My daughter Jade's Jeopardy! appearance just went global.
Yes, that Jeopardy! The one with Alex Trebek.
Let me get it out of my system … MY DNA! Kendrick Lamar got nothing! Ahem.
Going to give her Mom credit, too, and don't mind sharing it 65-35, err...54-46 .... OKAY... 50-50! [Come on. If you can't laugh about your ex, why have one?]
Yeah, Jade got crushed by a tour guide for National Geographic from Washington, D.C. and a New Orleans landscaper/John The Baptist lookalike, both way older than her.
So what? She made me proud.
It was a Dad moment. Perhaps the ultimate.
Working in athletics produces many a Dad moment. I've been around some really cool ones. The time when Tony O'Neal and I had to figure out which one of us would congratulate Clifford Reed for being Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Men's Basketball Coach of The Year and which one for father of the MEAC Player of The Year for CJ Reed. Or when I watched VP Lynn Thompson watch a video interview of his son, Matt, then playing for The Citadel, saying that he wanted to be an Athletic Director like his father. Or seeing Steve Ridder sit in the upper bowl of Moore Gym enjoying from a distance his son Ryan's basketball team's regular season championship celebration.
You're my readership. You get to share mine.
Along with her brother, we made the trip to Los Angeles in December for Jade's taping, which just happened to be on the same day as my Lady Wildcats' basketball game against Florida. Had to be a SEC team. Welcome to my life. Of course I got the time off, but guess who was fielding media requests at 6 a.m. local time as Jade was getting ready to make her way to the studio?
I asked Head Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis to give Jade one of her highly motivational pre-game pep talks. "C'mon Coach, if Jade had a jumper, she'd be playing for you." [And if she had a rise ball, she'd be pitching for Laura Watten… if she could still long jump, she'd be on Donald Cooper's roster …if she had a serve, she'd be playing for Val Villucci or Brittany Williams and if her bowling skills hadn't faded, Chelsea Gilliam would be her coach. So there.]
"You're the right person for that," Blair-Lewis said. "Most importantly, because you're her Dad."
Coach had a point. Oh, the content and delivery stunk, but it was a heartfelt experience as the studio van left the hotel…
[EDITOR'S NOTE: FLASHBACK TIME! Imagine the wavy lines and sentimental music…..]
It's during the Clinton administration. Jade's pre-K dance class is making their public debut at the community Christmas show.
Young mom thinks it's a wonderful opportunity. Young dad thinks it's borderline sadistic to put a bunch of pre-kindergarteners in front of a brightly lit auditorium filled to capacity. That kind of trauma could scar a kid for life. T-ball's less intense. And cheaper.
My fears win out when my little princess emerges from back stage in a huff.
"DAD! I WAS NOT MUCH GOOD! I missed my marks three times!!! My [dance] line was so scattered!!! AARGH!!!
"Uh, Jade, you're FOUR. You all barely have hand-eye coordination. We weren't expecting Baryshnikov…"
"What's a Barry-nish-a-cough?" She looks up.
"Oh, that's right, you're FOUR. Jade, you were awesome. I didn't see any mistakes, but moms and dads never do. You'll get to do this again and again, and you're going to have fun doing it. So, um, er, uh ….wanna go to McDonald's?"
"YEAH!"
Good talk. Point: Dad.
[End Flashback]
One of the things about Jeopardy! is that the staff makes absolutely sure the contestants have no access to information that could help their cause. Family members sitting in a nearby section of the studio audience aren't allowed to communicate in any way, shape or form while contestants wait their turn.
Jade was called up to tape the second show of the five being produced that day. We exchanged the briefest of eye contact and smiles as she was whisked down to the stage.
[Another Flashback!]
Sometime this decade. Jade's senior year. Marriage number one has been long kaput and number two is in limbo because my kids wanted dad around more than the step kids needed a step dad. This night was one of the reasons why the latter happened: Dad being there for one of his daughter's final Spruce Creek band performances at a competition in DeLand.
The BCU basketball game went overtime, of course. So instead of just speeding, I'm rewriting time space continuum laws on U.S. 92. Fate intervenes. Close parking spot, and Spruce Creek's the last performance of the evening.
I get there just in time. Jade looks up from her instrument and sees me from a distance. The briefest of eye contact and smiles, then the performance begins. Beatles tribute.
Creek marched 150 that year. Mom and stepdad are somewhere in a stand full of other parents. Heck, Paul freakin' McCartney could have been there, for all I cared. I only saw one band member as I'm mouthing … "Day after day…Alone on a hill…The man with the foolish grin is sitting perfectly still…"
[End Flashback]
It's the first commercial break. Here comes the interview part with Trebek. What story/personal detail will she share with the world? Will she do the Sean Connery bit for me….Wait. She talks about her beloved New England Patriots?
