Everyone knows that sometimes all that kids need is a little boost of confidence to spark their success. The Y provided that for PJ, a child who has blossomed into a talented basketball player thanks to the encouragement he found at the Y.
PJ has been diagnosed with anxiety and had been struggling with social situations, says his mom, Lynn Ingram. He wanted to try basketball and finally worked up the courage to join the Y’s team with a friend. He was smaller and younger than every other player on the team and he was the least experienced basketball player. Lynn says, “It was tough to watch. He couldn’t dribble well, would always throw the ball to an opposing player, and didn’t get a shot off the entire season….until the last game.”
With only 10 seconds left, he received a pass from a teammate, threw the ball up, and…. it went in! In a moment straight from a tear-inducing sports movie, his teammates carried him off the court on their shoulders. “It was a great moment,” Lynn says.
That one shot boosted his confidence enough that he practiced all summer and signed up again the following fall…unfortunately, though, he at first signed up too late to be on a team with his friends from school. He refused to go into the gym that first practice. His mom knew how much PJ loved to play, so she decided to ask for help. “I sent a long letter to the Plymouth YMCA, explaining his condition and asking that they make an exception to the maximum number of kids on the team so he could play with his buddies. After I submitted some paperwork, they let him play. And it has changed his life.”
The growth he’d experienced from his time at the Y was obvious in his very first game with his new team. In the first minute of the first game he scored a layup, and ended up scoring 10 points that first game. “I can’t tell you what this did for his confidence,” Lynn says.
She says that while his school team has also been helpful to him, it was the Y where he discovered his passion for sports that allowed him to build his confidence and achieve a goal, and where the people involved were willing to accommodate his anxiety and the sensitivities that go with it. “He wouldn’t be the talented player he is today if not for the Y giving him that opportunity to grow and learn,” his mom says.