Basketball and Motherhood

March Madness is one of my favorite times of the year. As one fan put it “It’s like Christmas but for a whole month!” It’s always better when your team is in the middle of it all. The worst part of March Madness is when your team loses. It’s still an exciting time of year, but it loses a lot of it’s sparkle.

Purdue played Kansas last night and lost by 3 points. It was simply a heartbreaking loss. For any old fan it was just another wild NCAA playoff game. For us Boilermakers it was the end of an era, the end of a career that will forever be whispered about in the halls of Mackey arena. Robbie Hummel is perhaps the best Boilermaker ever to play the game. He’s not going to be a first round draft pick and he might not even play in the NBA (not b/c of lack of talent) but you will NEVER find a player with as much heart as Robbie Hummel. Hummel and I have a lot in common and I can relate with him better than most people, and I am not ashamed to say that I shed more than one tear for him last night. If you’ve never heard his story, it’s worth the google search.

How does all this tie in to motherhood? If you are a basketball fan and follow March Madness you understand the emotional ups and downs that come with an athletic competition. However, you don’t have to be a fan to understand that these college kids put their all into this sport and only one team comes out victorious in the end. Motherhood is so similar.

The emotional ups and downs that we go through in life are just like basketball. We have personal ups and downs and we have the ups and downs that we share with our children and our husband. One day everything can be going beautifully and the next day we might get some crushing news that changes our lives. But in motherhood, just as in basketball, you have to get up and keep going. One failure just leads us to become better and do it differently the next time.

Basketball players fight through injuries all the time. Do you have any idea what it’s like to tear your ACL and try to come back and play at a high level again? How about tearing an ACL twice and coming back a second time? I do. I’ve also gone through 38 hours of labor and 2 c-sections. Let me tell you that the ACL recovery was much more emotionally draining.

Although it might be a silly analogy motherhood and basketball are very similar. Really motherhood and any sport are very similar. It’s all about how you get up after you’ve been knocked down. Do you do it with complaints and whining or do you do it with grace and courage?