Cool gesture and something a little weird

[Mark Padgett]

At the metro area MS season ending girls tournament, one 7th grade team comes out with temporary tattoos on their legs just above their socks. The tattoo is a basketball with the number 30 on it. I asked one of the girls what was going on. It seems one of their teammates had to leave their previous game at halftime two days earlier to go to the hospital to have her appendix removed. All the girls were wearing her number to show their support and to wish her a speedy recovery. She said the pics were just makeup and could wash off easily but they were going to leave them on until the girl was OK and could come home. I thought that was really cool of them.

The weird thing was with the other team. They had ten players. There starters wore numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 and the subs wore 11, 22, 33, 44 and 55. I just thought it was kind of weird.

The next tournament was MS boys and they sometimes wear "illegal" numbers. We're told to let them. One kid had on number 99. I asked him if it was to honor George Mikan. He replied "Who?" When I asked his coach (who looked to be in his 40s) the same question, I got the same answer.

How soon they forget.