This is an opinion column.
I want a hype mama. I need a hype mama.
A bold, sequenced-up, God-lovin’, yeah-that’s-my boy hype mama.
Yeah, that’s right, craft that sentence! Amplify those adjectives! Spin-move that phrase then hit the closing clause! Period! Bam! Just like I taught you! Just like God made you!
Who couldn’t use a hype mama? Someone mimicking your moves, calling your plays, cheering your shots?
Who couldn’t use a Lameka Sears?
She’s the mother of Mark Sears, Alabama’s unchallenged leader and senior point guard. Its only player on this splendidly quilted first-ever Crimson Tide Final Four roster with Alabama roots. Its fire.
Lameka Sears, a Muscle Shoals nurse, is the match.
I’m tempted to call her America’s hype mama—with no intended disrespect to the myriad other mamas beneath the retractable roof in Glendale, Arizona on Saturday. She’s captured us all since the opening weeks of the NCAA Men’s Tournament when we saw her rockin’, bobbin’, and dribble-bouncing in the stands, in lockstep with her son as he prepped at the free-throw line.
Saw her grip, pause, elevate, and follow-through. Every time.
Saw her do it later a glowing red orb. Squeezing, caressing, poising it just so. Then grip, elevate, and follow through. Every time.
All while unabashedly shining her light—sharing her joyful, mama’s pride smile and donning custom-made tops that just may blow through your flat screen’s dpi.
“As long as it sparkles, I love it,” she told the Tuscaloosa News last month. “I just love that. I don’t know why, but I love a sparkling thing.”
Hype mom.
The thing—the bling—isn’t new. It’s not a made-for-unreal reality character choreographed for college basketball’s brightest stage. She’s been hype mama since Mark was in rec league. (Which you know annoyed the hype outta some folks.)
Lameka’s said she’s only been asked to leave one game—once when he was in high school, when she may have gotten a tad too hyped (”…a little upset… ” she puts it) over a foul call.
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
—John 10: 27
I was a hype dad—okay, tried to be. Every sports parent screams, right? (Thank God, musical parents don’t. That’s right, massage those ivories! Pop those strings! Claim that chord! Hit that note like it stole somethin’!) My daughter, then in youth soccer, heard my voice. Too much so.
My chords would especially crescendo as she dribbled ahead of a chasing pack towards the opposing goal. Shoot! My timing, of course, wasn’t always her timing. And, of course, she didn’t always score. When she didn’t, she’d turn a glare at me—like I stole somethin’.
Mark sometimes hears mama’s voice. Even as the cacophony swells with the size of the crowds. With the stakes.
“She’s like, ‘Use your legs,’” Mark told the Tuscaloosa News. “Sometimes I laugh in my head.”
Lameka’s God’s hype mama, too. She’s unabashed, demonstrative, and confident in her faith and pours it into her son.
