A View from the Bleachers: Where the Real Game of Life Is Played

By Jerry Dale Jones and Micah Whitlow

I really enjoyed Dr. Jones book A view from the Bleachers, A great book for parents, kids, and any sports fans. I will utilize the book for my Sport Psychology class at UNCP and I know my students will enjoy great insight about parents and their kids involved in athletics

Eldon Miller: Former Head Basketball coach at The Ohio State University: Big Ten coach of the year and Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame 2009. Coach Miller present assignment is at the University of North Carolina-Pembroke.

The Book: A view from the Bleachers, where the real game of life is played is outstanding in relating to the journey of life that we all take. Sometimes it is like we are standing on the balcony looking down at life other times we are in the room. But the shadows of life are always changing and this has been captured in the book.

Dr. Billy Escue: Former high school basketball coach, high school administrator, college professor and Administrator. His present assignment is an Executive and life Coach Certified by the Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469791173

Jerry Dale Jones

Jerry Dale Jones was born in Cabin creek, West Virginia and is former Superintendent of Schools in Roane and Morgan counties in West Virginia. He served with the United States Navy worldwide and is an honorary submariner, and as a young man taught school in Guatemala, Central America. Jerry holds a doctorate in Supervision from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Sate University in Blacksburg, Virginia. He held the first Joseph Oxendine Endowed Chair in Leadership at the University of North Carolina-Pembroke, and is the author of numerous books and articles. His present assignment is on the Doctoral faculty in Leadership at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Book preview

Contents

Dedication

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

MEMO

MEMO

MEMO

MEMO

MEMO

MEMO

MEMO

MEMO

MEMO

MEMO

Dedication

Carmalieta Inez Chambers

May 3, 1988-July 15, 2006

This book is dedicated to Carmalieta Chambers, Roane County, West Virginia High School girls Basketball Player.: #10, who left us way too soon, due to an automobile accident. Carmalieta is a light that will not go out in the lives of all who knew her, and observed her both on and off the Bleachers of life.

Jerry Jones

1

Pulling out the Bleachers

I’ve heard it said that Life’s journey is made up of moments in time, and the moments are what you remember more so than the days. I’ve spent many such moments on the bleachers and they seem to be some of my most memorable. Out of my moments on the bleachers I began to think of other moments that for me moved me from the bleachers to other moments in my life. So as I reflect on both past and present I begin to have a better understand on where I am today. For me all those moments are worth remembering and they also, are worth sharing, if the reader so chooses to take this journey with me.

My journey on and through this time on the bleachers began on an overcast day that seemed like countless others: driving to my daughter’s basketball game. But this day was different in one very big way: Today my daughter, Katie Marie, would run, as they say, with the big girls. She had moved—been catapulted, in my mind—from playing middle school basketball yesterday, to starting guard on a varsity high school team tonight. Like any concerned dad, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with my daughter—only 14—stepping onto the court to compete with women old enough (and to my mind, tough enough) to serve in the military. For a very long time I could not take my eyes from the court, but later, once I realized that Katie could hold her own against most competitor, my attention turned backward, to me and to the people a lot like me, sitting in the bleachers. They were half-full—not bad for girls’ basketball, I thought. I looked up into the bleachers at the faces of people intensively watching the game, many of whom I would come to know well.

By the way, bleachers aren’t what they used to be. The days of manually cranking and pulling out the old bleachers are long gone. Now, everything is motorized, and I think we sometimes lose a little with every technology including the bleachers. Flipping a switch to start a motor that robotically releases the bleachers doesn’t require the controlled anticipation and solemn concentration that the old crank-and-pull did. We have lost something there. Nevertheless, bringing down the bleachers is still part of the transformation a gymnasium undergoes before a game: the mercury lights hesitate, stall, and finally agree to shine; the bleachers magically begin to hum and creep toward the court; corn starts popping somewhere; low voices of ticket-takers discuss the cash box contents. At last they begin to arrive: proud parents and grandparents, dedicated aunts and uncles, supportive friends, and an occasional stranger no one has seen before, trickle in, establish their temporary home, and prepare to spend an evening together on the bleachers.

Basketball—like any game—is made up of wins and losses, a lot like life. And, also like life, the newspaper usually reports only the shiniest stars, the highest scores, the most intense moments. The player who never misses practice—but doesn’t see much court time—will not make the news. And neither do the people on the bleachers. But those of us in the stands are an interesting lot, I’ve discovered, and what happens in the bleachers can give us some good lessons about life: living it . . . loving it . . . and leaving it, too, I suppose.

We ticket-holders come from varied backgrounds, with huge differences in age, income levels, education, relationships, and temper, among other qualities. But of all the variety of people in the bleachers, we have one thing in common, down to the very last of us: We watch. We are watching someone we love or know or don’t know play a game we either care about or care about the one playing, so we take in every moment we can. A typical four-year high school basketball career mirrors in many ways, an entire life time. As in life, the parents of first-year players revel in the newness of everything: the New jerseys, the new or old officials, the new or old gym. The freshman parents and friends look to the future and the expansive four-year road ahead of them. The parents of seniors, though, spend much of their time in the stands reflecting on the games that have already been played, preparing for the end of the season and, I guess, for saying good-bye.

So I’m thinking about time—in days and in moments. I calculated that, all things considered, my life’s journey will take about 28,000 days, that is if what I just heard the average female lives