Basket case
Dave Hyde offers tips to Heat coach, a new dad.
Erik and Nikki Spoelstra became first-time parents on Sunday, and so let’s offer them heartfelt congratulations and suggest to the Heat coach and his wife they take an extra night in the hospital to get the final good sleep of their next 18 years.
Just kidding. It’ll be closer to 24 years, the way it’s playing out in my home. That’s just it. Parenthood never ends. It goes on forever. It …wait, that’s not coming out right, as sometimes happens when you’re a parent. At least to this father of three.
Spoelstra may coach the Heat, have three NBA championship rings and be at the top of his very public field. But this is one arena I have more experience. So let me offer some father-to-father advice …
1. And, by advice, I don’t mean some Ponzi scheme pitch like most parents offer. There’s no experience like having a child. It’s the most rewarding thing ever. You can’t love and bond in the deepest way until you hold your child. Sure, it changes your perspective on things. Like long road trips (don’t). And fine dining (nope). And the idea of still going to the movies with the infant in a baby seat (yeah, I’m the idiot who tried that — once).
2. It will never unfold as you imagined. Your beautiful boy might not like basketball. He might like (gasp) soccer. He might not like sports at all. He might even go through a small, period — say, two years in his teens — of not liking his own dear, loving parents very much. It’s all a surprise. Ask my kids if they read the morning newspaper. No, wait. Don’t ask. I’ll just sit here
and whimper.
4. Being a parent is a lifetime of second guesses. Did I say that right? Should I have done more in that situation? Could I have helped more – or less? Why didn’t that message come out of my mouth like I’d rehearsed it in my mind? Did this paragraph even come out right?
5. When your wife says a few minutes home with your child is more important than breaking down one more video with your team, don’t listen. Ignore it. Oh, wait, that’s just the basketball fan in me talking.
6. Your take-your-childto-work days promises to be way more interesting than mine. I sat my daughter in in my office. I turned on my computer. I stared at the screen. I tried to type something, deleted it, tried again. She asked when we went to a game. A game? I was at work. She lasted 15 minutes.
7. Enjoy the surprises. Here’s a story: I was watching a baseball game, listening some analyst discuss how to hold a fastball, when a Viagra commercial came on talking about calling your doctor if after four hours, well, you know. “I don’t get that,’’ my 12-year-old son said. Here we go, I thought, a modern- day teaching moment for the modern dad. “Get what?” I hesitated. And my son fortunately said, “How you place your fingers holding a fastball like that.”
8. Don’t stress yourself with Parent Math: You know how it goes. Spoelstra is 47. So when the child starts school, you’re 53? When he graduates high school, you’re 65? And college? Don’t get ahead of yourself. Just worry about getting that stinky diaper to the trash outside. And quickly, by the way.
9. Eventually, amid the road trips, summer trips, father-son trips, weekend trips and vacations trips, there will be an occasional guilt trip. The kids? Who said anything about the kids? That’s what I’m doing here now that my kids no longer can find the time to fish with me.
10. Understand you are crazy lucky to start down this path, because it’s the most amazing journey any of us can take. There really is no experience like it. It truly is the most rewarding thing ever. Who cares if that sounds like a Ponzi scheme? But go get some sleep, because you really should know something else.
The first one is easy.
dhyde@ sun-sentinel.com; On Twitter @davehydesports;