Lessons from the Bench

Stephanie welcomes her 9-year-old son Holton to share his basketball journey and the unexpected life lessons from his recent concussion.

• Holton's basketball passion and why he'd choose to play against Steph Curry
• His dream basketball move involves a behind-the-back crossover into a reverse layup
• The story of Holton's concussion during a church league game
• How sitting out his final game taught him valuable lessons about patience and recovery
• Holton's advice to other injured kids: "If you sit out one game, you can play sports for the rest of your life"

Transcript

Introduction to Holton

Stephanie 0:01

Hi , this is Stephanie Shafer and you're listening to the NorthStar Narrative , a podcast from NorthStar Academy . I want to thank you for joining us . I hope you're encouraged , challenged and motivated by what you learned today . Enjoy the story .

Stephanie 0:18

Hey guys , I'm super pumped about the episode this week because I have my son here with me . I've been wanting to get him on the show for a long time , but we just haven't been making it happen yet , even though we live in the same home . So Holton is here with me in my home studio , super excited and pumped to have you . Holton . Holton is nine and a half and he is lots of fun All boy , red hair , sometimes wild , but super sweet most of the time Wink , wink . No , he's lots and lots of fun and I'm super excited to get him on here so he can share about one of his passions . He is super passionate about basketball , and so I can't wait to jump in and just see where this conversation goes . So , holton , thank you so much for joining me today . You're welcome . Are you excited ? Yeah , what do you think first about being on a podcast ? What do you think this is going to be like ?

Holton 1:26

I don't know . I'm just glad I don't have to do a podcast in front of people .

Stephanie 1:31

You're glad that we get to record and then Ms Armstrong gets to cut it . Yeah , yeah , but maybe she'll leave in some fun stuff , some fun raw stuff too . Yeah , all right , let's talk all things basketball and see what we can find out about Holton in between . Holty , I like to call him Holty . If you could play basketball against any player in the world , past or present , who would it be and why ?

Holton 1:58

Oof

Basketball Dreams and Favorite Moves

Holton 1:59

. I don't know Probably Steph Curry , because he's really good at threes and I am too .

Stephanie 2:07

Woohoo , yeah , that'd be fun , lots of fun . How tall is he ? I ?

Holton 2:12

don't know , like six something . Yeah , how tall are you ? Like four , nine , four , ten , but you're faster , right .

Stephanie 2:16

So you can just go right by him .

Holton 2:18

I wish All right . What's your dream basketball move ?

Stephanie 2:19

that you're faster right , so you can just go right by him . I wish All right . What's your dream basketball move that you're working on ?

Holton 2:30

Like behind the bat , cross over and then I drive in and do a reverse layup .

Stephanie 2:37

Wow , that sounds complicated , but cool , I mean . Cool , all right . What's the best feeling in basketball ? Making a three-pointer , blocking a shot or a fast break dunk ?

Holton 2:52

uh , probably making a three and then coming down the court and playing defense and stealing it and getting a fresh break . Layup fun .

Stephanie 3:00

Yep layups , probably more your uh game right now , right , right Not ?

Holton 3:04

dunks . You're not dunking yet , right ? Not dunking yet ?

Stephanie 3:07

Not yet . If you were a basketball coach for a day , what would be your team's nickname and what would your game plan be ?

Holton 3:16

Okay , nickname the H's for one day , and then my game plan would be the Grizzlies , and they have Steph Curry in my starting five , or Steph Curry , john Morant , stephan Castle , lebron James and maybe Kevin Durant , and they would just be unstoppable . I guess that's my game plan .

Stephanie 3:42

Fun , all right .

Holton 3:44

So something not so fun just happened to you recently yeah you know what I'm talking about yeah all right , tell us a little bit about it so I was playing some basketball and I was trying to save the ball from it going on a bounce and somebody ran into me and I hit my head on this brown post because I'm playing in a church league and like in the gym in my church has like um , a brown post and I hit my head on the post

Dealing with a Concussion

Holton 4:17

but I slid . So I didn't think it was that bad but I still played the next half . But after the game I was a little dizzy . But we went to the doctor on Sunday and sure enough I did have a concussion .

Stephanie 4:32

Yeah , were you scared when they told you .

Holton 4:35

No , I was just really upset because I couldn't do a lot of stuff like have screens and play sports , but yeah , yeah , you were supposed to stay on the couch . Yeah , but that didn't really work out .

Stephanie 4:48

Yeah , why not ?

Holton 4:50

I don't know , I just have . I'm a boy and I have to do stuff .

Stephanie 4:54

You just have to do stuff . Yeah , all right , so today was your last game . So it happened last Saturday . Today's actually Saturday that we're recording it was your last game of the season . Yeah , and you play fourth grade basketball , church ball . Who's your coach ?

Holton 5:12

My sister and the dad , and my dad is the commissioner there , so yeah , of the league because he's on staff at the church right . Yeah .

