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I’m writing from my daughter’s basketball game.
She’s in the first grade. There are second grade girls on her team. The difference a year can make is staggering. Prior to this season, my daughter had never touched a basketball, much less shot one.
It’s hard to watch, especially for a former athlete, a former coach.
Rick Jones, one of the greatest coaches in Arkansas high school football history, once told me about his experiences with parents who'd been professional athletes. Rick said he never heard a word from these people. The mothers never scheduled meetings to discuss playing time. The fathers, the former NFL linebackers, sat quietly at the top of the stands, never once yelling at a referee, or even the coach.
A girl on my daughter’s team just scored a basket for the opposing team. The fact that she made the shot at all is remarkable. We’ve had three games thus far into the season, and no team has scored over twelve points.
I notice our coach grimacing. My daughter, on the other hand, is at the far end of the bench, braiding a teammate's hair.
I used to write a column called “Athletic Support.” It’s still out there on the World Wide Web. If you look it up, you’ll find a “Dear Annie” style advice column for parents of athletes. My mom came up with the title, which I thought was perfect, but the project didn’t go the way I’d hoped.
To begin with, my children were too young for sports. So there I was, dishing out parenting advice without ever having parented an athlete. I had, of course, coached and played sports, but it’s a whole different world in the stands.
A few of the surrounding parents have started yelling at the referees, high-school-aged kids wearing striped shirts and whistles. The parents are upset because the refs keep calling traveling violations. The girls on both teams are, of course, traveling, but there is some discrepancy regarding how many steps a first or second grade girl is allowed to take without dribbling.
My daughter, in case you’re wondering, is still on the bench, sitting beside a girl with perfectly braided pigtails.
The second problem with the “Athletic Support” column was that nobody ever wrote in. Which is quite the admission on my part. Yes, I, Eli Cranor, wrote most of the questions, and answers, to my athletic-themed advice column.
As the game winds down, and my daughter finally goes in, I realize I’m a fraud. I wish that column was still running. I wish I could write to someone and ask them all the questions currently bouncing through my brain.
Dear Athletic Support: Is it okay to yell at refs during a 7–8-year-old basketball game?
Dear Athletic Support: My daughter likes braiding hair better than scoring baskets. What should I do?
Dear Athletic Support: My wife and I were both collegiate athletes, but our kids aren’t interested in sports. Help!
My daughter’s running the wrong way on the court now, headed upstream against a current of sweaty girls. She looks over at us, finds her mother’s and father’s face in the crowd, and smiles a smile so big it answers all my questions.
| Books authored by Eli Cranor |
Broiler
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The troubles of two desperate families—one white, one Mexican American—converge rest in the ruthless underworld of an Arkansas chicken processing plant in this new thriller from the award-winning author of DON’T KNOW TOUGH.
Gabriela Menchaca and Edwin Saucedo are hardworking, undocumented employees at the Detmer Foods chicken plant in Springdale, Arkansas, just a stone’s throw away from the trailer park where they’ve lived together for seven years. While dealing with personal tragedies of their own, the young couple endures the brutal, dehumanizing conditions at the plant in exchange for barebones pay.
When the plant manager, Luke Jackson, fires Edwin to set an example for the rest of the workers—and to show the higher-ups that he’s ready for a major promotion—Edwin is determined to get revenge on Luke and his wife, Mimi, a new mother who stays at home with her six-month-old son. Edwin’s impulsive action sets in motion a devastating chain of events that illuminates the deeply entrenched power dynamics between those who revel at the top and those who toil at the bottom.
From the nationally bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author of Don’t Know Tough and Ozark Dogs comes another edge-of-your-seat noir thriller that exposes the dark, bloody heart of life on the margins in the American South and the bleak underside of a bygone American Dream. |
Don't Know Tough
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In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.
Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.
Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs. |
Ozark Dogs
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In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.
Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it. |
| Previous columns: |
• Writing From: My thirty sixth year
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• A New Marriage Milestone
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• Writing from a Soundbooth
• Writing from “Jazz Beach"
• Writing from the Sabbath
• Writing from somewhere between Little Rock and Russellville
• Writing from my back deck
• Writing from the morning of my thirty-fifth year
• Writing on the day of the college football National Championship
• Writing from the space between breaths
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• Writing from the glow of a plastic Christmas tree
• Writing on a rollercoaster of triumph and disaster
• Writing from the drop-off line at my daughter’s elementary school
• Writing with Thanksgiving on my mind
• Writing from the crowd before the start of a Shovels & Rope show
• Writing from the depths of a post-book-festival hangover
• Writing from the Ron Robinson Theatre
• Writing to you on Halloween Eve
• Writing from my bed on a Saturday morning
• Writing from my office with two darts clenched in my left hand
• Writing from the shade of my favorite tree
• Writing from my desk on a Tuesday morning
• Writing from a pirate ship
• Writing from the airport
• Writing from the hospital
• I'm writing from the water
• Writing from my wife's Honda Pilot
• Writing from my office |
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