A Little Off the Top: The spectators' spectator

Ethan Smith - Editor

Covering high school sports is one of the most fun aspects of this job. Yes, I'm there as a photographer and reporter, but it's hard to look at that as "work." Watching kids win or fall short — and how they handle that — is a study in personal development. I also experience vicariously the highs and lows of watching athletes win and lose.

However, watching how their parents handle that is sometimes just as interesting and even more entertaining. I'm a "people watcher." I'm just one of those people who sometimes will find myself in a crowded place — a mall, a restaurant or someplace similar — and just sit and watch other people.

Watching parents at sporting events is a sport all by itself. Some are very quiet, others are loud and boisterous. I've watched them cry and I've heard them shout plenty of words that we can't put in the paper. Most parents, of course, are well behaved and would never think of themselves as obnoxious, but you would be amazed at what an overtime period can do to a parent's sense of tact.

Growing up, I played soccer and basketball, and a little baseball and wrestling, and I was fortunate enough to have two parents who always took time out of their day to go to my games. I always took it for granted that at least one of them would be there, and 90 percent of the time, both would be there to cheer me on.

My mom used to have to almost leave the stands during overtime, not because she was yelling at the ref, but because her nerves couldn't handle it. She would clasp her hands over her mouth, and in a 2-2 soccer game that determined who was going to districts, or the first period of overtime in a basketball game, you would have thought she was going to have a heart attack.

Heck, now that I think about it, I wasn't nearly as pumped up during those games as she was. She'd be pulling her hair out by the time we went into sudden death.

My dad was also great about making it to my games. He'd take time off from work, even though he only got paid for the hours he worked, to travel two hours one way just to watch me play basketball. I was a starter, but I only scored two or four points a game. The coaches always played me because I had good hands, and was really good on defense, but I certainly wasn't the most exciting player out there.

I didn't score much at all. My highest scoring game of my career was eight points. Despite this, my dad once drove all the way to a rinky-dink gym in Charlestown, WV — about a three-hour round trip — to watch me play in a JV tournament. I hit the game-winning 3-pointer from about five feet behind the line with two seconds left on the clock, and my dad was one of about five parents from my school in the stands. It was only a JV game, but he made the effort to be there and got to see one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments.

I never really appreciated the sacrifice my parents made in terms of time, money for soccer cleats and high tops, and countless trips to the ice cream place afterwards, until I was much older. I just grew up expecting them to always be at my games.

I never got the chance to tell my mom "thanks" but my dad gets the paper — we have a subscriber in Virginia! — so he'll see this. Sorry, Dad, it's long overdue.

I grew up in the first generation where divorce was becoming really common, and in some respects, acceptable. Like the nationwide average, probably half my friends were from divorced homes.

Their parents would sit on opposite sides of the court, or call each other to see whose turn it was to attend, so they didn't have to be in the same room at the same time. I was naive — I took it for granted that having both parents come to your game and enjoy it was a normal part of growing up.

Unfortunately, for many of the students I watch that isn't the case. Sometimes I see a star athlete alone after the game, or with other students, instead of with Mom or Dad getting congratulations, and I wonder where his or her folks are. Sometimes I find out that their parents don't care about their involvement in sports, even when they are one of the best athletes out there, or that they can't lay off the bottle long enough to attend a game.

I don't go looking for this information, but sometimes it just comes my way. My heart goes out for those students who try hard and don't have anyone in their life who tells them "Great job" except their coach. We have a lot of wonderful coaches in this valley who are replacement parents for those kids who weren't as lucky as I was.

I've seen coaches buy athletic shoes and other equipment for some of their athletes with money out of their own pocket, either because the parent couldn't afford to or didn't care enough to do so. Some coaches routinely buy meals for students whose parents don't have the extra cash athletes bring with them on away games for the after-game stop at a restaurant on the ride home.

Yes, coaches get paid extra for that role, but if you saw the checks they get for the extra three months of work, and divided it by the number of hours they put it, it comes out to less than two bucks an hour. Trust me.

When I see the time and effort some of these coaches put in to being second parents for some of these kids, it really makes me appreciate what I had growing up. It's just that I didn't realize how good I had it back then.