Mayar Zokaei Comments can be sent to
mzokaei@media.ucla.edu.
I vividly remember the October day that I took the first step
toward playing organized sports. I wasn’t good enough to play
for my high school’s junior varsity team and I was only a
freshman, so signing up to play in my local park’s youth
basketball league was the next best thing.
I don’t remember the names of more than three guys on my
team. I don’t even remember what number I donned that season.
But one image will forever remain entrenched in my memory: the
sight of Jason, Freddie and John in the stands at our games.
This isn’t a story of three has-been foes. This is a tale
of three never-were teammates.
All three lived in the inner city and their parents didn’t
have cars, so they couldn’t be there that Saturday morning to
sign up for a team. But the following Monday, Jason’s mom
managed to come with him on the school bus and walk the two miles
from our school to the park office. There she was told the league
didn’t have enough coaches. Jason couldn’t play because
there was no more room.
Jason, Freddie and John no longer came to my games. Their
parents didn’t want them catching the late bus home and it
was too difficult for them to sit in the stands watching.
I made a decision to one day become that extra coach.
Fast forward to 2001 and my third season of coaching basketball.
My experiences as a coach at Woodland Hills Park have afforded me
many opportunities to learn and to grow.
My team of 13, 14 and 15-year-olds, The Lakers, is pretty close
to their dysfunctional professional counterpart.
Seena is my Shaq, Jeremy is my Kobe and in the lead role of Phil
Jackson, there’s yours truly.
We won our first game by 30, but as the NBA Lakers have shown,
success breeds jealousy and disdain.
“Tell Jeremy to stop ball-hogging when he brings the ball
up,” Seena said to me in a telephone conversation after our
first loss, in which he managed only 19 points, all in the first
half.
“Seena sucks on defense and he never passes the ball when
he’s triple-teamed,” Jeremy said.
Ahh, so refreshing. Experiencing the trials and tribulations of
Coach Jackson without the jet lag and bad hotel food ““ what a
great experience.
We improved our record to 3-1 by trouncing lesser teams, but the
second win revealed the gaping hole that would soon become our
demise. This wasn’t a T-E-A-M. It was two I’s and not
much in the middle. Seena does an outstanding imitation of Shaq
with a jumper, and Jeremy does a great impression of Kobe with no
jumper.
And much like Shaq and Kobe, I’m not sure if they’re
really friends off the court. At least not lately.
The Los Angeles Lakers have become the laughingstock of the NBA.
How can a team with two bonafide stars evaporate like stardust? The
egos, the selfishness and greed that conjures the environment in
the Lakers’ locker room now look like they are there to
stay.
If there was ever a better time to make an impression and have
someone change for the good, adolescence is the best time. If Shaq
and Kobe had good influences as kids and good coaches while in the
infant stages of their basketball careers, there is a strong
possibility we would not be stuck in this debacle that is our
championship basketball team.
This is why I think coaching sports, any sport, should become a
universal requirement, especially in college.
For one thing, it prepares one for life as a parent. If you find
a way for other parents’ kids to listen to you and
collaborate with other kids, then getting your son and daughter to
share a bedroom will be a cinch.
Want to prepare yourself to remain optimistic at all times?
Coach against a team full of trees when you have a guy on the court
who’s 4-foot-5.
Interested in a career in law? Leave town for a weekend and have
your star player yell at the girl on your team and subsequently
have her father allegedly call the kid’s house to threaten
him.
Medical profession? Try to examine why your star player in the
summer throws up twice after running back to the opposite side of
the floor to play defense.
Psychology? Your center airballs four free throws and
mysteriously twists his ankle immediately, cries and wants out of
the game. He’s quick to run across the gym to get his snack
from his mom 30 seconds later.
Sure, I don’t get paid $6 million a year, but I get a
nifty coaching shirt, team picture, and last season my team chipped
in to buy me a gift certificate for Sportmart. Plus, I get an
education in life.
Coach Jackson has nothing on me.