9. One Shining Moment

The ball is tipped
and there you are
you're running for your life
you're a shooting star....

In one shining moment, it’s all on the line
One shining moment, there frozen in time.

At the conclusion of its coverage of the 1987 National Championship game between the Indiana Hoosiers and Syracuse Orangemen, CBS showed a brief highlight package of the best moments of that year’s tournament set to a monument of schmaltz entitled “One Shining Moment”. Over the two decades that followed, the tune has become a sports institution, serving as the backdrop for a series of images capturing the most explosive and emotional moments from the three weeks in March when every team plays for the purest reason that there is: for the right to play again. It is the often-imitated, never-duplicated standard bearer for sports television sentimentalism.

The song itself became the soundtrack of basketball fantasy for a generation of youngsters. It was the anthem of every kid who imagined a ticking clock and a roaring crowd as the backdrop for his final shot before dinner. On its face, and in the blur of pictures that flicker across the screen, it is a song about victory. It is a song about champions. It is a song that extols the virtue of persevering through overwhelming adversity in the pursuit of one’s dreams. But on another level, it is a song that serves as a reminder to revel in the glory of competition. It is a song that urges each participant to appreciate each opportunity and each experience, to cherish each victory and each triumph, even if those moments aren’t the ultimate dream.

It is a song, for all its simplicity, that I should’ve listened to better than I did.

****

Life was in many ways easier for me as I neared the midpoint of my high school career. I had grown accustomed to Midwestern accents and television prime time kicking off at seven o’clock. I had settled into a vigorous academic schedule that would spit me out at high school graduation as a second-semester college sophomore. I wasn’t clinging to the basketball team for social survival any longer, but that didn’t make it less important to me. I’ve never worked harder in my life than I did during those years and basketball, as always, served as my release. I was the smallest sophomore in stature – around 5’5” and 115 pounds – and least in all other statistics, but I was still a part of something. The practices served as my opportunity to spend time with my closest friends every day before hitting the books and were the only way I could play the game I loved during the brutal Windy City winter. I had accepted that basketball would have a less formal role in my life after high school and that this would be the last time in my life when I could be part of a team that mattered. The sophomore team was the next stop on my way to the varsity, the original March Madness (the Illinois High School Association claims that title for its basketball tournament), and the roaring crowd at Waukegan High School. It was a modest dream, but a dream nonetheless.

I had made some progress on the depth chart, from the sixth string to the fourth, though it had very little to do with my abilities or my aspirations. The sophomore team picture contained ten fewer boys than the freshman edition, but most of that number simply quit the team for a variety of reasons. Some quit to focus on other sports. Some quit to focus on their social life. Others quit because they didn’t enjoy being benchwarmers, suffering through the daily rigors of practice without getting to play in any of the games.

That isn’t quite true. There were actually games for the benchwarmers. The sophomore team, like the freshman team, was broken down into “A” and “B” squads. The head coach directed the games of the “A” team and an assistant coach would cover the “B” team contests. The “B” teams included anyone that did not play substantial minutes in the “A” team’s games. For the sophomore squad, the “B” team was usually no more than seven players and often was as few as five, so – the coach having no alternative – I got to play most of the game. We posted a fine record and I had some decent performances that season. I posted my career high in a school uniform: 15 points, the result of hitting all six of my shots from the field and three more from the line. In another game that we won by approximately 50 points, I claimed to have had 20 assists. During the varsity game later that day, the assistant coach – otherwise memorable primarily for introducing us to the term “cajones” – pointed out the local high school sportswriter and prodded me, “Go give him a quote!”

I often didn’t hear him clearly – unless, of course, he was screaming something about “cajones!” – so I looked back at him, a little mystified, “Go give him a Coke?”

“No, a quote! A quote!”

It seemed a little presumptuous to me – no cajones, I’m sure the assistant coach would say – so I did not approach the sportswriter. The next day, the paper reported that I had 7 points and 14 assists. It was the only time I remember seeing my name in the newspaper associated with basketball.

****

But the glory was in the “A” team’s games, especially for the sophomores. The sophomore games were directly before the varsity contests, which meant that by the time our games were concluding, there were often a couple thousands fans in attendance. If the game was a blowout, the benchwarmers were likely to be playing in front of actual people, though it was unlikely that any of them would be watching. The apathy directed towards the third-string players was even shared by the head coach. At the season-ending banquet, he introduced each of the players on the team before a crowd of family members. The first player, the other guard on the “B” team – and more importantly an occasional substitute on the “A” team – was praised by the head coach for a few paragraphs for his effort and his steadiness in practice. It was well-deserved recognition.

I was next. The coach paused. He furrowed his brow, looking at the sheet of statistics in his hand for an idea. It came to him and his eyes twinkled briefly before he spoke, savoring his own joke before it was spoken.

“Uh,” began, inauspiciously, “Jeff led our team in free-throw shooting this year. He made his only one.”

All of the parents and other players laughed. So did I. It was a good opening line. Unfortunately for me, it was also his closing one. He quickly moved on to lauding the next player at length and I humbly stepped back into line. Ouch.

It wasn’t his fault; I imagine he had simply forgotten about me in preparing his remarks. I had a rather forgettable season and any statistical analysis of the team’s performances would conclude that I was the least significant player on the roster. I had only one memorable moment that season and it revealed little more than my proper position at the end of the bench.

Still, I did have one.

****

And all the years
no one knows
just how hard you worked
but now it shows....

