Tom Strait Stole the Ball!

It doesn't take long to cover memories of my participation in sports.

Virtually my entire experience with golf was summed up in the post Goliath and the Golf Ball.

So now we move on to my marvelous experiences with basketball.

Basketball was one of the few sports where I could get occasional tiny glimpses that I could play the sport at some brief Grade D level of competence.  Most of that was due to the fact that I achieved my full glorious height of 5'8" when I was in 7th grade.  At that point, I was the third tallest kid in my class.  It was at least theoretically possible that I could get a rebound, or toss a shot up quickly.

My Dad noticed that I had some marginal interest in this sport, a little more than others.  So he hung a basketball goal to the front of our garage, and with our concrete driveway, it created a pretty good field of play.  Neighbor kids would actually come over to my house.  It included a group of athletic kids who had never before given me the time of day.  They would come over and organize teams so that they got all the really good players, and that I got those more like me, the ones with heart and no ability.  It was so much fun,  It was like watching the Harlem Globetrotters play the Washington Generals.  And if by some miracle we would ever get close to them, they would simply reconfigure the teams so that that couldn't happen again.

I would go out and practice.  A lot.  If this were a sports movie instead of real life, I would have gotten better.  But my improvement was only marginal, and my sad group of nerdlings never beat the cool athletic kids.

I played in an intramural league that met at school on Saturdays.  I would play Center when I played, but even on these teams I was not first string,  I may have rarely got a rebound.  I don't remember ever scoring.  I do, however, remember one great moment of glory.

We played a team that had the first string center from our Junior High school team.  I believe his name was Jim Stark.  Jim was dribbling the ball to center court.  I was guarding him.  I had the one brilliant insight I've ever had in athletics.  I pointed to a place off the court and said, "Oh, look over there!"  Jim looked, and when he did, I stole the ball!  The whole place was a gasp   Tom Strait stole the ball!  Alone, I dribbled down the court, shot an easy lay up, which I of course missed.  His team got the rebound and thus ended my one moment of sports glory.  A brief, shining moment that owed more to the Three Stooges than it did to athletic prowess.

I was also on the Junior High team, which apparently took on all comers.  I think I was like seventh string Center.  I only got into one game, an exhibition.  I remember being put in and being very excited.  I went down the court tracking the ball, putting myself in place to get the rebound.  The ball wasn't going in!  There was going to be a rebound!  I jockeyed for position.  I was going to get the ball.  I went up, and..I didn't get the ball.  Instead, I got elbowed right between the eyes and the bridge of my nose.  I had to come out of the game.

And that was it.  My thirty seconds of sports glory.  I never played in another school sports game where we were competing with a team from outside the school.  Not in basketball.  Not in any sport.

By the time I was in 9th grade, my height advantage was gone.  Many had caught up with me.  Heck, many were getting way taller than I was.  My brief flirtation with basketball was over.

The basketball net remained attached to our garage, but it became less and less used, by me, or anyone else. The athletic kids discovered they had something better to do than beat up on sad sacks.  I became less interested in a sport that I was increasingly less competitive in.

But once in a great while I would go out by myself, take a few shots, and dream.  I coulda been somebody.  I coulda been a contender.

Ah, who was I kidding?  Anybody up for Horse?