OUR OWN COACH K

My daughter Emmy’s Gold Crown Basketball coach is a guy named Ernie Kois. He’s in his early forties, works full time and he and his wife Liz have four girls: Morgan, Maddie, Olivia and Lilly. during Ernie holds practice two nights a week for an hour and a half each (he often drives many of the girls home) during basketball season and then spends most of his Saturdays or Sundays driving to games (they’re usually 40 minutes away and played as doubleheaders with a one hour break). I’ve never seen Ernie yell at a kid or a ref. I’ve only seen him give the girls positive feedback and signs of encouragement. I’m a pretty competitive person when it comes to sports and I played for a city championship girls’ high school basketball team in Pittsburgh. We were very good and even though it was a zillion years ago, I find it difficult to sit in the stands sometimes and watch these girls dribble with their heads down or miss layups or their inability to leave the ground on a jump shot. I try to take deep, deep breathes when the sweet ones, with not an aggressive bone in their bodies, neglect to rebound or take an open shot. I have to admit it makes me a little crazy. But I just squirm silently and cheer loudly for the good stuff and keep the rest to myself because as a mom, it’s important to pretend you’ve evolved even when you’re painfully aware of your deeper nature. Also because I know these girls are doing their best.

But Ernie, he just encourages and sees the good. I call him Coach K because there was this one play before the half of a game in Highlands Ranch where our team had the ball with like four seconds on the clock and I think it was his daughter Olivia who passed the ball the length of the court (Olivia weighs like 60 pounds with her ski boots on) that was caught by Allie Scheifele who tossed up a three that hit nothing but net right at the halftime buzzer. It was a Duke play (I immediately thought of Christian Laettner) only more miraculous in my mind based on the size of our players and their probability at pulling it off. (A high scoring game for us is somewhere in the twenties). From then on, I have called him Coach K, because a) I think he deserves the same respect and b) in my heart, he so earned that play as a reward for all he does.

At one point after the burrito buffet at our End-Of-The-Year team party, Ernie was downstairs with all the girls, playing “Just Dance” on the Wii with assitant coach Megan (another one of those angels we parents run into if we’re lucky) and the girls were cracking up. It was a sight, watching him try to imitate dance moves, having fun, not worried about the ridiculousness of a middle-aged guy doing teenage dance moves. Later when Ernie adressed both kids and parents and gave each girl a certificate for her season, he talked about them one by one with much praise for the unique things they brought to the team and the court. He cried as least three times. Once when he talked about how honored he was to spend the time with them and be their coach, once when he talked about the values he hoped they were learning together and once when he talked about Taylor Collins and how much he loved having her on the team and how sad he was she was moving to Ohio. There may have been a fourth time but I don’t remember it specifically. I felt then, and I feel now, that I’m so lucky Emmy gets to have a coach like that. He nominated my daughter for a Student Athlete Award (see above) unbeknownst to us—it was about sportsmanship and game and academics— and when he called to tell us she had won he was as excited as if it had been his own kid.

I am very close with my girls and I often try to point out, in a real world way, why I think certain attributes are important. My daughters have a mother who is a crier—they tell me about something sad they learned in history class and I weep, I hear a brutal news story on the radio and I weep. I tell them about some reporting I’m working on about someone doing really good work in the world and I weep. So I was thrilled to have Ernie in my camp. “Coach ernie really cried a lot.” Emmy observed. “I know Em,” I say, “I think it’s really cool when men are able to feel things so deeply and not afraid to show their emotions.” I thought back to my own dad who was an amazingly wonderful guy and in his 71 years I remember him crying only three times. Once when his own father, who had been invalid for many years, passed away. Once when we were watching “Brian’s Song” for the first time, and once when he said goodbye to my aunt while he was dying from cancer.

I know I am happy that my daughter has already been exposed to the sight of grown men— wonderful, responsible, successful, grown men— crying and that she understands there’s nothing weak about it. I know she understands because one time we were talking about a girlfriend of mine who is a sweet soul, but has not had the best of luck with men and Em said: “Mom, so-and-so deserves an Ernie Kois.” This is a secretly joyous mother moment in which I speak matter of factly and continue to drive the van. “You’re right, Em, ” I say. “ And so do you. All good women deserve an Ernie Kois.”