First, I would like to make something perfectly clear. I have never done a cartwheel, naked, in front of the TV. But Chad's family thought for years that I had.
We'll get to that later.
My parents really liked sports. Particularly BYU sports and any game their child happened to be playing at the time. I would occasionally inwardly squirm at my mom's loud commentary on how she 'didn't know why the coach insists on playing that kid, he always misses his shots.' Or my Dad holding his eyeglasses up and hollering to the ref, "Need these?" But in a warped, "I've Become My Parents" twist, to my embarrassment, when watching my kids play ball, the Peppy Parent would come out and I'd find myself a-hollering.
Usually it wasn't at the refs. It was just a constant stream of Helpful Tips to the Team, as if they might forget to BOX OUT or play DEFENSE if I didn't yell it. (#you'rewelcome)
I have a difficult enough time remembering the appropriate order of things (Think First. Speak Second.) in normal day-to-day life. But when my kids were playing sports, it was worse than normal.
My sideline chatter often got me in trouble. One that I still feel bad about, years later, is that time when Chad filmed our daughter Aerin's high school basketball game. And gave a version to the coach WITH audio. I do not know what I said, but I must have had some less-than-Christlike-commentary, based upon the coldness that the coach and some of his parent friends exhibited afterwards. My weak excuse is that she was my first and I got better at not being an obnoxious parent with subsequent years and children. But still. It makes me sad that I said anything unkind, and I cannot laugh about it.
However, there are other incidents that we laugh a lot about, which have become part of our oft-repeated Family Lore.
Like the time I was watching Morgan play on a comp basketball team. We were in a high school gym that had the scoreboard made up of the red bulb lights. We were at a weird angle to the scoreboard, and it was difficult to see. At least that's the excuse I use to make myself feel a bit better.
At the end of the game, I looked at the scoreboard clock, and the time was running out. There were only 7 seconds remaining. Yet our team was just nonchalantly dribbling the ball down the court. Obviously they were not paying attention to the timeclock. In the Helpful Tips Fan Mode referenced above, I screamed at the top of my lungs, "SEVEN SECONDS!!!"
My daughter Aerin, who was sitting next to me, turned and said, exasperated, "Until What??!!" A few others in front of me turned and looked at me with curiousity.
It was at that point that Aerin showed me that there was something like 8 minutes and 7 seconds left. Not 7 seconds. And it was not even close to the end of the game. I'm not sure why I was so confused. Part of me wanted to yell an addendum like, "SEVEN SECONDS.....UNTIL YOU HAVE 8 MINUTES LEFT...... AND BY THE WAY, DON'T FORGET TO BOX OUT!"
But for once in my life I stayed quiet.
I was quite reverent, in fact, for the rest of that game. (#Reverencebeginswithme) (Except for when it doesn't.)
In another stellar Fan moment, I was watching Aerin play high school basketball. Our school, Lehi, was playing Grantsville. At the beginning of the game, when they lined up for the Tip Off, the dreaded Peppy Parent came out, and I yelled encouragingly, "ALRIGHT, LET'S GO ALTA!!!"
Alta is the high school I attended, something like 25 yrs earlier.
Apparently once a Hawk, always a Hawk.
Because I had picked a time for my outburst when the gym was relatively quiet, and then there was a slight delay in the jump ball, it kind of echoed throughout the gym. Lots of people seemed to hear it. There was a pregnant pause as people processed the fact that I was cheering for a team that was NOT actually playing this match. But then one by one, heads turned to look at me. It was like the wave, only with heads turning, row by row, up the bleachers to where I sat.
Had I been smart, I would have turned and looked behind me, at the idiot cheering for a random unrelated team. But I think I have already proved that my brain was not razor sharp that day.
After that, my kids often chose to sit with friends at the games. Or strangers. Or the opposite team. Or the opposite team's band. Just as long as it distanced them from their mom. (#sorrykids)
Chad is a big sports fan. Particularly football and basketball. He played football for a year in college. He's coached little league for all but 2 of the past 20 years. Chad is also a very FOCUSED person. I learned back in high school that it was not a good idea to try to have any sort of a conversation with him on Game Day. In college, I learned to not expect interaction for the entire week leading up to a game. And after we were married, I learned that the same passion and focus he had when he played was now just directed at watching the college football game on the TV screen.
Shortly after we were married, while poking fun at his obsession and laser focus, I told his family that when a college football game was on the TV, I could do a cartwheel naked and he would simply tell me that I was blocking the screen. I was speaking theoretically. It was an exaggeration, of course. At least I meant it to be. I never actually tested the theory.
Because I'm just not that good at cartwheels.
But his family took me literally. And for years, they thought I made a practice of cartwheeling around our tiny duplex buck naked. And that Chad simply took no notice. I think they were a bit disappointed when, years later, that little myth was cleared up. (Perhaps Chad was a little disappointed as well.)
Although whether he would have noticed or not is still up in the air.
However, my expectations for Chad's undivided attention have mellowed through the years. I try to keep the interruptions to a minimum when he's watching a big game. (Which in our world means 75 interruptions instead of 7500. #you'rewelcomedear)
And every so often, I'll join him on the couch to watch the big game. And to remind the football team to BOX OUT.