In the last home game of our season, we had a substantial lead entering the fourth quarter. The scrubs knew we were going to get a few final minutes of playing time in front of our classmates. It was a long shot that any of us would make the varsity squad the following year, and I would ultimately be the only one who would even try. We referred to those mop-up minutes of a blowout as “popcorn time” – the time of the game when the starters could grab a box of popcorn, since their work was done. Throughout that season, as soon as we sensed a decisive victory, one of us would turn to the others and say, “You smell that? Smells like popcorn.” (Quite the banter, I know.) The rest of us would grin and starting bouncing our legs up and down, trying to send some life into our lower limbs in anticipation of checking in to the game.

The varsity squad was carrying an exceptional record that season, so the crowd came early. The dominance of the varsity had even drawn the students that didn’t care about basketball, including a sweet, stunning, and thoughtful girl on whom I held a formidable crush. My eyes had been instantly drawn to her the second that she walked into gym and they followed her to her seat in one of the front few rows. She was a lighthouse on the opposite shore – she wore a long-sleeved, red-and-white-striped shirt and a beaming beacon of a smile that drew my eyes to her every time the play headed to the end of the court where she was stationed. It was the first time that I was going to get to play with her in attendance. Despite my deep desire to impress her, I didn’t really have any grand plans for the spectacular – “spectacular” was not in my arsenal. I would do what I always had done: spend my few minutes trying to get my teammates open shots and, if I was lucky, I’d get to run around enough to justify a post-game shower.

Paul – the neck cartoonist from my freshman year – had another idea. He and I had become friends, though he had decided not to play basketball that year and instead focus on football and baseball. I have had a friend or two in my life that enjoyed trying to see what they could get a group of people to do, but no one more so than Paul. The fact that he’s had a successful career in public relations is not a surprise. After a few dreary minutes of uninspired hoops, and a correspondingly uninterested crowd, Paul decided to focus the assembled masses on the one remaining matter that had yet to be decided: whether or not I would score.

I became aware of this with about two minutes remaining in the contest. The ball was in-bounded to me and I began to dribble up the court. As soon as I passed the center circle, a few dozen people started screaming at me to shoot. Our offense was not designed to permit the point guard to heave up a 40-foot shot. Few offenses are. Further, the popcorn posse was only willing to follow our plays for a pass or two and once I had successfully initiated the offense, I was unlikely to see the ball again. As I passed the ball to one side of the floor and ran in the opposite direction to set a screen, the sudden balloon of crowd noise deflated, and we were soon on defense again.

The rise and fall was repeated a few times as I caught the ball and passed it away. Each time I touched the ball, a few more sections of seats were drawn into the drama. It was hardly a unique situation. The first team I ever watched consistently – the 1981-82 North Carolina Tar Heels – had a 7’1” center from Finland named Timo Makkonen. Each time Makkonen took a step down the floor, it was an even money proposition whether his next stride would successfully keep his lumbering body upright. (If this is unfair to Makkonen, I apologize – I’m going off my memory of him as a six-year-old.) But the fans loved him. Every time he touched the ball, the students would urge him to shoot, erupting in chants of “Timo! Timo! Timo!” Makkonen and other similarly flawed crowd favorites served reminders that normal people do play the game. I suppose the crowd identifies with them, thinking, “If that guy can do it, so can I.”

But whatever the reason, the chants will always be. On this particular day, those chants were for me, and as the clock ticked toward the final minute and I failed to satisfy the pleas for points, the entire student section and most of the adults were absorbed into a single screaming, stomping, clapping company of encouragement.

I was conflicted. I didn’t like attention when I hadn’t done anything to deserve it and I really didn’t like it when I was receiving it precisely because I wasn’t capable of doing much of anything. But if I was going to get it, then I damn well wanted to succeed. I didn’t like to look for my own opportunities to score, in small part because my disposition disfavored it and in large part because of how poorly I shot the ball on most occasions. I wanted to please my coaches, who had assigned me a particular role: play good defense, handle the ball, and set up my teammates. Unless weapons were aimed at my forehead – and they better be substantial weapons, not just a measly kitchen knife or something – I was not supposed to shoot. Then again, I also wanted to please the masses and I wanted, unlikely as it was, to impress the girl. The timeless lesson applies to me as it does to so many other males: ultimately, in any comparison of virtues, always, always, ALWAYS count on the boy choosing the path that he thinks will impress the girl. (Of course, the other aspect of this algebra, at least for me, is that whenever the boy thinks he knows what will impress the girl, he is always wrong. This theory is encapsulated in another blog tentatively entitled: Last of the No-Freakins.)

So I wanted to score, but I wanted to do it in the natural course of the game. That way, I could satisfy the coaches, be respectful of my teammates, please the masses, and maybe, just maybe, catch the eye of the girl. Everybody wins. With 40 seconds to go, I got my chance. A long rebound led to a fast break. I caught the ball on the right wing and had an unobstructed path to the basket. I rose for a lay-up and deftly released the ball on a path towards the backboard that would gently lead it toward the bucket. The ball did as it was told, pausing on the glass and preparing to fall softly off the front of the rim and into the hoop. The crowd leapt to its feet and began to cheer in celebration.

Unfortunately, and to the exasperated gasps of the masses, as the ball hung inside the front edge of the rim, a defender was completing a wild and futile attempt to block the shot. The motion of his arm was a few feet short of the location of the ball, but as he thrashed downward, his hand caught a corner of the net, stretching one of its strands and violently jerking the breakaway rim downward. As the rim sprang back to its proper location, the ball was catapulted against the backboard and caromed away toward the free throw line. The referees should have called goaltending, but the play was too unexpected or the game too uncompetitive, so they simply let play continue. The opposing team dribbled the ball in the other direction, the crowd sagged, and I raced back on defense.

