Gods and Basketball

Today I played basketball with some classmates. I am so bad, and had kept making excuses but finally went with them today. Ouch, I’m still sore. Anyway, I managed to actually score a basket during game-play. Now, in spite of that, or perhaps in relation to that, I was the worst person there. However, it was purely basketball skill related. I’m in pretty good shape. We played full court and I was as fast as anyone, and by the end when most people where huffing and puffing I could have gone much longer. However, racing to the other end of the court for an un-guarded shot is pointless if you’re just going to miss anyway.

The main difference between this and my past basketball experiences (which I think haven’t been since high school…yikes!) where that they were fun. I was somewhat non-competitive and people were giving me tips, etc., in stark contrast to, you know, how high school boys are. Then I was just a ticker to make teams official even, though practically speaking whichever I was on was effectively one short.

If I could send one message back to a younger version of myself (say elementary school) I would say “get good at basketball”. Well, maybe not that…but if it was a list that would be on there (I think I will make that list as a future entry). I don’t have NBA aspirations when I say that, not even high school JV….I just think, socially, the pecking order in middle/high school, unless things have changed since I was there, is very much determined how well you can handle a stupid ball and if you can easily put it between your legs and when you think about it that’s really stupid, but then most other aspects of high school socialization are. But I mean, jocks are always cool (yet often assholes), and that coolness translates into athleticism in non-organized play. It just turns out basketball is the soccer/football of America, it’s what the kids run to (it seems) when they want to do something physical. It there is one activity that continues to be one that I wish I was better at, it would be basketball. Fortunately, this time it was fun enough that I may just stick with it.