Why don't I play basketball?

Allow me to give you a very brief sampling of a typical conversation that I've had with many a complete and total stranger:


"My goodness. How tall are you?"


"About 6'7"."



"Please tell me you play basketball."



or



"You gotta play some ball."



or



"Who do play ball for?"


Depending on my mood, my responses range from a polite tolerance to the overtly terse. Once in a while, I like to throw in a sadistic little guilt trip like, "I used to play basketball but I injured my knee so badly that it ended my career." But that's only when I'm in a very dark mood. But now, since I have this wonderful outlet of blogging, I will now tell the complete and hilarious story of why I really don't play basketball anymore.

For starters, I actually did play basketball many moons ago for Friends School in Baltimore. And to be honest, I also had some skillz. I wouldn't necessarily call them mad skillz, but I was better than average. I was good for about 10 points a game (Which isn't bad. Not great but not bad), about 14 rebounds a game (Which is actually very good), and about 3-4 blocks a game (Which is outstanding). I was what you might call a defensive specialist. You can tell because I'm always acting very defensively. (I really should just delete that last sentence. It's a very lame joke and you shouldn't have to endure it.)


I never won any awards but I did have my picture in the paper several times. My favorite picture was the one of me in the 1988 semi-final game against Arlington Baptist where I'm skying over this little white boy to block his shot from behind. Unfortunately, the racist referee called a foul on me. The photo was in the paper on the next day and clearly showed that it was a clean block. So ha! My statistics were also listed in the paper and I was usually in the top 20 or so for rebounds. Lastly, the coup de grace of my career was the 1989 MSA Championship where I scored 8 points, 15 rebounds, and 5 blocked shots and the Friends School Quakers were crowned champions that year. In fact, some people felt that I was the MVP for that game. (It didn't happen.)


So now that you've got a little bit of a feel for the type of player I was, let's move on to what transpired afterwards, i.e. how the image of myself and my skill level was unceremoniously shattered. Admittedly, I knew that I wasn't good enough to play for a team like Duke or North Carolina, but I did have some lower division schools showing interest like Roanoke and Rochester. Nothing to write home about but again, it gives you an idea of my skill level. I was pretty damn good.


I ended up going to the University of Rochester and the summer before I left for school I was just kinda killing time. So one day I decided to sneak in to the gym at Loyola College. That same day, one of the players from the team was shooting around. He was very nice and we chatted it up a bit. I lied and said that I was an incoming freshmen. Then he challenged me to a friendly game of one on one.


Now Loyola College isn't necessarily known for it awesome basketball team. They are a Division I school, but when have you ever heard about them during March Madness? When have you ever seen them on TV? Never. I, on the other hand, had made it to the quarterfinals of a one-on-one tournament at the John Chaney basketball camp. I figured I could take this guy.


He kicked my ass. I mean he really kicked my ass. I didn't score a single point. He didn't even break a sweat as he was kicking my ass. In fact, he was kicking my ass so badly that he actually felt bad about how badly he was kicking my ass while he was kicking my ass. When the score was 8 to 0 in about 3 minutes, he mercifully asked me if I wanted to stop. With broken ankles and dejected pride, I humbly accepted. It was then and there that I figured I wasn't going to be turning pro anytime soon. I also never snuck into the Loyola gym ever again.


But I managed to heal and move on to Rochester. And that's when things got a little...oh, let's say...complicated. You see, there's this rule in the NCAA which states that a coach cannot hold basketball practices until October 15. However, the coach is allowed to hold team workouts as long as no basketball is being played. So I went to the team workouts. Unfortunately for me, they were completely unlike any workout I had ever had in my life. In High School, I was used to 2 or 3 hour practices in the afternoons. No big deal. At Rochester, I had to BE at the track at 6am. I don't think you heard me. I didn't have to wake up at 6am, I had to BE THERE at 6am. Then we had to run 2 miles. To me, that was just crazy talk.


Oh, but it gets better. I failed to mention that there was about 5 minutes of jumping rope before the 2 mile, 6am run. After the 6am run, we proceeded to lift weights for another hour or so. Yeah, that was not fun. After the morning workouts, I would go to the dining center, eat 3 or 4 eggs, 2 bowls of cereal, a gallon of juice, go up to my room, take a shower, and then promptly go to bed and sleep through my classes. After about 3 weeks of this living hell, I asked myself this incredibly brilliant question: What would happen if I just didn't show up any more?


The answer was nothing. Nothing bad happened. The earth didn't open up and swallow me whole. The basketball police didn't beat down my door and drag me to the morning workouts. The coaching staff all seemed to take the level headed approach that if I didn't want to be there then I didn't have to be there. (I seem to have a history of resolving many of my problems by simply not showing up for things. That can't be good.)

And that, my friends was the end of my illustrious and brief basketball career. Nothing flashy or exciting. I just bowed out rather silently. I continued to play basketball over the years but on my terms. Never for any organized team, per se. And the funny thing was, I actually enjoyed it a whole lot more. I didn't have to run specific plays that a coach drew up. I didn't have to live up to expectations that others had of me. I gave myself permission to be the 3-point shooting specialist. (The only problem with that was that I couldn't make 3 pointers. But let's not let the details ruin this beautiful moment)

Over the years I've played intramural basketball, community league basketball, and many of your good old-fashioned pick-up games. Recently, however, I haven't gone out as much. In fact, I honestly haven't even stepped onto a basketball court in about 6 or 7 years. And I don't feel the least bit bad about it. I don't miss it. If I loved playing ball then I would have put the work into it. I would have put in the time and the energy to become great at it. I would have put myself into the undying servitude that many people do for the game of basketball. There are probably hundreds of thousands of players in the world who never get to play professionally. And yet they're out there still trying to make it. Because they love it. And I have nothing but the utmost respect for those people.

I, on the other hand, am just a tall guy who wanted to have a little fun after school. My calling for happiness lies elsewhere.

So in the future, I think I'll just print out this blog and hand it to the next person who says,

"You should be playing ball. What a waste of all that height."