Basketball

     There’s an interesting balance between revelling in the victory of overcoming challenges…and thinking more highly of yourself than you ought.  Highschool basketball taught me that.  I pushed myself beyond my limits countless times, and my lack of athleticism kept me humble.  That’s not to say that horseback riding doesn’t require fitness and coordination; the kind of athleticism I’m referring to is the kind that requires hand-eye-coordination and competetive aggression.  The kind of athleticism contained in the genes that my mother’s brother’s children swiped for themselves and left me entirely without (not that I’m bitter).     

   When I was a mere homeschooled ninth-grader  made up entirely of knees and elbows I joined the girl’s basketball team at a small private school.  I did not volunteer my services willingly, however, as I was doubtful of my abilities to lace up my sneakers properly, let alone send a ball through a hoop under game time pressure.  They begged me to join, and hey, at 5’ 9” with a 6” vertical leap, I was a hot commodity.  I spent most of my time warming the bench and dreading the moment when the coach would lean forward with her clipboard and call, “Meg!  You’re in for so-and-so!”  I get nervous just remembering.  It’s a wonder I got any sleep during those years.  My hands were always cold (supposedly a survival thing…the blood leaves the hands and flows to the legs to assist in escape, if necessary).  There was always somebody in the huddle who would ask, “Hey, who’s hands are so cold?”   

   I played forward most of the time, and I had my little area that I was afraid to leave that first year.  It was a meter-wide triangle of sorts that I would scoot around in, looking like a cornered burglar or something in my nervous crouch.  Teammates told me, “You need to get aggressive!” I didn’t feel aggressive, and couldn’t psych myself up to get aggressive, no matter how many times I watched Space Jam and The Pistol.   The coach told me, “You’ve got to want the ball!”  I did not want that ball.  That ball was the last thing in the world I wanted.  Catching that ball not only meant that all eyes in a packed-out gym were on me, it also meant that I became the target for nine other girls who knew what it meant to be aggressive and had the physical means to enforce it.  But I did catch the ball when someone passed it to me, and I tried hard to send it through the hoop, or (better yet) pass it to someone else on my team who had a better chance of sending it through the hoop.   

  My sophmore year went somewhat better because I had gone to basketball camp that summer.  Thanks to basketball camp, my skills had improved, although my lack of coordination kept me from utilizing them properly.  Case in point: it was best if I didn’t try to dribble the basketball for more than two bounces…the odds of the ball bouncing off my foot and into the hands of an opponent increased significantly after that.  Camp also gave me a better grasp of aggressiveness.  I got more rebounds that year, and even had a few steals. 

  But the glorious discovery was boxing out.  Boxing out is the action of positioning yourself in front of an opponent and blocking her from getting the rebound, should her teammate miss the shot.  It is aggression without coordination, to shove one’s rear into someone else, and I utilized this particular maneuver with enthusiasm.  I remember one game in particular.  We were playing at the school that used to be a barn, in the gym with the carpeted floor (someone was thinking outside the box).  Naturally everyone played with extra care in that gym…there was no glory in carpet burn.  The girl’s team at this school had a signature move: they would flip their ponytails to fake one direction and go the other.  Naturally we mocked them for this.  They were using a man-to-man defense, and the blonde amazon assigned to cover me was being bothersome, always in the way.  Basketball isn’t like hockey; you can’t just go around shoving people out of your space, you’ve got to be more tactful in getting your point across.  So I waited until someone put up a shot and I could feel that girl behind me, elbow jabbing into my back, reaching for the rebound.  It was a beautiful opportunity.  I threw my weight backward and heard the breath go out of her.  She hit the floor with an incredulous squeak.  Eat rug, Barbie.  She gave me space after that.   

  I took a few spills myself throughout my basketball career, and it always made me feel useful.  I figured if I was putting enough effort into the game that I was getting knocked down (or tripping over my own feet, as it were), then I was coming through for my team, and they should be grateful.  I like to think that I improved as my career continued, although if I remember correctly, I only made a grand total of 23 points during those four years that I played.  I would have to say that my favorite moment was during the first scrimage of my first year.  The other girls on my team set it up so that I would have room to make a shot.  They planned it in the huddle and executed it on the floor.  They passed the ball to me, I caught it, put it up, and watched as it miraculously swished through the net.  They were all so busy cheering for me that we almost forgot to get back in the game, and had to rush to get back on defense.  Good times.   

  As I mentioned in the beginning, I had to be careful not to start thinking more highly of myself that I ought.  The videos mom took of me playing basketball helped with that (“Okay, I guess I look more like Olive Oyl in a jersey than a WNBA star…”).  But its still something I need to remind myself of to this day.  Yesterday for example, I had just finished watching one of my favorite spy tv shows, and I was feeling pretty awesome by association.  I got up to get some icecream to complete the awesomeness, and managed to miss the doorway by a tiny margin.  The wall reminded me that my coolness is limited and always in the balance.  It is better to not believe that you’re awesome, but to enjoy the moments where you get to feel awesome, and to recognize the difference.