Alexys

Basketball isn’t a full contact sport like, say, football but to go into a game thinking there will be no contact at all is just silly. Things happen. Players going after the same ball are bound to bump into each other. Everyone’s running at top speed. People trip and fall. Elbows, intentional or not, get thrown. Its part of the game…anybody who’s played knows that.

I mentioned a basketball tournament in an earlier post. My niece Alexys is on one of the teams. She’s only in 8th grade, but is pretty tall and has some good basketball skills. She played a game a couple days ago.

During her game, she and a player on the other team collided and the other lady fell down. She’s a little shorter than Alexys, but she’s 30 years old (she will be next week). Anyway, she wasn’t watching where she was going and she bumped Alexys and fell on her arm. Alexys immediately helped her up and told her she was sorry. The lady left the game and didn’t return. Now she’s got a cast on her arm because when she fell she broke her elbow. Remember…Alexys is in 8th grade…this lady is 30 yrs old.

I don’t know what she told her husband, but he goes up to Alexys yesterday and said, “See what you did to my wife?”

Alexys was crushed. She knew it wasn’t her fault. She knew she had already apologized but to have an adult come up to her and say something like that really stung. She’s playing again today. She almost didn’t. I hate confrontation but if I had been there I would have let him have it. How can you say something like that to a child? People get injured playing ball all the time. Granted, it’s usually a sprain or a pulled muscle rather than a broken bone, but you don’t blame someone else for your own clumsiness. He wasn’t at the game. Those of us who were saw the lady bump into Alexys. Neither one of them were looking at each other. Alexys was standing there playing defense and the lady just wasn’t watching where she was going. How is that Alexys’ fault?

I was so upset when she told me today. I wanted to hunt the guy down and give him a piece of my mind. I managed to talk her into playing her game today but it took a while. Now she's afraid to play hard. She doesn't want anyone else to get hurt and blame her. She loves the game and I really hope this doesn't ruin it for her. Geez, she's just a kid!