WELCH—“Divide and conquer.” Didn’t Spartacus say that? Moses? Or was it Mother Teresa? Oh, I remember now. It was me last week as I sat down with the family calendar and the kids’ basketball game schedule.

This isn’t our first year as basketball parents, but it is our first year as the parents of two kids playing. For the last three years we have loaded up the kids, made sure our wallets were full of money for the concession stand and headed off to one gym, in one town, for one child’s games. This year it will take nothing short of military strategy and the grace of God to make sure we get it all done. Our son plays on the fourth- and fifth-grade team, and our younger daughter plays on the second- and third-grade team. Due to the fact that roughly eleventy-thousand kids signed up to play basketball this year, they can’t hold all games in one town each Saturday, so the big kids play in one town and the little kids play in another.

Yesterday, the girl played in one location at 10 a.m. and noon. The boy played at 4 and 6 p.m. in a different location. This was not an issue. This past weekend was actually perfection; next week they play at exactly the same times. In different towns. Twenty minutes apart. My husband will take one and I will take the other, and we will divide and conquer and take full advantage of our mobile-to-mobile minutes and the miracle of text messaging.

As a kid I didn’t play sports. My parents didn’t play sports. I do not come from athletic roots. I abhor exertion and perspiration. I find exercise to be quite taxing, and sweating is just gross. I have never seen the point in sports, and I don’t feel I have lived any less fulfilling a life by not participating in some kind of team sport. I was a quintessential nerd in high school and had my nose buried in a book nearly all the time. I was an eight-year band member and eventually drum major. I went to state in competitive speech—twice. The only sweating I did in band was when I had to don a wool uniform and march at halftime of an early season football game. Sweating in competitive speech was only from nerves, and that’s why God made deodorant. Do you see where I’m going with this? Sports are, by nature, a completely foreign concept to me.

We have perpetuated the non-sport legacy up until now with our own children, and we don’t watch sports on a regular basis at home. When everyone is updating their Facebook statuses with cheers for their football teams, we’re watching The Outdoor Channel or recorded episodes of Saturday Night Live or The Red Green Show. We don’t watch football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, cricket, volleyball, ping pong, or figure skating. And even though we’re rednecks, we don’t watch NASCAR, either. (I know. How can we call ourselves rednecks!? Shameful!) The extent of sports on our TV is the game hunt of the day or the sports-gone-wrong clips on America’s Funniest Videos. Occasionally, we’ll watch a televised tractor pull or demolition derby, but everyone knows those are events better enjoyed in person. Wii Sports? We play it on the sofa. Okay, I play it on the sofa.

I develop a strange, phantom disorder known as “Sportsmomitis” when my children play ball. Sportsmomitis is the inability to put together coherent thoughts and turn them into cheers and encouragement for your child playing an organized team sport. The results are rarely devastating or deadly but almost always embarrassing. The best therapy in the world for that is to bring your 13-year-old daughter and her boyfriend to a game with you. A few instances of their giggling at you for yelling unintelligible words at the kids on the floor or rolling their eyes when you holler loudly, “GO SAM! GET THAT BALL! OH WAIT. OKAY. NEVERMIND. FORGET THE BALL. GET DOWN TO THE OTHER END WITH THE REST OF THE KIDS,” while flailing your arms in a ridiculous manner is enough to quell subsequent flare-ups. Trust me on this.  (Sam never pays attention to what I tell him from the stands anyway, which I’m sure his coach appreciates greatly.) During a pre-season tournament, I was trying to cheer on one of the players named Brody. I got so excited that my Sportsmomitis kicked in and I screamed, “GO-DEE BO-DEEEE! OOPS. GO-DEE BRODY! DANGIT. GO BRODY!” That one actually prompted an audible moan from my oldest child and a strange look from Brody’s parents.

I was much more behaved at this week’s games and when I found my Sportsmomitis trying to rear its ugly head, I remembered the conversation I’d had with my two athletes as I was writing their game schedules on the calendar. I had just discovered that this week’s games are to occur simultaneously and told the kids, “Dad and I will have to split up. One of us has to take Sam, and the other has to take Kady.” This got their attention. I added, “So, which one do you want?” not directing the question to either child in particular because I knew they would both want me to take them, what with me being all matriarchal and Super Mom-ish and stuff. Instead they instantaneously both yelled, “DAD!”

The youngest won, and her dad will chauffeur her to games next week, but the boy made his older sister promise to come to his game and bring a friend so they can keep me embarrassed, constantly reminded of my disorder and free from Sportsmomitis outbursts and gratuitous arm-flailing at his expense.

The Redneck Diva