Colby makes a basket. Or three.

I'm not sure when my nephew became old enough to be on a basketball team. In my head he is still a little boy. He plays in a league that is named Upwards. Upwards does an amazing job of taking a wide variety of little kiddos and plugging them into the most non-competitive sporting event I've seen. There were basketball teams and cheer leading squads. The cheer leaders just stayed at one end of the gym and cheered their little hearts out for no one in particular. They aren't assigned a team to cheer for, they just cheer.

Sadly, even at this age you can already see who should and who shouldn't be encouraged to pursue sports :-) There is plenty of time later for real life. Right now these kidlets get to cut their teeth in the world of sports in a very positive environment.

Props go out to the referees. They are the real heroes of the day. Quite a bit gets overlooked and they have the the tricky job of being part coach, part encourager, part cheer leader, part rule enforcer, part "point the kid in the right direction". They have to decide that perfect balance of when to enforce the rules and when to let a struggling player "bend" the rules a bit. I'm too rule oriented. I'd have all those little squirts crying because I'd have to call every infraction I see :-)

Colby's team ended up with 18 points, 6 of which were from Colby. On the first basket he had a tiny celebration, looked towards Jami and I to make sure we noticed and went right back to playing. When the second basket went in his arms went up. You could see the joy on his face, and he again looked over to make sure his people were cheering. After the third basket his arms went up again, but as they came down he struck a pose that looked something like this as he looked over to make sure we were celebrating with him (not exactly, but this is the closest picture I have):

On the way home from the game he got to hear what the term "show boating" means. And that sometimes when professionals do it they have to pay a lot of money to the league. Thankfully young Mr. Murray didn't resort to this level of celebrating:

Colby had one other quirk that we discovered while watching him. Colby loves people. He doesn't know a stranger. If you are near him, he'll talk to you. If you are playing on the playground, he'll join you. If you listen, he'll tell you all about whatever movie he watched or book he read. If you fall down on the basketball court, he'll stop to make sure you are OK and help you up--whether you are on his team or not. It was so sweet to watch. Mr. People Person in action without regard to the competition going on around him.

Colby had a huge advantage on the court. He was one of the tallest out there. At this age their heights are all over the place. He looked like this compared to a lot of his team mates:





His team didn't win, but as far as I was concerned it didn't matter. He played well. He was confident, coordinated and cared about his fellow teammates. I love being his aunt.