Basketball

Basketball

Once you've been playing a sport for awhile you learn that there is both a physical and mental side to it. Initially you are just trying to master the skills but once you start competing against others you discover that equally important mental component. I am not an especially good athlete but what I am good at is recognizing my limitations and playing within my abilities. This may not sound like much, but it's a valuable skill and it turns out that many do not have it. Over the years it has enabled me to be at least competitive with others who were more physically gifted than myself.

My favorite sport has always been baseball but the sport I was best at was always basketball. I didn't shoot my first basket until I was in 4^th grade. It was at my friend Kenny's house. They had a hoop in the backyard and we ended up shooting hoops with his big brother. The following year I played on the grade school team and led the team in scoring. Kenny was also on the team as well as his neighbor across the street John, who was our leader and probably our best player overall. The other two were Mike and Charles who both lived in the neighborhood that was on the other side of the school from us. Charles was the weakest player of our starting five but in the end he was the one who ended up being a starting center on our high school team. I didn't even make the team.

After I started working at the bike shop Frank and I started spending a lot of time together. We discovered that we both liked to play basketball. Frank had been on his high school team and we soon started playing a lot of pick-up basketball all over town. We played at various outdoor courts as well as at the gyms at the University. I grew up in a time where we didn't do much celebrating when we won. The accepted behavior was to act like you've done it before and never show up the other player. I never did any trash talking. In fact the first time I experienced it was when Frank and I played at the courts under the highway. Celebrating and trash talking were both new to me. However, that didn't mean I didn't try to psych-out the other guy now and then.

Frank and I preferred playing on inside basketball courts and we bought a high quality genuine NBA leather ball we could use. We played a lot of 'ratball' (pick-up games) at the university gyms. Most of those games were half-court but Frank and I preferred playing full-court. We eventually hooked up with some guys who organized an early morning full-court game at the university a few times a week. These guys were mostly graduate students and had all played organized ball, either small college ball or at a minimum high school ball. I may have been the only one who had not played either. One of them knew the janitor who worked the early shift at the gym. He got the janitor to let us in when he arrived a little before 7 even though the gym didn't open for student use until 8. I remember having to get up around 6 and riding my bike to the gym in the dark on those mornings. That was way early for me as I was always up past 12, often way past it. Heck, I was often in the computer lab on campus past midnight and after I got home I would always listen to some music to relax before going to bed. The getting up early was worth it as they were high quality games, the highest quality games I ever played in. We played full court for 30 to 40 minutes, took a short break and then played for another 20 to 30. We played fast-breaks only on a steal to keep the game from devolving into everyone just running up and down the court out of control and we didn't keep score. The two organizers always set up the teams to ensure the teams were even. I was not one of the more skilled players but I could hold my own. My strengths were I was fast, I had a good mid-range shot, and I played pretty good defense. Frank and I would often get matched up against each other. For some reason I was usually on Andy's (one of the organizers) team. I was probably the fastest guy out there and like many good shooters I was streaky. Andy would notice when I was hitting my shot and he would set me up 2 or 3 or even 4 times in a row. He was good enough so he would deliver the pass to me in stride, just as I got in position. About five minutes before we needed to exit the court we would pause and agree that the first team to score two baskets would win. We would remove the fast break restriction and do a jump ball for possession. Andy would take advantage of my speed frequently telling me that once our team had one basket I was to race down the court as soon as the other team attempted a shot. If he got the rebound, which he did often, he'd immediately fire it down the court to me for an easy layup for a win. We won numerous times that way.

The other organizer, Mike, was a very solid player and he was very good at stealing the ball from you. He was uncanny with his ability to reach around and slap the ball away from you as you went by. I watched him closely and being aware of this I made sure to turn a little more away from him and keep the ball very close to me whenever I went by him. Mike told me after we'd been playing for a few months that even though I wasn't the best ball handler out there I was the person he had the hardest time swiping the ball from.

Frank was about 6' 2” and I was just a whisker over 6'. I would usually try to run the guy guarding me into the ground as in those days I was in very good shape. However, Frank was also in good shape and he liked to use the same tactic so that did not work with him. I was faster but he was longer and stronger. The more we played against each other the more we learned each others tendencies, strengths and weaknesses. Soon Frank was regularly scoring on me by backing into me and getting to his spot and then using a kind of jump-hook shot that would be just out of my reach. I got a little tired of being beat so one day after he missed a couple of shots I told him during the break that the reason he missed those shots was because I made him take his shot a foot or two further from the basket than he had previously. It wasn't true I just wanted him to start thinking about it and sure enough he started missing many of those shots. It only worked for a short while as eventually he got back to making most of them again. When that happened I came clean and told him it wasn't true as I had only told him that to make him think about it. He laughed but was bit flabbergasted that I would do that. He then asked me if I was telling him the truth this time and I replied “Would I lie to you Frank?” So now he started wondering which one of my stories was the lie. So, of course he once again started missing shots for a short while. Soon he was back to making them again. Oh well, it at least worked for awhile. Looking back I wonder if Mike was trying to get in my head when he told me he had a hard time stealing the ball from me. I guess it was a good thing that I didn't think about it at the time.

I quit playing basketball many years ago. I found that as I approached 40 I couldn't play without hurting myself. If I didn't put my back out, I'd sprain or brake something. The last time I played was with my brother-in-law. I was about 40 and hadn't played for a few years. I joined him and his friends in a 3-on-3 game. 10 minutes in I landed on someone's foot going for a rebound and sprained my ankle.

Just this past week I came across that NBA leather basketball Frank and I used all those years ago while I was cleaning out the garage. I can't seem to let it go as there are too many memories attached to it. Maybe I'll take it down to the “Y” one of these days and shoot a few hoops but probably not.....