Just Do It.
Yes, I used one of the most cliched, ad-driven slogans of our modern era.
Sue me. (cliche alert)
But sometimes, a cliche or a slogan to sell shoes is exactly what you need to hear at the exact right moment.
This was definitely the case earlier this month, when the Burgins Brats played in the Nike 3-on-3 in Los Angeles.
No, this year dad was not trying to turn back the hands of time. He was coaching the next generation: AJ and his buddies, Chase, Shy and Zion. Mom provided them with their awesome T-shirts.
To be honest, coming into the tournament I wasn’t too bullish on their chances.
AJ, who was playing against 10 and 11 year olds, and a couple of the guys had played in an earlier tournament in San Diego and had taken their lumps. And given that this was a much bigger tournament, drawing teams from as far as Sacramento, I figured that we might be in for a long weekend.
But, you never tell that to your kids.
Saturday validated those concerns. The team faced off against a pair of teams from a club basketball program in Camarillo. These kids had been playing together all summer. AJ and his friends practiced twice for the tournament.
It showed. Burgins Brats lost the first game 18-10. In the second game, the team started to round into form. Chase, whose game reminds me a lot of Ben Gordon - he can score pretty much at will - kept us close with threes, and we even had a lead, 9-8.
But things slowly started to unravel. AJ couldn’t defend. The team couldn’t rebound. Chase got gassed. We lost 17-11.
0-2 after the first day, one loss away from elimination. Confidence? Not much handy.
But kids, you know, they’re resilient. They’re like the ant who you try to stomp a couple of times, and it finds a way to stagger itself to safety. They were bruised, but definitely not broken.
But what really boosted their confidence was the dunk contest.
Sitting close to the front row, the kids were oohing and ahhing at all of the slam dunks, which I must say were very impressive. Then, out of nowhere, one of the contestants walks up to them. He asks them a few questions, and the next thing I know, they are walking onto center court, standing under the rim.
This guy is about to dunk over my child. Oh crap.
Please don’t kick him in the back of the head.
Oh crap.
Oh CRAP!
YEAH!!!!!
Air Dog, as his name turned out to be, actually pulled off a nice dunk. He jumped over my kids, caught a lob pass, and stuffed the ball - and elbow - through the rim. You could tell it wasn’t exactly how he planned it, but it was entertaining nonetheless.
The kids beamed.
You could tell the losses melted away.
The next day, facing elimination, we gathered the team together.
“You guys, you’re doing really good, and I know yesterday was tough, but that’s over and done with. Just come out here today, and just do it. And have fun in the process.”
They smiled. They knew what they needed to do.
The first team they played was a group out of Orange County that had three really good guards and a big guy for the substitute. But something looked different.
AJ’s chest was a little bit bigger. Shy’s steps were a little faster. Zion stood a bit taller. Chase’s swagger was, well, swaggier.
They stomped the team. Leading 14-8, they held off a late rally to win 16-11, advancing to the consolation championship.
In the championship, they faced a stiff challenge. Remember I mentioned teams had traveled from as far as Sacramento? Well, Colusa is a bit farther north, and that’s who we faced.
Now remember, all the kids on our team are almost the same height, between 4-foot-6 to 4-foot-9.
Well, this team, The Roadrunners, had a 5-foot-4, 150-pound Samoan kid, whose parents swear he was just about to turn 11. And he was skilled.
As a coach and a father, you can only hope for the best, but you’re watching the came out of tightly squinted eyes.
Turns out I really didn’t have to worry at all. Sometimes, there’s something more important that belies a kid’s physical stature.
It’s the size of their heart.
Burgins Brats controlled the game from the outset. Every time the big kid got the ball, he had three grey-shirted pre-pubescents in his lap. Zion, our Swiss Army Knife, did everything we asked and needed - he rebounded, scored a few buckets, and made life miserable for a kid a head taller than him. AJ and Shy, who turn out to both be lockdown defenders, shut down the team’s all-around player. And Chase?
Well Chase just did what he does best. Score. At will.
We kept running a play called “free,” in which AJ in bounds the ball to either side, and loads up the other side, leaving the inbound recipient with half of a court to do whatever he wants.
The kid guarding Chase didn’t stand a chance. And when, they adjusted, Chase just found the wide-open player under the basket.
The final score: 17-11. Consolation champs! Winning the loser’s bracket never felt so good.
Until the kids got their prize.
Are you ready for this? Nike, in their infinite wisdom, gives the winners of the consolation bracket T-Shirts that say “Loser Kings.”
The parents were a bit taken aback. The kids, however, were just happy they won.
To be honest, so was I.
They just did it.
Thanks, Nike.
Movin’ on Up
It’s been a couple of months since I posted, so let me give you a quick rundown of what the Burgins have been up to since we last left off:
1) The same week that Susie graduated from architecture school, I got some good news of my own. After several years of watching my career hustle backwards, I received a promotion. I am now a senior investigative reporter at the Union-Tribune. It’s been a long time coming, and I couldn’t be happier.
