DALLAS — Cedric and Jada Patterson have your typical relationship between a father and a teenage daughter.
Except that basketball is usually at the forefront.
"We spend a lot of time with each other every day," Jada Patterson said. "I go to the same school he coaches at and teaches at, so sometimes it's annoying.”
Jada is a freshman on the Dallas Lincoln girls basketball team. Cedric has been the boys varsity coach at Lincoln for over a decade.
And Jada's been tagging along to her dad's practices and games since she was young.
“She was in the gym shooting on the side," Cedric Patterson said. "You're probably talking about a 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-year old.”
But even as she was in the gym with dad, Cedric tried not to push basketball on his daughter.
“I tried to speak positivity into her. I always tried to encourage her," Cedric Patterson said. “I didn't want to be the overbearing dad or the overbearing parent that coached basketball."
That is until he found Jada watching a Duke versus North Carolina men's game when she was just 9 years old.
"It blew my mind, because I have boys that don’t even watch college basketball," Cedric Patterson said. "When I saw that I was like, 'man, she must really like basketball.'"
Jada started playing organized basketball as a seventh grader. A few years later, she's now fully immersed in the game.
“When I first started, I just wanted to play to see how I would do," Jada Patterson said. "But now that I have developed and I see how good I can be, I actually want to go D1, play college, make money off of this.”
Jada is laying the foundation for those goals as a freshman. Cedric is trying to strike a balance between coach and father.
“A lot of times our games fall on the same day, so I don't get a lot of opportunity to watch her play," Cedric Patterson said.
“I’d rather him here during the game so he can support me, but I got used to it now," Jada Patterson said.
She's also gotten used to the car rides to and from school where the conversations turn to basketball.
"Sometimes he talks my ear off," said Jada Patterson with a smile. "I don't want to hear it sometimes, but I know that he knows what he's talking about."
Lending advice like a coach, while being her biggest fan as a dad.
"It's almost like a movie watching her grow," Cedric Patterson said. "My goals for her are for her to be able to reach her goals. That's what I want to see for her, and that makes us happy.”
“We got a good relationship. We understand each other, you know, make each other laugh." Jada Patterson said. "He has experiences. He can give me advice. He knows the game. He understands the game."