I don’t know. That whole sports as a metaphor for life thing? Triumph over adversity? Getting back in the game. All that organized sports and ball club stuff. It just makes me feel weird. Like, bored weird. Like, who cares? But then you throw a young unwed mother in the mix and I’m all eyes and ears.
So I actually read this “sports” story, which is really, let’s be honest, more of a borderline-Hollywood gossip piece (also more interesting than sports writing). And it involves people whose names are vaguely familiar to me – Matt Leinert, for one -- but I don’t really know anything about. Still, the writer had me at “19, pregnant and scared.”
Summary: Almost two years ago the promising USC basketball player with a really good three-point shot and a full-ride scholarship, Brynn Cameron, got pregnant by Leinart, a Heisman trophy winning football player, who, at some point, became a professional (for a team I could have sworn played baseball), but wound up breaking his collar-bone.
She gave birth, a boy, and she and the football player had testy exchanges in the media, probably exacerbated by some battles about child support. That got settled, she’s back on the court, not quite up to her game, but now she and the baby daddy say really nice things about each other – “she’s a great offensive player and very competitive,” “he’s in a tough position … but we’re closer than ever,” that kind of thing.
And that’s all well and good and not all that sportsy, but of course, what I zero in on is how she gets tons and tons and tons of free babysitting from her family. Lucky. Wasn’t I just talking about how having a baby in college has its advantages?
Anyway, good for her. Because it looks like she’s staying on track with her goals and dreams, expanded to include her son, whom she’s raising without the help of Leinart (except financially). Here’s what he says:
"Not giving up on school, on basketball, that shows what type of person Brynn is," Leinart said. "It's very, very hard to do, and when Cole grows up he'll know his mom stuck it out and raised him."
