It’s a hardwood life for mom
Hoops can get hectic in ‘basketball family’
To Maura MacDonald, America’s Basketball Mom, sneaker squeaks are a symphony and used sweat socks a sweet perfume. She has four sons who play the game and a husband who coaches it. A master schedule on her refrigerator tracks the 136 games she’s following in some form this season — in person or online or missing because she can’t be in five places at once. And that’s just the regular season. There’ll be more games, God willing, come the madness of March.
For now, the madness of December will do. Friday night, she and her husband and sons were together in one gym for one game for the only time this season — home court for the holidays. This week, her family’s teeming teams will be off to New York, Atlanta, Colchester, Vt., and Albany, N.Y.
Her son Matt, 22, is a senior captain at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Her son Patrick, 21, is a senior captain at Maritime College in the Bronx. Her son Nick, 17, is a senior captain at Canisius High School in Buffalo. Her son Mark, 11, plays on a travel team and on his sixth-grade team at St. Benedict School in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst.
And her husband, Mike, is men’s coach at Daemen College, also in Amherst, where the MacDonald family lives in a four-bedroom house with a well-used hoop out back.
“We’re a basketball family,” Maura understates.
It’s a sentence as simple as a backdoor cut. Ah, but gaming out which games to attend, and how to get there, can be as complex as Michigan’s motion offense.
John Beilein is men’s coach at Michigan and a family friend of 25 years. “Maura holds down the fort,” Beilein tells USA TODAY Sports. “She lives the ups and downs of all of their seasons.”
The downs come when games go on without her. Last season, her husband and sons all had games on the same Saturday — twice. So, like a doctor in triage, she simply decides where she’s needed most. You’ll often find her in the bleachers at one game while watching another on her phone, a multitasker for the digital age.
Maura arranges her life by tipoff. On Jan. 12, a Friday, she has three games at 7 p.m. plus Daemen at 8. She plans to attend Mark’s sixth-grade game, then the second half of Nick’s high school game, all while watching Penn on her phone; then it’s off to catch the end of Daemen’s game. The next morning, she’ll rise early for her drive to the Bronx to see Maritime at 1 p.m., then on to Philly to see Penn at 7. She’ll stay with her sister in New Jersey and be up early again on that Sunday to get home in time for Daemen’s game at 3 p.m. plus Mark’s travel team at 7.
All that is winter weather permitting. You never know in Buffalo.
Maura drives to out-of-town games mainly when Mike’s team is playing at home. That way, he can be with the younger boys when she is away, which means Maura and Mike rarely see games together. He has made solo trips to Philly and the Bronx this season as well.
“People must think we’re not really married,” Maura says with a laugh.
Happily — praise the schedule gods — Maura and Mike can be together for four senior nights this season: Nick’s at Canisius on Feb. 6, Patrick’s at Maritime on Feb. 17, Daemen’s on Feb. 18 and Matt’s at Penn on Feb. 24.
Maura provides these dates without checking her fridge or her phone. Turns out she has much of that master list memorized. The familiar rhythms of practices and games have long formed the contours of her life. She was born into a basketball family before she married into one. And now she is the matriarch of her own.
Mike MacDonald is a rare case of a head coach who has won 20 games in a season at Divisions I (Canisius), II (Daemen) and III (Medaille). Rarer still: He’s coached at those three levels while always living in the same house. His teams have dinner there every season as he believes the best basketball teams are like families.
“I tell my players I am not successful as a coach unless we’re invited to their weddings,” Mike says. He and Maura go to as many as five each summer.
The family feel is real: MacDonald’s sons have all been ball boys for his teams, including Mark this season. They’ve observed the game’s joys and agonies up close and learned to lead through osmosis.
“They’re just a great basketball family,” Canisius High coach Kyle Husband says. “They eat, sleep and breathe the game.”
Friday night, the whole family watched Nick’s Crusaders beat Cathedral Prep of Erie, Pa. Maura, keeper of the calendar, had that game circled on her fridge and imprinted on her heart. She knows next season’s master schedule will be lighter, what with two fewer sons in the mix. Life will be simpler, less hectic by half.
And she dreads it already.