After another 30 seconds, a foul was committed, leaving ten seconds on the clock as a player for the other team stepped to the free throw line. By this point, even the coaches were motioning for me to hedge towards my basket, in the hopes that I could receive a long pass and finally score two measly, meaningless points. The crowd was growing desperate, screaming at the shooter in the hopes that a bad miss might lead to another fast break and another opportunity for me. The second free throw was missed and the rebound ricocheted among competing hands as the final seconds trickled from the clock. I was standing a few feet in front of the students section, where I treated them to an uneven dance as the tug-of-war between my ears became visible in my steps.

Nine seconds. My initial instinct was to secure the ball and run out the clock, a respectful gesture towards an already beaten opponent. Traditional basketball protocol dictated that this was the proper course. I shuffled a few steps to my left towards the scrum.

Seven seconds. The crowd protested. Vigorously. My own coaches were telling me to head for the other basket so I would have a chance to score. If the reason to sublimate one’s own ego to the team was because the collective was more significant than the individual, and if the greater good was truly what was at stake, then shouldn’t my goal be to make as many people as possible happy? That means offering the performance that would please the crowd, doesn’t it? I shuffled a few steps to the right as the crowd squealed in delight.

Six seconds. It felt wrong. I didn’t want the attention. This wasn’t me. I took a step back towards the left.

Five seconds. A teammate secured the ball. When in doubt, always go for the column with the girl. I took off to my right and down the court. The crowd erupted.

Three seconds. I received the ball just inside the three-point line. I took one dribble, cutting inside one sprinting defender.

Two seconds. I rose toward the basket as another defender streaked in front of me. Already in the air, I pulled the ball back as the defender swung his arm and continued past me.

One second. I hung in the air – I could always jump – and gently arched the ball towards the backboard.

The buzzer sounded. The crowd exploded. The ball fell through the hoop.

****

But time is short
and the road is long
in the blinking of an eye
ah that moment's gone....

My one shining moment may have been my single success in a season of ineptitude, but at least it was properly crowned. I did get that post-game shower (though that may have been attributed more to my sweaty teammates offering congratulatory hugs more than my own perspiration) and emerged from the locker room a few minutes into the varsity contest. Paul quickly found me in the stands and, before a few hundred of my classmates, hung a net around my neck. He explained that since the defender had severely stretched the net, the decision had been made to replace the twine for the next game. Recognizing the theater that is typically involved in the ceremony of cutting down the nets after a championship moment – and foreshadowing his public relations career – Paul quickly approached the maintenance men and retrieved the damaged net. It was awarded to me as my prize for my single basket and the crowd offered its approval with a final ovation.

Looking back on it now, I kick myself for not enjoying the moment more. I had nearly all of my friends, my family, my teammates, and my peers encouraging me. I got to make a difficult, buzzer-beating shot and celebrate in the embrace of a roaring crowd. I don’t know too many people that have had such a moment, or had a net hung over their heads in recognition of that moment, even if it was in rather absurd circumstances. Everybody deserves a moment like that. I actually got to have the experience. I should’ve savored it.

But I didn’t, at least not at the time. My eyes turned immediately toward my dreams. I retreated to a spot near the top of the bleachers as the attention of the crowd returned to the game. An attractive girl sat beside me, trying unsuccessfully to engage me in conversation. I listened quietly, nodding at appropriate moments, but it wasn’t the girl I wanted. It wasn’t the moment I wanted, the achievement I wanted, or the net that I wanted. It wasn’t the one shining moment I wanted. I sat beside her, running the net between my fingers, wondering where the girl in the red-and-white shirt was sitting. I wondered if I’d ever get a chance to sit in that varsity locker room. I wondered if I’d ever score when it mattered.

I got the ticking clock and the roaring crowd as the backdrop for my final shot. If I’d had it to do over again, I’d enjoy the popcorn a little bit more.

****

Brief preview of the this week's post

I'm still not satisfied with this week's post just yet, but here's some background information: The blog will feature the song "One Shining Moment" -- for those not familiar, additional details can be found at the following website: http://www.oneshiningmoment.com/

The highlights can be found on youtube – some links:

1987 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LjU0VTNTb0&feature=related

1993 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpo55XmKXeI

2005 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctibBWZ5CbI

No particular reason why I picked 1993 and 2005. No particular reason at all.)

****

Two weeks

That is about the length a typical New Year's resolution lasts, yes?

I had to work this weekend. No time to finish this week's post. I will aim to be back next weekend.

8. Ollie

In his first minute after being introduced as the new head coach at Hickory High, Coach Norman Dale had swiftly reduced his roster from a manageable number of seven players by ejecting a pair of disrespectful lads from practice. Upon examining the remaining quintet of Indiana farm boys, Dale acknowledges the five building blocks that will compose his team, but his math is disputed by one who states, “Well, it’s really four-and-a-half."

All eyes turn toward Ollie, a minuscule, blond-haired boy with a ball held over his belly. His eyes dart to the floor and remain there as he joins in the group chuckle, saying, “I’m not very good.”

Thus begins the story of Hoosiers. Thus continues the story of the playground junkie.

****

The first-string point guard on the freshman basketball team was a superior athlete. Mark was already in his physical prime – his body was the same at fourteen years old as it would be at twenty-two. He was strong, tough, and lightning fast. Unfortunately, his greatest strength as a basketball player was also his greatest weakness – he was too fast for rhythm. Rhythm, at least physical rhythm, is nothing more than the capacity to pause properly in the midst of movement. In basketball, as in many sports, a person must have the ability to perform movements both precisely and repetitively. The player must be able to do each portion of the movement the same every single time – with the same strength, at the same speed, and with the same slight pause between each portion. Mark couldn’t. He couldn’t pause. He couldn’t slow down, even slightly. As a result, he would never play beyond high school. But at this level, his physical gifts were more than sufficient to establish him as an elite point guard.

