Today is @DMB_Dad ‘s day. @BigBoutros too. And I’m sure many others.
Happy Father’s Day, everyone.
Thank you!
And Happy Fathers Day to the rest of the awesome Dads on this board!
17 Likes
Happy Father’s Day to my fellow pull-out failures!
2 Likes
LOL. It’s our day, so of course we get to do the things we want to the most! Like going to overcrowded restaurants.
3 Likes
For my first Father’s Day I would like to share an Irish poem that has meant a lot to me in the first year of my son’s life. It is a good reminder that even the hardest days are special moments we must cherish.
Bhí subh milis
Ar bhaschrann an dorais
Ach mhúch mé an corraí
Ionam d’éirigh,
Mar smaoinigh mé ar an lá
A bheas an baschrann glan,
Agus an láimh bheag
Ar iarraidh
There was jam
On the door handle
But I suppressed the anger
That rose up in me,
Because I thought of the day
That the door handle would be clean,
And the little hand
Would be gone
24 Likes
As we welcomed in our second just four days ago I’m reminded of said failure with regularity lol
9 Likes
big congrats Romeo!
6 Likes
That’s a good one. Mine are 16 and 10, and I am already seeing how, one day, I’ll miss the chaos.
5 Likes
In the spirit of Father’s Day I don’t think there would be a better time for @DMB_Dad to explain the origin of “DMB”
oh lawd stop no his hands will always be teeny tiny and full of jam don’t be doing this on a board about how if you compare a guy to another guy somebody lights your car on fire
3 Likes
Was too tired last night to respond so I will respond now. Before getting into this story, I will admit that I am likely going to emblish a few points to make it a better story. This story is also my greatest athletic achievement in life.
First a little background. I have played (and still play) basketball all my life. I was good enough to play 4 year of high school basketball, but nowhere close to being good enough to play after high school. One thing I could do, and still can do is shoot. Unfortunately for me, the three-point line didn’t become a thing until my senior year in high school, and then our coach just felt like it was a gimmick and didn’t want us shooting them. I did make the first three pointer in our high school’s history, and at a robust 50% shooting (1 for 2), I am assuming I am still the schools all time three-point percent leader.
Fast forward about 25 years and young DMB is just starting to play travel basketball (unfortunately he inherited height from DMB wife and athleticism from me). Where we live, we have travel teams for every grade 4-8. I was coaching and at the end of the season we had a game where all coaches would get put onto a team and we would have a game in front of all the players. The kids and most coaches loved it. it. These games would frequently get very competitive and by the end usually each team would only have 5-6 coaches still willing to play. My first year playing we (the blue team) was in an epic battle with the white team. We found ourselves down by 2 with around 2 minutes left. This is when DMB dad hit his 4th three of the day to put us back up by 1. Back down the other way the white team went to their best player, a dude who played professionally in Europe, who scored and was fouled. He completed the three-point play to put them back up 2. Back down the other end, you guessed it, DMB dad drained his 5th three of the day to put the blue team back up 1. The kids went wild and I could sense the pride young DMB had in his dad! The game would end this way and DMB dad was named MVP (in my mind at least).
This clutch performance left me feeling like I needed a nickname. Unfortunately, nothing occurred organically at this point, so I was left without a nickname. But the feeling of needing a name to accurately capture my exploits remained.
Fast forward a few years to the summer of 2016. Every year John Beilein would hold a father son camp in the Crisler Center. It was on a Friday evening and then most of Saturday. Great fun all around. We would do drills with the kids and then Beilein would send the kids with players (who all really enjoyed it) and have question and answers with the dads. Finally, towards the end of the day Saturday they would have contests with the kids and dads. This particular year they had a lightning contest (AKA knockout) for the kids and a separate one for the dads. If you don’t know what this game is, basically everyone gets in a line with a ball. The first person shoots from either the three point line or free throw line, if they make it they go to the end of the line, if they miss, they have to collect their rebound and score before the person behind them makes a shot. If the person behind you makes their shot before you, then you are knocked out. The kids and dads were all separated into three groups, and we all played at the same time. Players from the team we assigned to courts. Mine had Duncan Robinson assigned to it. Each group finished and we had three dad champs and three kid champs. DMB dad survived his group to be one of the three champs. Young DMB could not bring it home (he did inherit my shooting ability though). I received an odd congrats from Duncan, which left me feeling that he felt vaguely threatened by me. Hard to explain, but he was uncomfortable with me winning my group. This was done in the PDC, and afterwards we all went into Crisler to hand out awards. As we all sat down to listen to coach Beilein give some final words of wisdom he asked the kids if they wanted to see the dad champs go against the players on the team. The kids shrieked in joy at the thought of seeing some dads get destroyed by their heroes. It was on!
