Thursday, March 6, 2008

Getting old and fat............

I want financial freedom at forty, but I'd like to have phsical freedom now. I'm getting old and fat, and losing my hair. And Missy is pretty quick to remind me of these things.

Tonight, my good friend Matt called and reminded me about basketball at the church. It was fun, even though every game I played I lost. I was such a loser! It felt like I had sawdust and fiberglass in my lungs..........

One funny thing that happened was when we were shooting for teams. We shoot free-throws to see who gets to play the next game. So, as I calmly stroll to the free throw line, and began to share a little story from back in the glory days of my varsity basketball stardom.

With a cocked smile, and a little bit of arrogance, I told them about the time I was the lead scorer in the season opener against Fort Defiance my senior year. As I went through my free throw ritual, seven dribbles, feet rocking gently, knees slightly bent, I told them the tale. This is the detailed version.

I played basketball from Little Leage to Varsity. On Varsity, I wasn't a starter, or six man, or anything really. I just made the team. So I was pretty much a bench warmer and a practice guy. But not only was I a bench warmer, I warmed the bench for a team that wasn't all that good. I mostly blame the coaching.

AS freshman we lost one game to Lee Highschool. We traded wins with Lee, which is something b/c Lee is a state championship team. On JV's we would go about .500 for the season. Then come varsity it was one win for the entire season against a team so far away that nobody believed us when we told them we won. It was all the same guys pretty much on the teams from Freshman to varsity, and yes, some grew more than others, but we should have been competitive.

Well, for the season opener of my Senior year we played Fort Defiance. They came out at us hard with a full court press defense. I watched my teammates get their arces handed to them from a comfortable seat at the end of the bench.

With like 2 minutes left in the game, and our team down by like a hundred points, Coach decided to finally let the srubs have a go at it. Finally, my moment to shine! I got on the court, did my hussle, took the ball hard to the basket and got fouled. Dropped two free throws. Nothing but net. In practice, our routine was to shoot free throws at every basket in the gym, the rotation included 24 free throws. I consisently would go 23/24 in practice.

Back to the big game. With just two minutes left, I didn't have much of a chance to make up for the 200 point deficit, but I was able to get to the free throw line a few times. I went 6 for 6. That got my name in the paper because that made me one of our teams leading scorers in just two minutes of play.

It was pretty much the same routine throughout the season. I get put in the game once we down my an infinite number of points. Draw and foul and score points. If the other team would have just let me try and shoot without fouling chances are I missed. But the free-throws I had nailed. I went 16 for 16 and then I think I finally missed my 17th free throw.

So after, telling the guys how good I was at free-throws, and telling them how I was the leading scorer of our opener against Fort Defiance..........

I went through my routine, seven dribbles, feet rocking gently, knees slightly bent, long exhale, full extension of my arm, plenty of back spin........and BRICK!

I sat out that game.....and boy was I happy to be back on the bench!

4 comments:

Mother 25 - 8 said...

If only Missy were there! LOOK ALIVE 5 LOOK ALIVE! (Cept, who's number 5?)

Rach said...

too funny! Missy keeps saying how she has this thing for benchwarmers, I guess your luck is in...

Unknown said...

I see that I am not the only one that can tell a LONG story!

No wonder we had to compete for LG on my honeymoon...he loves a good storyteller!

yeah, lg was cracking up while reading!...he experiences the same relief when he gets to sit out!(he isn't much of a commenter, but I thought that I would tell you that you aren't the lone man in the blogging world...lg reads as much as i do, and you can congratulate yourself because you have almost inspired him to start his own...sometimes a man just needs a place to rebutt his own wife)

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