The second-string point guard was as advanced mentally as Mark was physically. Ken wasn’t a gifted basketball player, but he had an intensity and a focus, as well as an ability to grow facial hair, that was beyond the typical teenager. He possessed perhaps the greatest poker face I’ve ever seen – even when his mischievous side would emerge and allow him to unleash some prehistoric animal noise in the middle of an honors class, he would never get blamed, because no teacher could get a guilty smirk to crease his face. He would later be named captain of the school’s football and baseball teams, though he would quit the football team in the middle of his senior season to dedicate himself to his academics. I have no doubt he is now somewhere conquering his corner of the world.

The third-string point guard was a frequent starter at small forward, but he understood the game well enough to play any position, and the coach was not going to entrust the keys to the best freshman team in school history to anyone lower on the roster. Ryan was taller and slower than the typical point guard, but he was ornery. While Ken was unshakable, Ryan was more likely to impose his formidable will on opposing players. For that reason, he would ultimately earn a starting role on the varsity during his senior season. For that reason, the coach had him on the floor at the end of the regional semifinal of the state tournament that year. And for that reason, it was all the more shocking and shattering to see him, with the score tied, commit the turnover that led to the lay-up that ended both the season and his basketball career. I’m certain the ghost of that game still occasionally haunts him. Basketball is cruel sometimes.

The fourth-string point guard was perhaps the team’s prettiest player. He had long, dark hair that trailed behind him as he ran down the floor. Like Ken and Ryan, Shane never seemed hurried or stressed. Unlike Ken or Ryan, in Shane’s case, it was because he really didn’t care too much. Just like his hair, he simply flowed. He would quit the team a few weeks into the season, officially to try his hand at the wrestling team and perhaps in part because the fourth-string point guard sits on the bench quite a bit, but I think mostly because he just really, really liked marijuana. He was the only guy I ever heard of who smoked pot with his dad because his father wanted to teach him how to do it properly. If you could have sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, then I guess there really wasn’t a need for hoops.

The fifth-string point guard was a decent player. Eric could do everything that the other players could do; he just did it much slower. He was reliable; he was solid. He was also left-handed, which set him apart a bit, and he could be trusted to make a free throw and the occasional outside shot. Those skills alone earned him a spot above the bottom of the roster. By his junior season, he would see the writing on the wall and wouldn’t even make the attempt to play on the varsity, smartly sparing himself the certain anguish of being told he didn’t belong.

The sixth-string point guard was our “Ollie”, all the way down to the diminutive frame and the dirty blond hair. He was 5’4”, 105 pounds. He wasn’t as fast as Mark. He wasn’t as intense as Ken. He wasn’t as strong as Ryan. He wasn’t as likely to fail a drug test as Shane, so he had that going for him – then again, he wasn’t as happy as Shane either, so maybe not. He wasn’t as reliable as Eric. He couldn’t shoot and he struggled to defend. “Ollie” was too short and too slow for basketball, but he could dribble through a press, which is just about the only reason he was on the team.

Hoosiers' Ollie looked like this (far right of the picture):

Our “Ollie” was me. I was just happy to be there. It had already been a long freshman year.

****

My family had moved from Florida to the northern suburbs of Chicago shortly after the conclusion of my eighth-grade school year. My parents did their best to keep me occupied. They sent me to my high school-to-be’s basketball camp. They hung a punching bag in the basement. They sent me out in the yard to chop down the five-foot tall weeds that stood as grass around the house. They also took me to neighborhood pool parties, which indirectly led to my confrontation with the Magnificent Seven.

This was not The Magnificent Seven of Yul Brenner, Steven McQueen, or Charles Bronson. They were Dana, Megan, Lia, Kelly, Jennifer, Andrea, and… well, the seventh has my apologies because I forgot her name. At this rate, the rest of their names will likely also slip from my memory by the time I hit 140 years old. Other than Kelly, on whom I held a substantial crush for most of our freshman year (and, admittedly, sporadically thereafter), they did not play even a marginal role in my life other than this single night. But collectively, they will forever remain in my memory.

The evening was proceeding along the same course as nearly every other night that summer. I was up in my bedroom doing sit-ups and watching the 1989 Chicago Cubs during their dramatic run to the National League East pennant. My mother came up to my room, eyes a little wide, and said, “Um, you have a few… visitors.”

I tilted my head, not unlike a confused puppy, and slowly stood up. She grinned slightly, but offered no further scouting report on what awaited me in the foyer. I looked at her a moment longer, then walked out my door, down the hall, and to the top of the stairs. For the first of many times over the next half-hour, I froze. Arrayed on the first floor below were seven girls. As my sister would later famously say of middle-school females, they travel in herds.

This was a particularly attractive herd. They were my age, but they seemed much older. The giggled endearingly at me as I slowly walked down to meet them. I suppose the fact that seven girls had arrived at my doorstep should have inspired some confidence in me. I suppose that if I’d asked the reason that they had visited, they might’ve told me. (I think that Dana had seen me at the neighborhood pool party, though the link between that event and the Magnificent Seven arriving at my doorstep remains a mystery to me.) I supposed if I’d asked them anything about themselves, either individually or collectively, they would have been happy to talk about that, too. I suppose that if I’d even taken the cue from the t-shirts that a couple of them were wearing and said, “Hey, how ‘bout those New Kids on the Block?”, that would’ve kick-started a friendly conversation. I suppose that, if nothing else, if I’d have had the same dumb luck with the Magnificent Seven as I’d had on a basketball court as a third-grader banking in two free throws, my future interactions in social settings with the opposite sex, or with large groups, or both, might’ve been much different.

