Watching My Granddaughter's Soccer Game

This past Saturday I spent an hour watching my 7-year-old granddaughter play soccer. I try not to be one of the soccer grandpas, rooting too loudly for a game that's supposed to be fun--providing the little kids with excellent exercise plus the opportunity to learn sportsmanship and ball-handling skills.

It was a good game, and I noticed that my granddaughter played with greater focus and pleasure than she had last year. She looked like a real player, and had a couple of excellent passes, one of which went for a goal.

Only later did I wonder: Could such an event impact my addiction? Was I, at times, getting a high from the play, and not merely enjoying watching my granddaughter having a fine time with teammates on a sunny late summer morning?

Sports watching addiction is subtle. If you quit watching TV, it's there lurking on your desktop or in the newspaper or on radio.

I worried for a while--would the experience make me now want something "better," a quick look at the TV? That bad effect hasn't happened. I did overhear that the NFL season is about to begin. I hadn't thought about it all during the preseason. I was hardly aware that the preseason was even happening. Nor have I clue about the baseball races.

I am, in other words, quite free of the addiction, and that makes me think that I can safely watch my granddaughter's next game.

The Thrill of Playing Catch

When I was a kid, I was always amazed by big league outfielders who almost always caught a fly ball no matter how high it sailed. I never mastered that skill. In truth, I was always a bit afraid when a ball came at me during a softball or hardball game. No one ever taught me how to catch, and I was no natural.

Now, instead of focusing on big leaguers--whose skills still astound me--I'm spending time playing catch with my 7-year-old granddaughter. We started with a basketball, flipping it back and forth, just a few feet separating us. I noticed that she seemed a bit afraid of the ball, and would almost blink as it approached her. But after a while, her confidence grew. We then moved farther apart. Soon, she was routinely catching 10 in a row without dropping one.

Today, we switched to playing catch with a tennis ball. It's more of a challenge, giving the catcher a smaller target. I was surprised and delighted to see that my granddaughter's eye-hand coordination was vastly improved. She caught 20 balls without dropping, and some were off the mark (thanks to my limited throwing skills).

I am having so much more fun playing catch with this young woman--and seeing her rapid progress--than I ever did watching the more adept, really magnificent professionals. Not only that, my own ball-handling skills are finally improving!