2) AJ played in his first 3-on-3 tournament a week after Susie’s graduation, the Jack-in-the-Box 3-on-3 in San Diego. I knew it would be kind of rough, considering that the team barely practiced and AJ got sick the night before his game. But I was proud how the team competed. AJ, Jacob, Zion and Shy are champs in my book!
3) Susie has kept her winning ways alive. Thank goodness. Summer’s here, and AJ gets restless really easily!
4) The month of July was one to remember! Our second annual family barbecue, a family trip to Knott’s, The Imperial Beach Sandcastle Competition, another awesome family gathering in Pomona and AJ’s first taste of football at an NCAA-sponsored football camp.
The barbecue, held again at Pan Pacific Park, was a smashing success. Last year, I had my bbq debut with my family, but this year, it was Mike Payne who stole the show with his ribs, cooked in a smoker that looked like it survived Three Mile Island. Hands down the best ribs ever, enough to make vegans break fast. Mom also came through with a flank steak that was to die for. It’s always good to get together with family!
Knott’s also provided us with another milestone: AJ’s first looped roller coaster, Montezuma’s Revenge. At first, he was a little nervous, but he finally mustered up the courage to do it, and when he did he realized what he’s been missing all this time! I’m a little bummed that Montezuma was his first ride, though. My roller coaster rite of passage took place at Magic Mountain on Revolution. Growing up in OC, Susie of course won this round. Now she and AJ have another thing in common!
The Sandcastle Competition also proved to be a blast, despite our team falling apart in the 11th hour. Undaunted, we joined an open team, which turned out to be a group of hippies reliving the glory days with their kids. It was great fun. The kids didn’t win, but when you’re tossing around sand with new friends, winning and losing takes a backseat - way back!
And, finally, there was the NCAA football camp. I’m not sure how much of it Sue saw, considering she was watching it through the tiny crevices between her clasped fingers. OK, she wasn’t that scared, but she and I did have our reservations, given that AJ had never played a down of organized football. Turns out we didn’t have anything to worry about. AJ was awesome. Throughout the day, the volunteer coaches would approach us and ask what team he plays for, and would pick their jaws off the floor when told he has never played. He stole the show in the passing portion of the Punt Pass Kick competition, launching the farthest pass of the day.
That’s all for now, folks.
A big day:
She did it.
No, not Dora the Explorer.
Susie the architect.
A couple of months back on a Saturday, a group of 16 family members, from both my and Susie’s side, sat under a huge oak tree at a campus in Burbank. The weather was cool, clouds shrouded the sun. Blankets were the order of the morning.
But the cold didn’t matter to any of us, because our hearts could have warmed the entire Northern Hemisphere. It was a special day.
She did it.
She walked across the stage, beaming. She saw her sister, who surprised her by flying in from Nebraska just to be there, and shed tears.
She looked over at Samantha and AJ, and smiled.
She shook the hand of her school’s dean, and exhaled.
She did it.
And I couldn’t be prouder.
Sam update:
I’m going to have nothing but heartache to deal with in T-minus 11 years.
My daughter, Samantha, as most of you know is just about 18 months old. She’s walking, putting together simple sentences (“daddy, poo-poo” and “mommy, doosh” (juice) are her favorites), loves screaming “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ” to get her brother’s attention and is developing into a huge music aficionado, partial to the styling of Florence and the Machine.
She also recently started to love Elmo, similar to her brother at the same age. She cheers when she sees him on TV, and actually has her own little Elmo impersonation. It’s not quite her dad’s, but it’s pretty awesome.
That’s not going to give me heartache.
What is going to have me popping Tums like jelly beans is the fact that I can’t go a block without someone telling me that I have the cutest baby girl in the world.
And it’s true.
She’s awesomely adorable. She’s got beautiful curly hair, bright eyes and a smile that is pretty much incomparable. She blows kisses to total strangers.
And she like guys.
Loves them.
I’m in trouble.
Samantha’s favorite song! Turn it on and watch her go!
Reckoning Day
There comes a time in every man’s life when the son defeats the father.
It’s inevitable. It’s biology. It’s gerontology. It’s Luke Skywalker taking off dear old dad’s hand in “The Return of the Jedi.”
It bites.
I thought, for certain, that day would come later in life for me.
But alas, I stared that day in the face a few weeks ago, during the height of March Madness.
As some of you know, I’m huge on predicting the NCAA tournament bracket. I’ve been doing it since 2001, when I picked USC to make it to the Elite 8. They did.
My original brackets were crude, written on paper. Most of my selections were blind luck. I’d be lying if I told you back then that I’d seen an Arkansas Pine Bluff game.
In the following years, however, my methods have become more calculated, my picks more scientific. I could tell friends 100 reasons why Northwestern State was going to beat Iowa in the first round of the 2007 NCAA Tournament. And, they did.
No, I didn’t pick George Mason’s meteoric run to the 2006 dance, but I’ve picked all but two of the 5-12 game upsets over the past five years.
In short, I’m good.
After watching me get giddy like a school boy the past few years, AJ decided that he wanted to have in on the fun back in 2009. So, I allowed him to fill out his own bracket on ESPN - with my assistance, of course.
Needless to say, it was a train wreck. I think he picked almost every lower seeded team to win at least two games. Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.