I suppose I talked. I don’t remember. I do remember that after a few minutes, they grew bored with me and simply started talking to each other. I remember that when they grew tired of that, they allowed a few awkward silences before deciding that there were better ways to spend their evening than with the dear deer-in-the-headlights standing across from them. I remember that when they left, I moved from the station I had assumed on the fresh carpet of the new house and looked down to see the deep imprint of each of my toes. I hadn’t moved in a solid half-hour, which might’ve been reasonable if I had been guarding Buckingham Palace, but probably wasn’t quite appropriate here. About my only contribution to the occasion had been that my frozen silence was uninterrupted by a loss of consciousness, so the girls were at least able to simply talk amongst themselves in peace without the distraction of helping me off of the floor.

So it was that I failed in my one chance to make a few friends prior to my first day of high school. Then again, if I had succeeded, the movie references might’ve ended here.

****

I love the movie Mean Girls. Despite the fact that I am a red-blooded heterosexual male who still likes to believe that he is young, it is not because of Lindsay Lohan. It is also not because of Rachel McAdams, though I have at least found her characters attractive in other films. It is entirely because of the writing. I love Tina Fey. I think she is among the finest things that the University of Virginia has ever produced. I love her intelligence, I love her sense of humor, and – every once in a while – I think we have something in common. Probably not intelligence and certainly not comedic talent, but, nonetheless, something.

There is a scene in the movie where Lohan’s character, after her role in a conspiracy is revealed to the school, is being shunned by all of her classmates. The camera catches her face as she slowly shuffles into a sea of angry stares from every corner of the cafeteria. She is decidedly not welcome. After looking around the room for a friendly face and finding none, she sighs. The camera cuts to an angle directly above a closed bathroom stall, where it finds Lohan with her tray perched upon her lap, sadly munching away at her afternoon fare. It is a quintessential image of high school alienation.

It is also how I spent my first two lunches as a high school student.

Well, except it was the boys’ bathroom. And I brought my lunch rather than purchasing it at school. And there was no soundtrack. And the stalls were red in my school. But you get the idea.

I was fine in the classroom. I was fine, though slightly fearful, in the crowded halls – during the Magnificent Seven’s visit, they had discussed rumors of seniors duct-taping freshmen to their lockers, and the image did not leave my fevered brain until several months into the school year. It was only in the lunchroom that I was truly terrified. The school contained two thousand students. There were dozens of tables arrayed throughout a few rooms and some staggered risers that allowed a non-conventional place to sit. I would quickly learn that I could sit in the risers without infringing on the conversations and social structures of my classmates. But that wasn’t until Day Three.

The following weeks offered good moments and bad moments. A few guardian angels appeared. A boy named Ryan struck up a conversation about our English class. Another newcomer with dramatically superior social skills named Steve saw my North Carolina shirt and bonded with me over Dean Smith and Tar Heel hoops. A boy named Blake, who would become my best friend during high school, informed me of the open gym sessions that allowed students to play basketball after school. The beautiful Kelly complimented me on an essay I had written. (I would later figure out that she had a bit of a crush on me, too, but – as would become my habit – I figured it out too late.) Other boys teased; other girls giggled. A boy named Paul actually drew small cartoons on the back of my neck and ears during history class. He was bigger than me, so my only answer was to stoically refuse to acknowledge that he was affecting me. In time, he would become one of my closest friends, too. Still, almost three months into the school year, I was often alone, afraid, and insecure. It’s no way to live.

In seventh and eighth grade, I wanted to make the basketball team. In ninth grade, I needed to make the basketball team. It was like the scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Andy Dufresne is walking in the snow, symbolizing the dark winter of his first few years in Shawshank State Prison, while Red is saying, “If things had kept on that way, I do believe this place might’ve got the best of Andy.…”

I needed to make the basketball team to be allowed to do the thing that I loved every day. I needed it to make a few friends. I needed it to be part of something.

I needed it to get through the winter.

****

Eighty-three.

That’s how many freshmen boys tried out for the basketball team that year. Eighty-three. The vast majority had played for one of the half-dozen or so junior high school teams in the area. On the very first day, it was obvious that there were twenty-five to thirty players who simply didn’t belong. It was also obvious that there were fifteen to twenty players who were clearly superior to the rest of the group and would be donning the school’s jerseys that season. This left about five to ten spots for thirty to thirty-five players.

I fell into the last of these three categories, but it was hard to like my chances. I had not played in junior high school. In an environment where a person needed to stand out to survive, there was nothing about me that would capture someone’s attention. I was among the smallest players at the tryouts, and even if I had been a little larger, it’s still hard to stand out when surrounded by eighty-two other boys. It was a full week of basic drills and long scrimmages where players briefly rotated on to the court for a few moments and then were returned to the sideline to watch for extended stretches. When everyone gets a small chance, no one gets a big one. So when the coach dismissed us on the final day of the selection period, I had no idea whether I was among the chosen. We were simply told that the matter would be decided by the coaches that evening.

