I know she dropped a pound. She had to have used up 3,500 calories during the game, and she wasn't even playing. Come to think of it, neither was her son. From time to time, he would get in the game, but most of the time he was not. I don't even know if he even knew that there was a game going on.

Mom came to watch her son's basketball game. They were a really good team, as far as 5-year-olds go. They might even have been in first place.

"Come on," she would scream, "Spread the floor!"

"Pinch the middle!"

"Fight over the top!"

"Don't switch on the pick and roll!"

"Force to the baseline then trap in the corner!"

"Swing the ball, then attack their weak side!"

"Use your reverse pivot on the low block!"

"Come on, take care of the rock! Your assist-to-turnover ratio is atrocious!"

Along with these all-so-powerfully-meaning words to these 5-year-olds came all the jumping and pacing. She screamed, paced and jumped up and down all game long. After the game she looked like she had just run a marathon.

I watched Mom for a few minutes, and then I watched her son.

He was having the time of his life. He was sitting on the floor with his good friend. They were facing each other and counting each other's teeth. The most fun part of this game was to see who could open their mouth the widest so their friend could touch all the teeth as he counted them.

"Come on, rebound and hit the outlet man!"

After three minutes of that fun game, they found the other substitutes and played the "who can be the better butterfly game."

What was the score? How much time was left? Don't ask the players! Ask the mom doing the aerobic exercise workout.

My favorite game was watching the boys pulling out a piece of their own hair to see who could get the longest. "Who can beat this for long?" they would ask as they sacrificed the pain of hair-plucking for the fun of it all. I wanted to play this one!

After the game, the mom came over and talked to me, saying that she can't see how these kids could play so many games in their season. She was exhausted. She gets so nervous at the games for her son to win. She can't take the pain of her son losing the game.

"It's got to be so hard for him," she told me.

Her problem is that she thinks that her son's self-worth is caught up in his win/loss record.

The truth is that her son loves to come to the games to be with his friends and count teeth. There is nothing more fun than that!

It's not about the winning and losing that matters to these kids, it's the relationships. They want to play sports and be on a team to be with their friends, and then maybe go home together and do some coloring and trying to stay inside the lines.

An ideal game: losing one tooth for the kids, losing one pound for the mom!