Dear UCONN Huskies and STANFORD Cardinals...THANK YOU!



Maya Moore celebrating another victory.
 I cried when UCONN hit the 89 games in a row win mark and broke UCLA's NCAA record.  As my post "Sports Addiction", revealed, I stopped playing basketball when I blew first one, then my other knee out.  But you know, it was much more than that, that made quitting easy.  Although the streak ended at 90 with the Lady Cardinals taking them to the hoop, it is great!

I was so proud of the Lady Huskies because finally there was proof that girls can do anything!  Wooohoooo!!! And that's for all those who have chauvinistic opinions!  Physical limitations will never stop you.  It is those psychological/emotional limitations that keep you from doing whatever you want!

Bare with me now, because tears are literally cascading down my face as I write this. I picked up a basketball for the first time, when the ball was almost bigger than me.  The thing is, the mere act of picking it up had the function of endowing in me the spirit that I can do anything. 

That spirit was reinforced every time my uncle would pick me up and hold me over his head and let me shoot.  It was reinforced when the boys in the neighborhood would let me play a game with them, although I was just a little kid and they were all in junior or high school.  I could barely run and dribble at the same time...from the age of 3 to 5. But they'd let me go and cheer me on!

They never told me that because I was a girl I was less than, weaker, or not as significant as they were as boys.  Not once did they treat me as anything less than wonderful and equal to them.  I wasn't told that girls couldn't do this or do that.  They cheered me on and made me feel like I could do anything in the world. And still be such a pretty little girl, at the same time.

Now my dad didn't know about much of this because we didn't live in the same house until I was about six years old.  He had more traditional opinions about what women should and shouldn't do.  Though he was a little balanced in it because he wouldn't stop me from playing ball.  He later became my coach when I played in church leagues.

However, his enthusiasm was not there. AT ALL. He always challenged me by saying what girls should and shouldn't do.  What girls were incapable of doing.  Very confusing for me because that's not what was initially instilled in my spirit.  It began to make me angry.  Tear away at my self esteem.  Especially devastating was that he rarely came to any of my games.

I asked him why and he said girls games were boring.  Another blow to my fragile spirit.  And a complete contrast to the support I received from other guys.  The guys on the boys teams were always cheering and going hard for me and my teammates on the girls teams.  We worked out just as hard as them.  Nature may not have given us equal ability, but that didn't take away our equal effort and equal results.

I couldn't out leap the guy with the best vertical on the boys' team.  But I could leap.  I couldn't dunk a ball.  But I could block shots.  And when I did, the results were met with as much celebration as when one of the boys dunked.  But my dad was not there to see it.  He and I had other issues too, so trust me it wasn't all about not showing up at basketball games. But I'm not going to talk about those here.

Here's the thing that parents should understand.  Your interactions with your children matter more than you could ever imagine.  Something that seems insignificant to you, means the world to them.  Because I felt so deserted by my dad not being at my games or practices like the dads of SOME (and I do say SOME of my teammates...because a few of them had the same issues as me!), I became angry.

I used to fight...I was like the female Rasheed Wallace! LOL.  Started getting thrown out of games. It was almost expected that I would not make it to the end of a game.  And it was much worse.  Because of many strains on the relationship between me and my father, I also stopped eating.  I didn't tell anyone.  But I would eat a bag of cheese balls and a nutty bar from the vending machine at lunch, and then go practice for 2+ hours and not eat dinner because I was "too tired".  So for months I lived on virtually no calories a day? Seriously...I didn't eat breakfast or dinner...and that was my lunch.  I dropped so much weight my mom got terrified... But I got mixed messages, I remember a nurse coming to school to check our spines for scoliosis (sp?) and she said I should model (and I eventually did for a short time...).

And the funny thing is, my dad sent me conflicting messages as well. He always told me to believe I could do anything and do it. "I can't ain't ever done nothing," was his mantra!  But he didn't support everything I did.  And it broke my heart and broke my spirit.  Now I can tell y'all this because he and I have had this conversation.  He didn't realize the impact it had on me.  And I didn't realize how difficult it is to be a parent. I was his first daughter.  He didn't really know exactly how to parent a daughter. 

He just didn't know.  It took a number of arguments and heartfelt talks and tears (mine and his) for us to heal our daddy-daughter issues.  My dad and I talk very frequently.  We talk about sports, spirituality, the guys I date (he isn't pressuring me to hurry up and find someone...he says he's not worried, when it's time it will be time! LMBO).

He supports everything I do.  He gets excited when I go on radio shows or if I tell him I'm hosting a panel.  He checks on the progress with my book.  He won't be upset that I shared this with you because we are good and it is a testimony.  Our time of strife was washed away through conversations and transparency. AND FORGIVENESS. Too many are afraid to ever reveal their true feelings, so they walk around bitter and hurt all their lives.  Nothing could be more destructive.

See many of us suffer with our issues in silence.  As insignificant as you may think that UCONN streak is because as this guy on ESPN just said "they didn't beat a single men's team," it means the world to someone. (side note: Did that UCLA men's team beat any women's teams? I'm just sayin! LOL).  And it may be that one thing to break the ice and heal some deep wounds.  It allowed me to write this post, didn't it? :)

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