The following morning, as seemingly all Midwestern winter mornings in my memory, was gray and blustery. It was the kind of morning that drew your shoulders and chin closer together, as if held by an invisible drawstring being pulled tighter. The bus had dropped me off at its usual hour and I had rushed up the staircase to the left of the school’s entrance. The team was posted on a single sheet of paper in the hallway at the top of the stairs. The names were in alphabetical order. I found mine almost instantly, but I still read the list over a few times, if only to confirm that this was the list of players on the team and not the last set of cuts. Satisfied that my little dream had come true, I closed my eyes and rested a hand against a wall. It was a sweet mixture of joy and relief. My hand closed into a gentle fist, which I tapped on the wall before realizing that the warning bell was coming momentarily. I quickly called my mother from a pay phone to share the good news, then hustled off to my first class.

****

Have some pizza. Have some pop. Have a seat and watch the movie.

These were the first directions offered to the 1989-1990 Stevenson boys’ basketball program. The members of the freshman, sophomore, and varsity teams had assembled to celebrate the commencement of another season. In the past quarter century, the school’s squads had wallowed in bottom half of the North Suburban Conference, never surviving the first few rounds of the Illinois State Tournament. But on this night, we were undefeated, we were excited, and we were ready to be inspired. If the goal is basketball inspiration, there may be no better prescription than Hoosiers.

Hoosiers is the story of a team from a tiny school in rural Indiana that wins the 1954 Indiana High School basketball tournament. It is the story of turning a team of “Ollies” into a state champion. It is a story about second chances. It is a story about a tournament where everybody gets an equal opportunity. It is a story about taking a team of undersized and undermanned boys and reminding them that the basket is always 10 feet high, the free throw line is always 15 feet away, and if you play the game the right way, you can compete with anyone. It is a story about everything I wanted to be and everything I wanted to achieve.

At the end of the film, the freshman coach rose from his plastic chair. He described in a reverential tone how the regional finals of the state tournament were played in a relic of a gym in Waukegan, Illinois, that seemed lifted straight from Hoosiers. Unlike most high school gymnasiums, there were bleachers on all four sides of the court. Pillars rose periodically between the seats and created obstructed views that didn’t exist in more modern facilities. The seats were made of wood, rather than plastic, and the acoustics of the place were such that every bounce of the ball and squeak of the shoes echoed, only to be swallowed by the vast noise of a roaring crowd. It wasn’t heated, but with 4,000 or so tightly bunched bodies, even on the darkest February night, it never seemed cold. It was dimly lit, so that you could never see the further reaches of the seats, which made the gym feel even larger. It seemed that smoke puffed from cigarettes decades before still circled the ceiling, combining with the soft lamps above to create a grainy haze that washed across the court and transported the game to an earlier time. The locker rooms were beneath the level of the court, so that during the pre-game speeches, the clapping and stomping of the masses surrounded you and the coach had to scream simply to be heard. Running up a flight of stairs from those locker rooms to the court, you felt like a gladiator coming to the floor of the Coliseum.

Two decades later, the very thought of it makes me smile.

In Hoosiers, it was in a similar gym where Ollie scored his only points of the season, making two free throws to win a regional game and continue the team’s remarkable run through the state tournament. He shot the free throws underhanded, heaving them from between his legs as a small child would with a bowling ball during his first trip to the alley. I’m not sure whether banking two free throws or making two underhanded is more improbable, but it wasn’t the only link between us. We were both substantially smaller and less talented than our teammates. We both had dirty blond hair. Perhaps just as significant, we both carried ourselves quietly and responded to most questions with an unassuming, “aw, shucks” shrug of the shoulders as our eyes darted away from the attention to the safety of the floor below.

When I was a small child – okay, when I was a smaller child – I dreamed of playing professional basketball. I dreamed about being Larry Bird, “Magic” Johnson, and Michael Jordan. When I was scoring 25 points in a fifth-grade game, I dreamed of playing college basketball and wearing the uniform of my beloved North Carolina Tar Heels. By the time I was cut from the junior high school team, the bar had been lowered from college to the high school varsity. As I looked at the five point guards in my high school ahead of me on the roster, I knew that I would never be a starter or even a contributor to a decent team. So the dream changed again.

As I listened to the coach describe the vision of the gym at Waukegan, I decided that my goal for my high school career was to run out of that Waukegan tunnel. I didn’t need to start; I didn’t even need to play. I just needed to be a part of the team. My dream was to stand in the bowels of that arena for the ages and listen to the echoes of stomping feet, clapping hands, and the whispered legends from generations before that had once played on that court. I wanted to feel my heart pounding in my chest as we huddled one last time before taking the floor. I wanted to lead my teammates out to the court as 4,000 roaring fans rose to their feet. I dreamed of being one small part of a team chasing immortality.

I dreamed of being Ollie.

****

7. Between Ozzie Osbourn and God

Ozzie Osbourn was my tennis coach.

Yes, seriously.

This particular Ozzie Osbourn had spent his professional career in the Army, though his only reference to his military days was a hat that he occasionally wore to the tennis court. He spent his days there, playing doubles in the morning with friends and offering lessons to the neighborhood kids in the afternoon. His primary doubles partner was his girlfriend, Bonnie, a woman who was both twenty years younger than Ozzie and had the appearance of someone who spent all of her days exercising in the Florida sun. In a related story, Ozzie seemed to have a perpetual smile on his face.

For six bucks – one-fifth the price of most tennis coaches in the area – Ozzie offered tennis lessons for an hour per week. He would stand on one side of the net, always sporting white shoes, white socks, white shorts, a white shirt, sunglasses, and a baseball cap. The sunglasses sat over a bushy white mustache; the cap covered a head full of white hair. A racket was always in his right hand; a tennis ball always in his left. He smelled like he used sunscreen more often than soap. Like most good things in life, there were elements of Ozzie that were completely reliable and, therefore, comfortable.