Me and the other three dads got up and joined players like Duncan Robinson, Derrick Walton, MAAR, and others for this epic game of knockout. Before we began, Beilein said the players had to shoot their initial shot from behind the three point line, while the dads could shoot from the free throw line. DMB dad would have none of that, announcing to everyone in attendance that he did not want an advantage and would also shoot from the three-point line. The game begins and I am in line right behind Duncan. He drains his first shot from about 5 feet behind the three-point line. Not to be outdone, I knock down my first shot as well. The other dads all quickly folded to the pressure and were knocked out rather quickly. After a few rounds it was me and about 3-4 players left. I was still behind Duncan who hadn’t missed, but I could tell he was starting to get nervous with me behind him. The other players were knocking each other out and eventually there were three of us left. Duncan, Sean Lonergan and myself. At this point nobody was missing, and we went a few rounds without anyone being knocked out. Finally, it happened. Duncan had a shot that rimmed out leaving me with an opportunity of a lifetime. One quick dribble and I rose up and let it fly. Upon release it felt like time was standing still. The ball came out clean and felt effortless leaving my hand. The arena fell silent in anticipation. As the ball floated to the basket, I knew what was about to happen - I was going to eliminate one of the greatest shooters in the world. As the ball swished through the net a stunned silence turned to an explosion of noise, as nobody could comprehend what this father had just done. The game continued, but the results at that point hardly mattered. I had done the unthinkable and had eliminated Duncan. Sean Lonergan eventually knocked me out 
but it didn’t matter. All the kids and players ran up to shake the hand of the legend who had eliminated the great Duncan Robinson. After what seemed like 15 minutes of handshaking (and I think a few autographs), Beilein pulled us all back in to conclude the camp. At the end he had these words: “Before we part today, I want everyone to stand up and give another round of applause to the man who did the unthinkable. Give it up for Daddy McBuckets!!!”
Hence the nickname I had needed for years was finally born.
21 Likes
I think the best part of this is no fan had ever seen Duncan play prior to this. He was some random from a DIII school. The legacy of the story only grew with time when Duncan become a Heat staple in 2020 Finals run and throughout his career at Michigan after redshirting
7 Likes
What do you call this game?
- Gotcha
- Lightning
- Knockout
- Other
0
voters
While I’ve heard it called “knockout,” the only correct answer is “lightning”!
6 Likes
I have no memory of this game from my childhood, though admittedly I didn’t play a lot of basketball growing up probably in the DMB_Dad era. But my son has played basketball the last 10-12 years growing up in Illinois and it is always called knockout around here.
I have never heard it called Gotcha… but I like that name.
As a west Michigander born in 1983, I played a ton of this game in elementary and middle school and it was always lightning.
1 Like
I’ve always called it Lightning, but have heard others say Knockout.
I have never heard Gotcha, but kind of like it haha. Are you supposed to say Gotcha when you knock the other players out?
2 Likes
I can’t recall if Lightning or Knockout was more popular as a name for the game but another name I’ve heard it called is Bump, which came with (I guess?) a house rule that you could touch another players ball with your own ball. To “bump” it a great distance was often delightful.
1 Like
Results so far track with this article. Apparently Michigan is the hotbed of people that call it Lightning
And as the article explains, Gotcha is a southern thing. That’s what I always heard it as when I was younger but heard both knockout and lightning as well sometimes. And Bump is used slightly more than Gotcha to @colin’s note
5 Likes