—that the Basketball Thunder team would completely suck—was confirmed when the coach introduced herself: “I’m a high school math teacher, and I also have a lot of coaching experience,” she said. “Volleyball, track, softball, soccer: I’ve done it all.” Except basketball. And when she set up the first drill, teaching kids the wrong way to dribble, my first impulse was disbelief. The second: to jerk my kid out of the gym, find another team, another coach, maybe another sport.
I know a little—maybe a lot—about long basketball seasons. Twenty-five years ago, during my senior year in high school, I scored eighteen points in a record-breaking game. That night, driving home in my 1970 Ford Galaxie 500, I heard news about our win on KEX 1190, which announced that South Albany High School finally broke Oregon’s longest losing streak in scholastic sports. After seventy-four games, the South Albany girls had finally won. Those seventy-four losses spanned four years, from my freshman to my senior season. Few were close matches: 85–15, 60–22. I got used to losing by wide margins. But I didn’t get used to losing. After most games, I cried in my car, stopping the green Ford a few blocks from home to compose myself before facing the folks.
I never wanted to be a parent who worked out her athletic disappointments through her kids. But at my son’s first-ever basketball practice, I had the sinking feeling this was going to be one of those seasons. Again. My own success—or failure—depended on how much I could avoid making my own ignominious basketball history part of my son’s history, too.
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Oregon Humanities magazine examines topics of broad public interest from a variety of perspectives and approaches. Recent issues of this publication have focused on stuff, nostalgia, and civility. Through good and thoughtful writing, Oregon Humanities magazine enriches our understanding of important subjects and stimulates conversation and reflection among readers, their friends, families, colleagues, and neighbors.
Contributors
Amanda Waldroupe
Amanda Waldroupe is a freelance journalist living in Portland. Whenever she fails, she buckles down and tries, tries again.
Debra Gwartney
Debra Gwartney is the author of the 2009 memoir Live Through This, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Oregon Book Award, and the PNBA award. She is currently working on a memoir about growing up in the West and the heritage of Narcissa Whitman, a project for which she received a research grant from the American Antiquarian Society. Debra lives on the McKenzie River with her husband, Barry Lopez, and is on the nonfiction faculty at Pacific University.
John Holloran
John Holloran lives in Portland and teaches at Oregon Episcopal School, where he is the chair of the history department. His last essay for Oregon Humanities was “Under a Spell” (Summer 2009).
Kim Stafford
Kim Stafford is the founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College and author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, including The Muses Among Us: Elegant Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft. This essay is a section from his book-in-progress, 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do.
Kristy Athens
Kristy Athens’ nonfiction and short fiction have been published in a number of magazines, newspapers, and literary journals, most recently High Desert Journal, Eclectic Flash, Diverse Voices Quarterly, and Five Fishes Journal.
Matthew Stadler
Matthew Stadler is a writer and editor in Portland. He writes about cities and urbanism for journals including Volume, Netherlands Architecture Bulletin, Domus, and Camerawork. His book about urbanism, Deventer, is forthcoming from 010 Uitgevrij, in Rotterdam. In 2009 he cofounded Publication Studio (http://www.publicationstudio.biz) in Portland.
Sarah Gilbert
Sarah Gilbert is writing a book about mothers looking for emotional healing in food. In February, she decided to begin homeschooling her eldest son.
Susan Meyers
After growing up selling corndogs and cotton candy at carnivals up and down the West Coast, Susan Meyers extended her gypsy lifestyle by spending several years in Latin American before coming home to the Pacific Northwest. Her work has recently appeared in CALYX, Dogwood, Terra Incognita, and The Minnesota Review, and it has been the recipient of several awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship. She teaches writing at Oregon State University.
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