Sociality and Athletics

Working on some of those homeschool myths, I was bound and determined not to let our kids be “those” types of homeschoolers. I didn’t really know what to expect but both my wife and I are pretty outgoing, and although you wouldn’t know to look at me now, I was fairly athletic as a kid.

Even before we made this decision, I made it a point to ensure our kids had athletic skills. I made sure very early that they could throw and catch a ball and swing a bat. If you know me, you also know I love football (EAGLES ARE SUPERBOWL LII CHAMPS WOO HOO!!) so I also made sure they could throw and catch a football. Josh had a pretty good throwing arm and Seth liked to run with the ball and bowl people over. When they were young, up until right after puberty, the kids were pretty chubby, but we never let that be an issue. Seth even nicknamed himself “Minivan”. He wanted to be"The Bus", but that was already taken. A couple years later one of his baseball coaches came to me during a game. Seth had just stolen a base and he couldn’t believe how fast he could run. He said that Seth was “deceivingly fast” for someone his size. Once he got those feet moving there was no stopping him. They both were pretty quick, but were more of the, “get out of my way or else”, kind of runners.

I kind of viewed social activity and sports in the same arena. However, we did go to cub scouts for a few years and they made some friends there. We also belonged to a synagogue and they went to religious school either during the week or on Sundays depending on the grade. I also became involved with the youth activities committee for the 3rd and 4th as well as the 5th and 6th graders. I coordinated outings like bowling, mini-golf, game nights, and other stuff like that a couple times a year so all of the kids could have some social time away from school in general.

My wife was a teacher’s aide at the synagogue for about four years. She ended up being more of a special needs aide for those students who needed one. Yes, my Christian wife was teaching and learning hebrew and all the prayers. She already knew more about Judaism than most of my Jewish friends! One year Josh’s class had a writing assignment. I don’t remember what it was about but he wrote something about one of his parents not being Jewish. Of course the teachers knew both my wife and I, and in fact my wife was an aide in one of those classes. The teacher went up to Josh after reading his assignment to ask which of his parents wasn’t Jewish! She had no idea! And no, it didn’t matter, she was just surprised that it never came up.

Josh seemed to have a little tougher time making good friends. It’s not that he wasn’t social, on the contrary, he would say hello and goodbye to everyone and sometimes could be quite the chatterbox. When he was little and we took him food shopping with us, he would greet everyone walking by us with a big “Hiya!”. Josh always had this maturity about him. I swear he came out of the womb talking full sentences. Even during family get togethers he would rather sit and talk with the adults before he would go play with the kids. I just don’t think all of the other kids either in kindergarten or religious school knew how to take him. The teachers were pretty fond of both of the kids. They were always well mannered and behaved like little men.

We did what we could to socialize them. We didn’t restrict them from going outside to play with the neighborhood kids. At one point our backyard was the place to be. We had a big wooden playset, a trampoline, and a 12 x 24 oval shaped above ground pool. They even found a way to play trampoline football or practice wrestling moves. They were your typical go for it all, no fear, sweaty smelly little boys. It was awesome to watch!

Of course with the homeschooling came some bullying from the other kids. I think it bothered Josh more than it did Seth. Even when they were out playing for a while Josh would sometimes just come in the house to do something else. I would ask if things were ok, and they were. I think he just had “enough” for the day. I wasn’t fond of most of the kids in the neighborhood as I wrote previously, but this is where we were and those were the neighborhood kids.

The local high school had a half day community summer sports camp for about 7 weeks. Both boys went there and made friends as well. They got to put their athletic skills to work and also learned to play basketball and tennis racket baseball. They seemed to have a good time and went for a few years.

We even got into this flag football league at one of the indoor sports centers. Sometimes we had to get up at 5:30 AM on a Saturday morning for 7 AM games. I was NOT happy about that, but they wanted to play so we made it happen. The first day there I checked us in at the front desk. There were some games going on so we had to wait a bit. After about 15 minutes, the guy behind the desk asked me to take a pile of our team Jerseys over by the coach in the arena. He said I should give them out to the kids as they came in. I thought nothing of it and said sure, no problem.

As I got to the other coach, he asked me if I was the coach of the team coming in. “Um. . . .I thought you were the coach, I’m just here to hand out the jerseys”. He said he was coaching the team on the field and no one was sure about our team. As the new team members came in, and I was handing out the jerseys, parents would ask if I was the coach. I had this sudden sinking feeling that I had just been “voluntold” to be the team’s coach.

I went back to the desk and said to the guy, “Did I just sort of volunteer to be the coach by taking the shirts over there?” He just looked at me and laughed, “yup”. So there I was, no idea what i was doing. To add to that, it looked like all the other teams were pretty organized and the kids knew each other. Our team consisted of the “new guys”. Seemed to be the guys that signed up late and didn’t get drafted. We did our best that season. Some of the guys brought friends with them some weeks so we had some ringers, but we didn’t win a game. We came close and were actually getting better as the season wore on.

Two of my favorite memories are from our one season of flag football. One of our early games Josh was playing QB. Now mind you, he and Seth had been practicing plays together in front of our house so this wasn’t exactly new to them. Josh takes the snap and drops back. He runs around a little to avoid getting sacked. Seth is running a post pattern. . . . .ok, he was just going deep and trying to get open. Josh sees Seth in the end zone and throws this beautifully placed, 20-30 yard rainbow. A perfect spiral, and Seth catches it for a TD. It was awesome!!

The second was more a whole game experience rather than a play. I think it was our last game of the season and the guys we were playing were huge, they towered over our players. Seth went on defense and got lined up against their tallest wide receiver. He stuck to him like glue! Even though there was like a foot difference in height, Seth kept that kid so covered, I don’t think he caught any passes all game!

I was so proud of both of them, and we did have fun, but that was the end of my flag football coaching career!