Stephanie 5:19

But so today you couldn't play ? Yeah , because your head has to heal .

Holton 5:25

Yeah .

Stephanie 5:25

And so what was it like to have to sit out of your very last game ?

Holton 5:31

It was fun but just upsetting that I can't play my last game . But yeah , I enjoyed cheering on my teammates .

Stephanie 5:39

Yeah , were you able to cheer them the whole game .

Holton 5:42

I mean I was a little upset the first half , but the second half I was .

Stephanie 5:48

Yeah , what was the hardest part of sitting on the bench ?

Holton 5:52

Just watching people play basketball and knowing I can't play .

Stephanie 5:56

You can't get in . Yeah , what's something cool that you've learned over this last week about yourself while trying to recover from your concussion ?

Holton 6:05

over this last week about yourself while trying to recover from your concussion . Just God can do stuff to you . So if it means like having a concussion so you can't play and just overcoming some challenges ,

Life Lessons from Sitting Out

Holton 6:18

then so like you can just experience life .

Stephanie 6:22

Experience life in a different way , maybe , yeah , yeah , so what's he taught you ? Has he taught you anything new ? Like you're like , oh , after this week , I kind of understand this .

Holton 6:33

He taught me like that was my first concussion . So he taught me like I'm going to have to do this a long , like I'm going to have to do this a lot , even if it's not a concussion , it's any other injuries , and I feel like , as you know , you practice in basketball , so I feel like that was my practice . And now when I get older and play and could play in the NBA I also play baseball , so the MLB I'll have to do that , so that is the game and this was the practice .

Stephanie 7:08

So this concussion was like a practice for maybe other injuries that are coming . Yeah , I hope you don't get another concussion . Yeah , me too , but people get a lot of injuries . You've seen other kids get injuries . Um , so if you have to give any advice , what advice would you give to another kid going through an injury ? What would you tell them ?

Holton 7:28

um , if you play this game and get hurt again , you couldn't play sports for the rest of your life . But if you sit out one game , you can play sports for the rest of your life .

Stephanie 7:39

Yeah , because concussions are serious right . You learn that , so you don't want to get concussion after concussion .

Holton 7:45

Yeah .

Stephanie 7:46

It can really hurt you .

Holton 7:47

Especially on top of another one .

Stephanie 7:50

So if you get an injury , take care of yourself . Yeah , do whatever it takes . Yeah , yeah , don't rush back . All right ,

Basketball Shoes and Fun Memories

Stephanie 7:58

let's talk shoes . You love shoes . Your dad loves shoes tennis shoes , that is . Um so if you could divide , if you could design your own basketball shoes , what would they look like and what would you call them ?

Holton 8:11

O , I don't know . I would call them the holton special jump man kicks holton special jump man kicks .

Stephanie 8:20

All right , what do they look like ?

Holton 8:22

um , so like the like bottom part of it would be like red , and then the the rest of the shoe would be blue and then all the strings would be red . If it's Velcro , that little thing that connects to the Velcro would be red . Maybe the inside of it , like the pad inside of it , would be red .

Stephanie 8:47

So you like red and blue ? Yeah , what about gold and blue ?

Holton 8:51

No .

Stephanie 8:52

Notre Dame colors you a big Notre Dame fan ? Yeah , me and my dad are yeah .

Holton 8:54

What about gold and blue ? No , notre Dame colors . You a big Notre Dame fan ? Yeah .

Stephanie 8:56

Me and my dad are , yeah , notre Dame . I like watching the girls basketball game . They're fun , fun , fun to watch .

Holton 9:01

All right .

Stephanie 9:02

What's the funniest thing that's ever happened to you during a game or a practice ?

Holton 9:07

Funniest thing maybe during a game , not not this year , but last year . We went 8-0 last year and I was playing in my last game and I just couldn't stop hitting my shots . And yeah , I don't know , that's not really funny , but it's just something I enjoyed yeah , you're pretty serious , so I know you being serious is fun to you .

Stephanie 9:35

Like you're serious on the court , you love to play and love to get better , so that's really cool . All right , what's your ultimate pregame hype song ? I don't know .

Holton 9:43

I like to move it , move it From Madagascar . Yeah , that's funny .

Stephanie 9:57

What if basketball didn't exist ?

Holton 9:59

If I didn't know it would exist , I would just love baseball a lot , but basketball and baseball are really good , but I might like basketball more . I'm not sure . But if I didn't , if I did know it was a thing , I would be really yeah and like I didn't if it was a thing before , but like the year I was born it just went away . I would be really sad yeah , because you love sports .

Stephanie 10:27

Yeah , all right . What's one thing that grown-ups just don't understand about

Lightning Round and Final Buzzer Beater

Stephanie 10:32

kids who love sports ?