Also like most good things in life, Ozzie offered the unexpected. Since he was still playing tennis in his mid-60s, his game relied on misdirection. He knew every shot and every spin and he displayed endless patience in trying to equip the neighborhood kids with his tennis tools. But more importantly, somewhere between drop shots and topspin lobs, he introduced little lessons on life through his teachings on tennis.

One of those lessons was to battle people both above and below your talent level. You challenge those that are better than you to force you to improve your own game to compete. You accept the challenge of those that are less talented to offer them the same opportunity. On some deeper level, there are lessons about individual ambition and the development of society in that simple teaching. The individual can only develop when he is willing to challenge himself, risk failure, and – occasionally – endure profound embarrassment. The community can only evolve when people are committed to both the improvement of themselves and others.

Twenty years later, this lesson was part of the reason that I’d be playing against teenagers in games of one-on-one by the light of the moon. At the time, it simply meant absorbing an ass-whuppin’ from Bonnie. Ozzie approached her after one my lessons and asked her to play me. She agreed, though I expect that her assent was based on her loss of either a lovers’ quarrel or a substantial wager. She gave me a single game out of pity and a solid beating out of anger in a set that took less time than a sitcom. 6-1. I don’t know if I shook her hand after the “match” or if I just caught her before she smacked me upside my boyish little head.

Nonetheless, the lesson was learned. I took it back to the tennis court, to the classroom, and to the middle school gymnasium. During those years, it wasn’t difficult for me to pick out someone who was better than me on a basketball court. I had many options. But as long as I was going to do it, I figured I might as well pick out the best. His name was B.P.

****

B.P. stood for Brian Paul. He was an adolescent superstar in our area, though you wouldn't know it to look at him. He was tall, but not exceptionally so – early in a game, before sweat matted his military base crewcut, he probably just cleared six feet tall. His torso was little more than an axle, spewing four narrow limbs that seemed to travel like spokes without a wheel. If he ever ate a big meal, it was clear that it ran directly to his feet and hands, which were the only aspects of his physique that showed any real size. Every angle of his body was sharp, from his elbows to his knees to his eyebrows. He was just another goofy, gangly boy on the edge of his teenage years – and then he'd start to play.

He understood the game differently. He didn’t just see where the other players were; he saw where they would be. Perhaps more impressive, he knew how to move them without them realizing it. It was an intricate dance with a defense in the dull gym light – a dribble in one direction, a fake in another – with opposing players as unknowing partners, shifting as he wished until the opening appeared before him. He didn’t have devastating quickness, but he knew what a defender was thinking and how to use it against him. He wasn’t a great shooter, but he knew how to get the shot he wanted. He lacked overpowering strength, but he knew every trick in the book and a few that the book didn’t mention.

At that point in my development, I wasn’t even aware that there was a book. Standing nearly a ruler below B.P., I lacked size, strength, speed, and explosiveness, so I was forced to rely on my talent and understanding of the game. Unfortunately for me, those characteristics were similarly underdeveloped. My shooting ability had largely deserted me, not to return until I consistently wore contact lenses for the first time at the age of 22. I could dribble through any defense, to any place on the court, but I couldn’t do much once I got there.

But I was tenacious. My primary responsibility – other than to dribble – was to guard the opposing team’s best player. He might be able to slip me, but never for long. If he relaxed, if he underestimated me for a moment, he’d be relieved of the ball and find himself chasing me in the other direction. The relentless pressure would wear on him, serving as a constant reminder that he’d get nothing easily and that, sooner or later, I’d get him.

In retrospect, I suppose my drive could be attributed to chasing my fledgling greatness as it raced away. The game was the one of the few things that gave me comfort, that gave me an identity, and I was rapidly losing something that made me special. It was my first teaching in a lifelong seminar on the illusion of control. I had won those early games. I assumed I would win more. But puberty had left me with a bicycle in a race against cars. If I expected to win even the occasional battle, I didn’t have much choice other than to pedal fast.

****

Some of the worst beatings my teams ever absorbed were B.P.’s work. I have one specific memory from those debacles, which still amuses me primarily for the Cold War punch line that reveals more than a little brainwashing of a young mind. After yet another B.P. bucket, I received the in-bounds pass and momentarily paused, holding the ball between my right wrist and right hip. The clock was ticking through the final minutes of the contest. B.P.’s team had 53. My team had 19. I stared at the score, chuckled and sarcastically mumbled, “Welcome to Russia.” Then I dribbled up the court again for another round.

Most of the games were more competitive, but B.P. won them all. Most of the time I’d make him earn every point he scored, but they piled up all the same. All of my sweat, all of my effort dedicated to stopping him; all seemingly without effect.

All until the last game we ever played against each other.

It was dramatic game, or at least as dramatic as a recreation league game could be. B.P. was brilliant; he was always brilliant. But on this day, I forced him to be brilliant. Every shot he took was challenged, and he missed many of them. I was so focused on him that I don’t remember how my team scored. I may have been involved in the offense; I don’t know. I know that we did score because the game required two overtime periods. I know that we scored a little more because we had a one-point lead in the second overtime when B.P. came dribbling up the right side of the floor. I’m sure he was pondering how he was going to win the game for his team. So was I.

He was angling to his right, toward the sideline closest to the single set of bleachers in the junior high school gym, a few feet from the face of the Scottish terrier in the center circle. I stared at him intently, sliding to my left, matching his steps. As he approached the sideline, his back straightened.

A dribbler should never straighten his back while being defended. Dribbling is, in itself, a form of defense – defending the ball from others that desire to possess it. A dribbler must always be poised to move quickly. If he’s sprinting with the ball, he’s leaning forward, pushing the ball ahead and following after, like a greyhound chasing a rabbit. Otherwise, he should be crouching, always able to change direction, poised for sprinting, poised for jumping, poised for anything.