SHE WENT WITH THAT?
[Flashback……again…]
It's a beautiful Saturday spring morning. Pretty sure I was at a softball game. May have been tennis. Same thing.
The phone rings. "Dad, are you watching this NFL Draft? What's up with Belichik? We don't need to be using a fourth round pick on a wide receiver…."
"Jade, this call concerns me for two reasons. One, you're still a Patriots fan. Two, shouldn't you be getting ready for senior prom tonight?"
As I hung up the phone, it occurred to me … my girl was just like me … and she was right. New England needed defensive secondary depth that year.
[End Flashback…]
It's not going well for Jade. The defending champion's a machine. Swear that he and John The Baptist did not miss one question the whole time. But at last, she gets into a rhythm during Double Jeopardy and goes from negative back into contention, putting Dad through the "how-the-heck-did-she-get-that-wrong-to-how-the-heck-did-she know-that" gauntlet. It's surreal, and it's awesome.
[Flashback…again? How many more of these?]
Senior year again. Jade's been honored for her IB Creative Writing program. Mom and Dad forge yet another truce to be there for her award and reading.
Jade, her advisors and parents are sat a table and she begins. It's epic prose. Satire. Sarcasm. Pop culture references. Just like … this column.
When Jade orates "She has the voice that sounds like it came from the illegitimate love child of Gilbert Godfrey and Angelica from `Rugrats' that challenges your every instinct to throttle her on the spot'' is when my pride cup over runneth.
"My DNA! " I fist pump as mom gives this "I can't believe I was actually physically attracted to that [clown]" look.
"Well, we know where Jade gets her creativity from," the advisor sheepishly smiles.
"My blessing and my curse," Jade retorts.
[End Flashback]
Jade made it to Final Jeopardy, but it just wasn't her day. Trebek praises her for a noble effort, recognizing the frustration of timing when clicking the buzzer, something the defending champions always have an advantage with. So what? I vow to go after that guy and throttle him when we play Howard in January [Didn't] and go to New Orleans and scream "Get a hair cut, dude! [Kidding]. That's what dads do these days, right? All three epically whiff the question, and Jade finds solace in Trebek saying that was weirdest range of Final Jeopardy responses he'd seen in a whole.
She comes up to us in the audience. It's like she just competed in the NCAA tournament. We hug. "That was fun!" she smiles.
The day's not over yet. We go back to the hotel and catch the BCU-UF game. We're battling the Gators in a two-possession game in the fourth quarter when the SEC Network Play-By-Play guy blurts "BCU SID Dave [???] Ryan's in LA with his daughter for her Jeopardy! taping…"
"Aww … thanks Dave!" Jade says.
We have Lakers tickets that night. Lower bowl in the Staples Center with the kids to see LeBron James. Does it get better? Not only does LeBron drop 42 on the Spurs, Eric Lewis -- Coach Blair-Lewis' husband -- is the ref and calls LeBron for blocking -- correctly. When everything comes together, it comes together!
[One. More. Flashback]
Four or five years ago. During Jade's time at FIU in a phase of her life best described as "mercifully long over," my turn to pick her up from school coincides with the Utah Jazz' Florida swing beginning in Miami vs. the Heat and one of my Utah newspaper clients picking me up for game coverage.
We get to American Airlines Center. Instead of a rafters seat, an old colleague from Jazz PR hooks Jade up in Section 103 six rows behind the bench. Hmm. Stepdad's tickets to Jaguars-Patriots the next day are upper bowl. Ha! Point: Dad.
LeBron, D-Wade and Bosh annihilate Utah by 25 or so. Easy write. Jade comes up to the media section. "Dad, that was awesome. [Mike] Miller pointed at me when I screamed `Miller time' after that three-pointer. Made me spill my drink."
"Jade, first of all, that drink better have been non-alcoholic. Second of all, you do know you were sitting with the Jazz wives and girlfriends, right?"
"They were doing it, too. You get LeBron, yet? You gotta do it. I'll wait."
Wasn't going to try to get a LeBron comment about Ricky Johnson, an Akron kid who played at LeBron's high school then at BCU, but Jade was right. Bottom line: I got LeBron. Another point: Dad. Assist: Daughter.
[End Flashbacks. Thank goodness!]
The final day in LA. Well, very early in the morning actually, but I'm wide awake thanks to my body still being on East Coast time and my ever-weakening middle-age bladder. The lights from the cars on the 405 -- at 4:05 a.m. are just bright enough to illuminate the room.
There were my kids. Son's snoring away. Both sound asleep. Like angels. I smile and swear that I hear "Well On The Way … Head In A Cloud … The Man of A Thousand Voices Talking Perfectly Loud …"
Yeah, they're both in their 20s. So what? My DNA.
The game's afoot, Trebek. I'll take Dad Moments for Priceless.
The answer is …
