spynotes ::
  December 27, 2006
Double dribble

I am typing in a junior high gymnasium to the accompaniment of the bouncing of 53 basketballs. AJ is in basketball camp.

Camp started yesterday. It�s run by two women, former All-Americans who played professionally in Europe and then came back to teach kids. AJ�s session includes kids in kindergarten through fourth grade. The kindergartners are all boys. The fourth graders are all girls but one (we�re feeling sorry for the one) and the rest are a mix.

I was really happy to see a sports camp like this being run by women, not just because it brings out a larger percentage of girls, which it does, but because it�s great for boys to see women athletes in action and in positions of authority. The mainstream media would like you to think that women don�t play sports at all, unless they�re gliding around the ice in a frilly dress or pointing their toes gracefully on a balance beam.

AJ�s basketball coach is terrific and daddly. The camp coaches are terrific and professional. They treat the kids like, as Mr. Spy put it, �little jocks� and AJ loves it, loves being talked to like a real person, loves being taken seriously.

Today his friend from across the street came and they�re standing next to each other, looking like mirror images of one another. They are doing a drill where each member of the partnership has to dribble both basketballs at the same time. AJ is clutching his basketballs to his chest in his best Pamela Anderson imitation, trying to get the balls to line up and bounce evenly. It is a challenge when you are, at best, four balls tall.

[Three entries yesterday: click back if you missed them.]

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