In 2010, AJ got a bit better. He actually asked me sound questions, like, “Is this team good?”
ESPN grades you against the rest of the country and ranks you in percentiles.
The first year, AJ was in the 20th percentile of 5 million brackets on their challenge.
The next year, AJ moved up into the 60th percentile.
I, of course, always had at least one of my brackets in the 95th percentile or above.
And then, 2011 happened.
Most of you know that I rave about my son’s intellect. This kid would run Aaron Sr. at age 7 in circles. And that’s no small feat, my mom would say.
So, it shouldn’t have surprised me when he asked me to play him clips of teams playing prior to making judgment calls about his tournament field. The questions were now about how good of a rebounding team this team was, or were they good three-point shooters.
So, his bracket slowly started to take shape. The winner of the VCU/USC game would make it to the Elite 8. Arizona would make it there, too. San Diego State would make it to the Sweet 16, where they would lose to a hot Kemba Walker-led UCONN. The Huskies, he said, were going to be his pick to win it all.
Wait a minute sport. Don’t you remember that UCONN just played five games in five days just a week ago? You think they’ll have enough energy to win it?
Yeah dad, they will.
Okay son.
For about a week, I was proving to be the wiser. My bracket hovered in the top 1,000 in the country, which is no small feat.
AJ’s, though, wasn’t too far behind. He was in the 91st percentile.
And then, the tide shifted.
San Diego State, my pick to make it to the Final Four, lost to…UCONN?
AJ was in the office that day to celebrate his initial victory over dear old dad.
It wouldn’t be the last.
By the Final Four, I knew my goose was cooked. I had no horses left in the race.
AJ, on the other hand, had one: The Huskies.
As you all know, UCONN did win the national championship, despite a game where neither team could hit water if they fell out of a boat.
Of course, I clicked on ESPN Challenge to see the damage.
As I feared, it wasn’t pretty.
My bracket, which had been absolutely beautiful two weeks earlier, was somewhere in the 85th percentile of America. Respectable, considering that no one had VCU or Butler making it into the National Semifinal, except for a few kids who went to the schools.
I looked at AJ’s score, and smiled.
99.6 percentile.
A thing of beauty. My 7-year-old son had a better bracket than more than 5.9 million people entered into the competition.
Including his father.
I took my insecurities out on him on the basketball court later that evening.
I’ve got a couple more years until that advantage is gone, too.
Speaking of taking the long road, shout out to Javier Colon for captivating audiences on NBC’s “The Voice.” For fans, this has been a long time coming: His first self-titled album had huge buzz back in 2003 and generated some hits that charted on Billboard. But above all, he’s a real musician, and sometimes the music industry doesn’t know what to do with true talent. It’s good to see him getting a second chance!
The long road:
Two roads diverged in a wood, I-
Took the road less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”
Cliched as this poem has become over the years, I think it still speaks to the journey that many of us take to get to our destinations, and how much sweeter the victory tastes when we take the path of least resistance.
This could be very well said of Susie’s path to this year.
Often times, people will ask me what my wife does for a living, and I will respond, “She’s an architecture student.” After explaining to them that I am not a pedophile and that my wife just looks really young for her age, then I tell them how her undying persistence got her to this point.
Most in her position would have found a convenient excuse for giving up, or taking the easy way out. Ten years removed from high school, two kids and a husband with a demanding career — any of these are good reasons for saying, “I’ll just put college off until later.”
Not Sue.
She scrapped. She clawed. She fought. And almost every step of the way, she succeeded.
Like when she finished third place at a San Joaquin Valley AIA architecture competition in 2007 - the only junior college student to place in the contest.
Or, when she earned a $3,000 scholarship from the Tulare County AAUW.
Most recently, however, she might have upstaged all of her previous feats.
During the fall semester, she and her classmate, Cassie, partnered together on a rather ambitious class project - to design a world-class urban theater. As the year progressed, you could see that their endeavor was turning into something special. It even had a special name: the Transformative Urban Performing Arts Center (cue chuckles in 5, 4, 3, 2…)
By the time it was done, you knew it was special.
That’s when their teacher, Stan, gave them great news: their project would be representing the university in an international student architecture competition. A quick check of the organization’s website showed that indeed, the finalists in previous competitions were from all over the world.
So, they entered — and what do you know, they got named a finalist. Top 3 out of more than 36 entries from all across the globe. Headed to North Carolina for the conference where they would present their design in front of hundreds.
So, how did it go, you might ask? She and Cassie finished second place, by virtue of the fact that the competition was decided by a vote of the public and one of the teams in the finals hailed from Clemson, SC. Yeah, like right down the block. The professional jurors were unanimously in love with TUPAC.
But I digress. That’s not the point of this story.
For me, the moment that truly stands out is when she got the call that she was a finalist. She couldn’t hold back the smile. Or the tears.
It was as if all of those years of questioning whether she would ever attain her degree, those sleepless nights doing projects, the years putting up with me, and everything else seemed to melt away with those tears.
At that moment, she arrived at her destination - a promising future.
The next step? We don’t know, but expect greatness.
