Excellence Unexpected...

I can never manage to get in bed at the right time these days, leaving me hollow-eyed and forgetful during the miles of days. At 4:00 am, sometimes, I lie awake, listen to the fan whirling and wonder about the past and future. I don't have any time to navel gaze in the here and now. Life rushes by like flood water and I am strangely glad to allow my significant others to claim the moments not occupied by work.

Supper done tonight, Ann has decided to learn to play soccer...in the house. Dexter, my little dog, is afraid of the big, bad soccer ball and cowers under whatever cover he can find. He shivers behind my computer, under my feet and at the bathroom corner beside the toilet. I have told and told Ann not to play ball in the house. But she is, at her core, a student of games involving balls, teamwork and life complexity. In the end, I cannot judge her too harshly. She is myself made over, just a little taller. I just don't want my damn lamps broken.

The kid is daring and a bit out of control but at least she knows better, in her heart, than to kick that soccer ball near my computers. Imagine this missive scribed to the beat of a substantial black and white ball pounding rhythmically against the concrete walls of our home, a room away from where I sit. Yes, I tell her, I have seen girls pick up a soccer ball with their feet and bounce it on their heads. I have seen said girls make goals. And yes, they are big heroes.

But we cannot do everything and we cannot be everything. Pick your battles.

As she goes, so do I. That is the nature of being a parent, this time around. My daddy took me aside last weekend and reminded me that, until I learned to be my adult self, he attended every self-defining moment that I engaged in. And so I shall, if only to remind myself of who I am.

Home runs now firmly established in softball, we are easing back into basketball, if only because she says she would surrender everything to play that game. School will be out in three days and, other than scheduled encounters at camps with the Baptists and the Methodists, the month of June has not a free day, because of basketball.

In a hot gym on Sunday, we began our private quest with me as the coach of a small, hand-selected group of kids that could be great or could end up just almost there. I pondered Ann's game against a junior high post two inches taller than her. Ann can't shoot quite like the big girl but she can handle a basketball better. I wondered for a minute if a life's work was at stake, reminding myself that roundball is truly only a game. I don't know who will play post. I will decide that next week.

Life is sport, right?

But maybe not. Despite my obsession with competition, I have always managed to stress my own work and my children's grades and community service. I will admit that sometimes stuff gets lost between the pitching and catching, the shooting and dribbling and running the hurdles. When math homework has to be done, I worry about it. Otherwise, I try not to think about it.

I was caught up in just such a conundrum today, balancing statistics, probability, mileage and actualities against the physical realities of life. No way to avoid a meeting with the Advocate General at near 10:00 am even though I needed to leave to return to Ann's final elementary awards assembly by 12:30.

I was sweating the speed limit to get there, knowing which cops to tempt and which to give a straight 55 mph on the narrow road that runs the last 15 miles home. Despite my worries, I arrived at the auditorium a full ten minutes early and, for once, it was the permanent record that was running late and not me. The hall was echoing quiet and half-empty and I had my choice of seats for myself and my parents.

I was a bit surprised when Ann's preacher and half the old-time community showed up to fill the rows beside and behind me. For all I knew, my kid was going to get a reading award and maybe another certificate for making all A's (the math grade came up, you see).

Our small high school has little to offer. But our elementary (here in Oklahoma, we count elementary as pre-K and special needs through sixth grade) consistently tests in the top ten in primary education systems in the United States. That's what you get when the community's best and brightest (and every female All-State basketball player we've ever produced) gets a local teaching certificate, marries a farmer with potential and settles into the community "until death do us part." The basic education is rock-solid.

It apparently benefited my kid. After the reading award was bestowed, along with the lone certificate in her class for Superintendent's Honor Roll (like I said, the math grade came up), Ann and a similarly tall young man who met her for the first time at her third birthday party, were called back up to the stage. Only about four minutes before this had my mother told me why the elders were gathered around me. Hell, I thought it was because they didn't have anything else to do.

But then..."In recognition for performance and outstanding achievement throughout the year; having shown us all that Excellence is not a single act but a habit," the Alex Public School system presented to Annie Beth Davenport the award for Student of the Year.

The Methodist preacher out-bellowed the Baptist clergy. My grandfather started the standing ovation. Having been seriously reprimanded for yelling when Ann won the long jump in one incredible leap at the last track meet, I was as silent as she wanted me to be. After all, I had four minutes of warning about the award.

Having my camera pretty much always at hand, I photographed the chosen children. Ann was required to press the flesh afterwards and I laughed to myself at the following exchange.

"So is your name Ann or Annie?" the doofus principal asked. "And I didn't know your middle name was Beth."

"My name is Ann Beth," my kid responded. "I'm named after my mom's basketball team."

Excellence, even unexpected, is always honored.