I spent entire games waiting for B.P. to make this mistake. I sprang forward, reaching my right hand towards the ball. His eyes widened, recognizing a moment too late what he’d done. As the ball bounded from the floor towards his hand, he tried to guide it behind his back to safety on his left side. But he was too late. My hand was already on the ball, pushing it away from him and towards my team’s basket. I was moving at full speed before he could turn around to chase me.

My only remaining obstacle was adrenaline. My natural impulse was to celebrate my individual victory – I got him! I finally got him! – which would usually involve a joyous and uncoordinated dance, full of leaping and spinning, unbound by any rules, like, say, traveling violations. But the team’s game was not over. There was still work to be done. Still, I was so excited by the steal that I took only two dribbles between mid-court and the basket. If I was Kevin Garnett, this would’ve been normal, as the loping strides of a seven-footer can cover that kind of territory with only a few footfalls upon the ground. I ran as if required to follow in such footsteps, springing from one shoe to the other with a stride far longer than my stubby legs would typically allow. When my last dribble touched the floor, the basket still stood nearly twenty feet from me. My leap towards a “lay-up” commenced ten feet from the bucket. The attempt ended without grace, still five feet away. But the ball went found its home anyway, awkwardly caroming off the base of the rim, rudely bumping against the backboard, then – with the blessing of the basketball gods – falling through the net.

It was our 53^rd and final point. B.P.’s team ended with 50. We got ‘em. Just once, but we finally got ‘em.

****

It was the best moment I had as a basketball player during my junior high school years. The worst moment happened a few feet from the spot of the steal. The junior high school coach stood before us, looking down a solitary sheet on a clipboard held between his left hand and his ample belly. As could be expected of a junior high school gym teacher and the coach of the schools’ male athletic teams, his fashion sense was slightly behind the times then and is comically so now. He wore a classic 1970s blue and white baseball cap – brim flat and unfolded, the forward half made of shiny polyester, the rear a mix of mesh and plastic – whose stains betrayed many sweaty days at the side of a football field. A whistle hung around the collar of his white polo shirt; a digital watch adorned his wrist. The shirt was meticulously and miraculously tucked into impossibly tight, royal blue, polyester shorts which seemed melded to his thighs. White socks were pulled up over his calves and trailed into shoes similarly devoid of color. In his right hand was a pencil, which was slowly checking the page as he shouted out the last names of the players that would compose that year’s team.

I sat in the bleachers with a few dozen boys, still sweating from the scrimmage that had concluded tryouts, still stinging from the airball that had resulted from my only shot attempt. I heard familiar names, but not my own. It was my most direct confrontation with failure in my young life. I’d handled many losses of many kinds, but it was the first time in my life when someone had informed me in clear and concise terms, “You’re not good enough.” Not a bad bounce, not a bad day, not a bad team – just me, plain, simple, and without excuse: not good enough.

****

So it was with no small amount of embarrassment that I looked up from my food to see B.P. taking a seat in front of me at a corner table during the next day’s lunch period. His ninth grade tryouts had been completed prior to the selection of the seventh- and eighth-grade team. As members of different classes at school, we rarely spoke to one another outside of our Saturday meetings on the court. But he knew that the team had been chosen. “So,” he said with hope and a smile, expecting a positive response, “how did tryouts go?”

I lowered my head, mustering only a short, mumbled reply, “I didn’t make it.”

B.P. shook his head, entirely disgusted – but the look in his eyes revealed that his disgust was not with me. In his mind, I belonged on that team. Despite my lack of size and skill, he looked at me as the victim of a terrible injustice. He slammed his hands down on the table and pushed himself to his feet. He looked at me once more, then angrily left the room without a word. But what I heard was Muhammad Ali, who said after his third fight with Joe Frazier:

"I always bring out the best in the men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I'll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I'm gonna tell ya, that's one helluva man, and God bless him."

B.P.’s reaction anointed me as the Frazier to his Ali. No one pushed him harder. Just as he had driven me to raise the level of my play, I forced him to be better and he knew it. Perhaps Frazier didn’t need Ali’s approval. Maybe the championship belts or the Olympic gold medal were enough. Maybe not. But I needed it. I needed the best player to say that I belonged. I needed him to say that I could play. It was the first of many points at which I could’ve (and, perhaps, should’ve) decided that there were better uses of my time. Every time that moment has come, a voice has emerged to keep me going. Sometimes that voice has been mine, but this time mine wouldn’t have been enough. I needed to hear it from someone I respected in that arena – and, at that time, there was no one that I respected more than B.P.

I don’t believe he ever spoke another word to me. Not long thereafter, in the midst of what passed for winter in Florida, he was playing a junior high school game. The ball got wedged between the backboard and the rim. B.P. volunteered to dislodge the ball, backed up a few feet, told a few steps forward and planted hard on his left foot to leap towards the ball. Maybe it was sweat on the floor, maybe it was a worn spot on his shoe, or maybe it was simple bad luck, but whatever the reason, his foot slipped awkwardly and his slender leg cracked. He was put in a cast from his hip to his toe. I left for Chicago the following spring, but from what I heard, he was never the same.

His playing days may have been effectively over, but, because of him, mine would continue for many more years.

God bless him.

New Year's Resolution 2008

I vow to be more like a monster truck:

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!!!

The grad school application is in. I just finished 10 days of vacation to recharge the proverbial batteries. Starting this Sunday, I'll try to post more regularly. Hope all three of you enjoy!

Welcome to 2008.