Dear Elliot,

I should have known from the very beginning that you would be a basketball nut.

I still remember watching coverage of the 2002 Final Four -- Indiana, Maryland, Kansas, and Oklahoma -- while camped out in the birthing suite of St. Luke's Hospital. The NCAA basketball tournament was an afterthought that year, as we were much more interested in this itty-bitty, basketball-sized bundle of baby-boy named Elliot Anderson Asp. Still, looking back I can't help but wonder if you forced your way out of the womb a week before your due date, just so you could sneak your birthday up a month and become a part of the whole "March Madness" phenomenon.

We're now in the week of your 10th Final Four, and it's fun to see the ways that you embrace the Madness. When I wake you up in the morning -- in the NBA-themed bedroom you share with your brother -- it's often with quick questions and hushed summary statements of the previous evening's scores ("The Heat won, but the Buckeyes lost"). After you get ready for school, we check scores and watch basketball highlights on the internet. After school, we play basketball on our miniature court in the basement or outside at one of the nearby playgrounds. Saturday mornings are basketball training with Basketball 's Cool Oost. Sunday mornings are pick-up games with the big boys... Basketball is a big part of your life these days.

Still, I'm happy to know that basketball is not the only thing in your life. Far from it! I love the way that you so gracefully manage so many skills and activities: a voracious appetite for reading, a sincere appreciation for music, an abiding respect for nature, special time with family and friends, a sincere spiritual sensitivity... and of course the sports, too. You do all of these things well. So I just want you to know that I'm proud of you. You're my boy, and I'm very pleased with the ways that you're growing up.

If I could offer you one piece of fatherly advice for you in the coming year, your 10th year of life, I think it would be this: Learn to move without the ball. In basketball, of course it's important to have good shooting technique and good defensive posture -- which, clearly, you do -- but it's also important to move without the ball so that you put yourself in position to get rebounds, seal off the passing lanes, and make strategic moves toward the basket that allow you or your teammates to score more easily. I know that we need to keep working on this together, since words can hardly convey the whole idea. But basically, the more you can move without the basketball, the more you endear yourself to your teammates and create a better basketball environment all around you.

This isn't just basketball advice, you know. It's good advice for life, too. Being a good student isn't just something that happens in the classroom. Being a good Christian isn't just something that happens in church. Being a good friend isn't just something that happens when other people are around. In all these aspects of life, it's important to "move without the ball" and practice basic things like love, faith, and perseverance when no one but God is looking. In a sense, this is what it means to grow up -- doing things that you know are right, even when there's nothing immediate in it for you.

Now that you're growing up, I just want to encourage you in this. I've already noticed you acting with such "invisible" integrity, and it makes me very proud. You just need to keep practicing -- with basketball, and with everything. So keep up the good work, my boy. Read the second chapter of Proverbs, and put it into practice. If you do this, the possibilities are practically limitless for how God will use you in the years to come.

Happy Birthday, Elliot. I love you.

Yours Forever,

Dad