He’s up 20–19 when I drop in a baseline jumper. 21–20, me. Austin takes the ball out, starts to dribble. His handle is decent but I’m quicker, and I flick the ball away—all I have to do is grab it and go in for the layup, and this thing’s over. But the ball bounces off my shin and right back into his hands. I’m off-balance, which gives him the split second he needs. He spots up at the three-point line and lets it fly. It looks good leaving his hands. We watch the ball. It might go in and it might not. But either way, we both know two things.
One: At that moment, there’s no place we’d rather be.
And two: No matter who wins, we’re gonna go get ice cream.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Hi everyone, thanks for reading my book!
You may or may not have noticed that this is the second story I’ve written that takes place in the fictional town of Walthorne. The first, Game Changer, was inspired by my son Jack’s middle school and high school football career. For Rivals, I’ve moved on to my son Joe, who has always loved basketball, and who had a dad (me) who was willing to drive him all up and down the East Coast to various tournaments. Watching Joe playing basketball, like watching Jack playing football, provided me with a close-up look at all that is wonderful and worrying about kids and sports.
For Joe, the games were great, and the friendships that he forged will hopefully last a lifetime. But after a while it became clear that his basketball life was not just about playing games and making friends. It was about taking something that’s supposed to be fun and turning it into a job. And that’s what our youth sports culture has become. The pressure to win, to succeed, to be special, to use athletics to get ahead, has become more important than just going out there and running around, having a blast, and getting some exercise in the process. And the money it takes to succeed in this pressure-cooked environment—for specialized coaching, for elite teams, for travel—puts a particular burden on many lower-income children and families.
Whenever I do school visits, one of the first things I tell the kids is that there are two sides to every great story. And there are definitely two sides to this story. Teaching our kids to compete is great, but teaching them a win-at-all-cost attitude is not; the desire to excel is to be encouraged, but the immense pressure to be the best is not; giving our children the means to succeed is noble, but the uneven playing field caused by the massive cost involved is not.
A few years ago, I read about an initiative called “Don’t Retire, Kid.” Launched by The Aspen Institute’s Project Play in partnership with ESPN, the project was designed to convince the youth of America not to give up—and give up on—sports. Its message is simple: Remember when sports were fun? Let’s make them fun again. I think that’s a message worth sharing, which I’ve tried to do here.
I hope you enjoyed the book—now go out there and play!
Your pal,
Tommy G
For more information, I recommend visiting the following sites and articles:
www.aspenprojectplay.org/dont-retire-kid
www.aspenprojectplay.org/youth-sports-facts/challenges
www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/school-football-poverty.html
www.browndailyherald.com/2019/09/03/aman-20-time-make-youth-sports-fun
www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/whats-lost-when-only-rich-kids-play-sports/541317
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Let’s see how many sports clichés I can cram into one acknowledgments section:
Thank you to the brilliant Erica Finkel, who always comes through in the clutch. Erica, I’m not sure how much you know about sports, but you certainly know a tremendous amount about editing sports-themed books.
To everyone at Abrams, especially Emily Daluga, Jenny Choy, Brooke Shearehouse, Trish McNamara O’Neill, Melanie Chang, Megan Carlson, Jenn Jimenez, Marcie Lawrence, and Andrew Smith, you guys always knock it out of the park. I’m so grateful to be a part of your winning team.
Brianne Johnson and Allie Levick, the very definition of cool under pressure—thank you for bringing your A game every time out.
Thanks to my kids, Charlie, Joe, and Jack, and my niece Jessica and nephew Jake, for your excellent notes. The five of you constantly answered the bell, always stepped up to the plate, and never dropped the ball. Because of you, writing this book was a total layup.
And finally, to my wife, Cathy—you’re in a league of your own.
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