A Basketball Confession

If you’ve made a snap judgment as to my athletic prowess based on my current wheezy state, you might find it difficult to believe that at one point, many, many years ago, I was actually in relatively acceptable condition. When in junior high and high school, I played quite a bit of basketball, as most tallish Midwest kids do when they’re not quick enough to play soccer and their high school doesn’t have enough boys to field a football team even if every boy in the school were on that team. I learned to play on the sloped driveway of my parent’s home, where the rim was 9′ and change when measured from directly under the backboard but at eye level when viewed from the top of the makeshift key. This was the very definition of home court advantage, and I would readily take advantage of visiting friends in mostly intense games of 21.

At school, my basketball acumen grew. Lunch time in my small high school was in the gym, where a group of tables were cobbled together every late morning and removed quickly thereafter, at least in time for the next gym class. This lunch time gym session was something of a phenomenon, as boys would eagerly scarf lunch in order to play 21 on the far end of the gym, away from the tables but not out of the watching, judging, impressionable eyes of the girls. As this was a private school with a dress code, we would often find ourselves playing sweaty basketball games while in dress shoes and tucked in, button down shirts. We would play fast and furious for 15 minutes, lather ourselves in our own fresh sweat, and then hurry to class where we’d then stew in our tucked in shirts and long, sometimes corduroy pants. The smell, I imagine now, was not tolerable.

During these midday games, I was a minor star. I could shoot well, dribble well, and leap better than expected. I played with my left hand as well as with my right. I can remember winning many of these games of 21, going up against the older, taller, stronger kids, and beating them. Some of these inspired efforts had to do with an adolescence wherein I was continually and thoroughly consumed with the opinions of others. I would try hard, but not too hard, attepmpting my own Tom Brady impersonation before Tom Brady had, which is to say I tried to act cool even through competitive dominance. These days were fun, they were magic, and they are today some of my fondest memories of school. Fondest, except for that time I pulled the fire alarm with a friend and got pressured into admitting fault when the principal elaborated as to how the cops were about to show up and dust for prints to incriminate us. We caved. We shouldn’t have.

But for all the basketball skills, which, I have to add, included actual dunking of an actual basketball at least three different times, and a most proud ability to grab the rim with two hands off of a two footed jump, I never actually played on the team. Not for one year or for one practice, excepting my junior high years when I was wrongly awarded defensive player of the year even though I had tallied the most points of any player and clearly deserved the offensive award as well (I kept track). I didn’t play in high school because, as I told my friends and the coaches, I had to work. My lawn mowing jobs that consumed much of my summer extended into the fall, and when the grass stopped growing I would have fall clean up to perform, the raking and blowing and the hauling of big blue tarps into the woods. This was why I couldn’t play basketball, this was my obstacle.

In fact, it was my excuse. I could have played, and made teammates and coaches and legions of fans happy, but I didn’t. The real reason? Because I was terrified of playing under real pressure. I could casually win during lunch, and after school, and in my sloped driveway, this was not a problem. But on the big stage I figured I would freeze, and I desperately didn’t want to. So I built the legend, by refusing to play, which today, to me, looks awfully cowardly. I was like that tall silent kid in Hoosiers, except that he was silent and I was loud, and he ended up playing on the team and winning a state championship and I just mowed lawns and won a few games of 21 at lunch inside a carpeted gym.

I had intended to turn this into a post about sailing school, but that never happened. Sorry. It’s a skill, I supposed, to start thinking about crafting a story and instead allowing one’s mind to get caught up in the lead in part of that story, but today as with most days, it has become a curse. By placing this video below of some summer sailing on Geneva, I am attempting to make it up to you. I am not a good sailor.

About the Author

I'm David Curry. I write this blog to educate and entertain those who subscribe to the theory that Lake Geneva, Wisconsin is indeed the center of the real estate universe. When I started selling real estate 27 years ago I did so of a desire to one day dominate the activity in the Lake Geneva vacation home market. With over $800,000,000 in sales since January of 2010, that goal is within reach. If I can help you with your Lake Geneva real estate needs, please consider me at your service. Thanks for reading.

Leave a Comment