Stephanie 10:44

Even when they have an injury , like they want to play , but the parents know more stuff because they've lived longer , but it's really hard . They need to understand that . Oh , you just want to play , you want to play . You're so upset , right , yeah , all right . Today at the gym I saw a little cute kid . Oh , he was so cute , but he was a lot shorter than you , so I know he was younger and he came up to you . As soon as he got there he grabbed a ball and I saw him come up and give you a fist bump . I think , yeah , that was so cool . Who was that ?

Holton 11:17

It . So I'm really good friends with his brother . But we just met because we play basketball together in the same age group nine and 10 . So , yeah , and that was his younger brother that plays in the five and six there . But I actually played his older brother today , so our team actually played .

Stephanie 11:30

Oh , he's so cute and I thought , oh , I bet he looks up to Holton . So what's your best life advice that you'd give a younger kid ? Just picture him . What life advice would you give him If you keep ?

Holton 11:42

playing sports , you will get really good .

Stephanie 11:45

Yeah , so just keep going .

Holton 11:46

Yeah , and he already is really good for five and six .

Stephanie 11:50

Yeah , he looked really . He looked really good . He had cool hair too .

Holton 11:53

Yeah , he had like a mohawk it was really cool .

Stephanie 11:57

His brother has the same too . Let's do a lightning round . I'm just going to give you some rapid-fire questions , okay ? Okay , you give me the first answer that comes to your mind . Favorite NBA player Steph Curry . Favorite jersey color Oof blue . Best basketball snack . No favorite jersey color white White .

Holton 12:16

Okay .

Stephanie 12:17

Best basketball snack ? Some candy Candy . What's your coolest dunk ? The coolest dunk you've ever seen .

Holton 12:24

This guy from the Mavericks . He dunked over a car and a lot of people and he's won three dunk contests't contests .

Stephanie 12:31

Wow , funniest name for a basketball team probably the penguins .

Holton 12:35

We actually played them today the penguins .

Stephanie 12:38

all right , the best thing you love about your mom . Uh , I tricked you . I went from basketball , I don't know , can you switch your mind ? No , do you love me ? Yeah , all right , I love you too , and it's fun to watch you play basketball and to watch you learn and grow . So , just thinking about parent advice overall , if there's any moms listening right now , what parent advice would you give them ?

Holton 13:07

Don't let your kid play in a basketball game if he has an injury .

Stephanie 13:12

You got anything else , kid ? No , you're sticking with that . It's good , good advice , all right , as we're wrapping up . So we got to tell everybody you did actually play in the game today . Yeah , 30 seconds . Yep , how did you get yourself in that game ? You weren't supposed to play .

Holton 13:31

So my mom actually wasn't there , so she would have definitely not let me .

Stephanie 13:36

I was actually at a conference , wasn't I ?

Holton 13:38

There was a timeout 30 seconds left but we still lost . We were down by 11 when my sister took the timeout . So I went to my dad . I was like , please , let me play , please let me play . And my baseball coach's son plays for my team . He's on my team . So he heard me and he was in the stands and my dad looked at him . Cause , like I have baseball coming up . So my dad looked on him to see if I could play or not , because coach Kyle , like if he didn't want me to play , cause baseball . But he actually said I can play . He was just let him play . So I played and I came in .

Holton 14:16

Everybody , everybody cheered for me , because everybody really knows me , because I'm the coach's kid and my dad is the commissioner . So everybody cheered for me , my teammates cheered for me and then I tucked in my jersey and I was like I'm ready to go and my teammate passed in the ball and I came up the court . I stopped and I drained a three and then they came down the court , shot it , shot a three , missed it . I got it back and then they tried to steal it . But uh , it was actually out on them and I let it go to waste clock and then I came up and three seconds left and I hit a buzzer beater from like half court and everybody cheered and I was really excited . Even though we lost , it was still a fun moment for me .

Stephanie 15:01

Yeah , fun that you got in just for a few seconds , so hopefully you didn't have enough time to get rough and get another concussion , but you going in 30 seconds kind of blows your whole advice .

Holton 15:13

I mean it's 30 seconds and I did really good .

Stephanie 15:17

Just 30 seconds .

Holton 15:19

I can't go a game without . I can't go a scoreless game . Plus , I'm going to tell everybody I made every shot a shot .

Stephanie 15:27

Yeah , you only had two . Yeah , good job . I know you're learning some stuff . Life can be hard , but thanks for joining me today telling me a little bit about your day and your basketball journey so far . I know you're going to have fun . All right , thanks , holti . Okay

Episode Closing and Contact Information

Stephanie 15:44

, bye , bye . Thank you so much for listening today . If you have any questions for our guest or would like information about Northstar , please email us . At podcast at NSA dot school , we love having guests on our show and getting to hear their stories . If you have anyone in mind that you think would be a great guest to feature , please email us and let us know . And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on upcoming stories .