Award Tour Vol. 10: What You Did Back in 1991

Hoop Dreams deferred:

We have made it safely to the hood (kind of an ironic statement if you think about it). For those of you just now joining our broadcast, Tre (my older brother… and by the way that’s not his real name) and I have been trekking across the country from Nashville to L.A. Our mission: to get Tre relocated to start his residency. We’ve arrived at King-Drew medical and their on-site housing. We’ve unpacked most of Tre’s stuff, and now there’s nothing really to do. It was then that we spotted a basketball court behind the Hospital.

Sweet. We had already been talking about making a “special guest appearance” at the famed basketball courts at Venice beach during our cross country drive - kinda like Kobe Bryant did (only except without the fanfare, recognition, and general public interest… and the fractured left wrist, we can probably leave that part of the experience out too). But with this court being conveniently located right here, it gives us a chance to fine tune things in the privacy of the hospital courtyard. To reiterate, sweet.

And now here comes the sour. I hadn’t actually played basketball in awhile - neither had Tre. And shot after shot careened harmlessly off the rim without seriously threatening to actually go THROUGH the hoop as though to confirm this fact. And it’s a bit concerning causing full-on panic in my mind right now (the kind I suspect is the hallmark of a standard mid-life crises). Having skills on the black top wasn’t just a matter of pride where I came from, it was also a de facto school yard “debate settler”. Walk with me.

Back in grade school, before many most any of us had developed an ability to argue using logical constructs, we used the next best thing. Might. The strongest is right. The fastest is right. The best basketball player is right. And anyone who dared to step out of their position in the natural “pecking order” was quickly put back in their place with a simple, “Yeah… but you can't beat me at basketball!!!” or “Yeah, but you can’t beat me” (as in fighting).

If it was a question of sports, the superior athlete's opinion was always right - even when it was wrong. I couldn’t begin to count the number of debates, varying in topics and subject matter, that were eventually concluded with one person declaring “Yeah but you can't beat me at basketball” and the other person (concluding that, in fact, this was a true statement) declined to argue further.

But those are the ways of a young Jedi Knight. And now it seems clear I have truly chosen the way of the dark side of the force… if the dark side of the force is “Middle Age” (and it is). Most things come to hospitals to be made well, in a supreme bit of irony, it appears my hoop dreams came to King-Drew Medical to die. The shooting display that Tre and I offered that courtyard that day was an abomination against all that Naismith held dear. To call it gruesome, would be to offend the word gruesome. This is what hideous throws up after a night of binge drinking. And I know that sounds bad (it’s supposed to) but somehow this still doesn’t seem like enough to describe the horror. The only other thing I can think of is, imagine what basketball would look like if it was interpreted as a Gunther von Hagens Human Plastination display – yeah like that.

30 minutes and several missed jump shots later, there I was - leaning over and resting with my hands on my knees, huffing and puffing… re-evaluating my “place in the basketball universe”. How has it come to this? How have I become the fading basketball prodigy who can no longer call on his jumpshot when he needs it? This can’t happen… not now. Not when I now opt for a jump shot over a spectacular move to the basket. Not when I can no longer compensate for tenacious defense by simply powering through it or elevating over it.

Will my skills continue to disintegrate until I one day I’m that old man who ambles onto the basketball relying on cunning and guile to win and not athleticism? Will people on the sidelines describe my play as that of a wily cagey veteran? Will my game gear slowly start to fold in sporting goggles, and knee braces, that don't match anything else I’m wearing? Will young teen aged boys now scream at me, “Hey old man - take your bionic knees and get the f#$@ off the court - no one cares what you did back in 1991!!!” Probably. I think we’ve established that reality hates me and this is exactly the kind of juvenile behavior I’d expect from it.