Hoops Ltd.After months of
inactivity, on Friday, I hit the gym.
I changed into shorts and my white on gray Converse high tops, and I
strapped on my iPod. I set the iPod for my top rated playlist. Lots of
U2 on there. I checked out a ball, and bounced to the court. There were
few there. I dropped my bag near the open cubicles and shot a few. After
several minutes, I decided to shoot a free throw percentage. But I
decided to really shoot a percentage - to shoot a hundred free
throws, and to really see what I could do.
I used to shoot 25 and call it a percentage. I used to hit 75 to 80%
doing this. This time, resolved to do a full hundred, my mindset
changed. Free throws are a mental game. It's a physical act, but it's
the mental side that gets you through.
I hit seven of my first ten. It was about then that I decided
that I was going to shoot blocks of ten. Ten at a time. Too often, I
would miss one, then another, then I'd lose interest when I realized I
couldn't get 80% of them. I hit nine out of ten on my second set. I was
focused.
I was in the farthest court of the three-court gym at UAB. The middle
one had a volleyball net in the middle. The close gym had a couple of
fellas playing one on one. The close court also has a loop of running
track above it, on the second floor. It's a distraction. It can be an
incentive, to look good in the imagined idea that runners who are
passing by would be counting my baskets along with me.
But I was at the far court.
I hit ten out of ten for my third set.
I didn't think about missing. I didn't think about finishing. I
didn't think about anything but putting the ball through the net. I had
some great songs going in my ears. When a song neared its end, I might
hit the advance button on my iPod, strapped onto my left shoulder. I
wanted to keep it going. I wanted to keep the lack of distraction going.
I wanted to keep the flow.
I hit ten out of ten again.
Then I went and hit ten out of ten again.
Then I missed.
Regrouping is the hardest part. It can break you, or you can recover.
Usually I break. I broke for this set, and ended up with five out ten,
but it was a thirty-nine-in-a-row streak, which was the longest I've
ever shot in my life. I'm sure of it.
When I had that five out of ten, I started to get disappointed. I
thought I was probably not going to get the 80% I craved.
Just to think that I still had it. That I could still play. I needed
that 80% so that I could feel that I could still at least do something
on the court. That I could hang, at least if I was fouled, on a court of
the game I love.
As I recovered a rebound, I tracked back through the last five sets,
and I decided to write them down on the whiteboard where folks can sign
up for the next game.
FREE THOW PCT
7/10 9/10 10/10 10/10 10/10
5/10
Then I hit seven out of ten again, and I thought I could follow the
same pattern I started with. Maybe get a groove again, and not fall into a rut of
failure.
I hit nine out ten.
FREE THOW PCT
7/10 9/10 10/10 10/10 10/10
5/10 7/10 9/10
In a vague, subconscious calculus, I knew I had shot seventy free
throws. I knew I could break seventy percent. I knew I was having a good
game. I remembered an intramural game at UCI when I was on fire, went
something like eight for eight from the line, and might have had twenty
points.
These were all unformed, background, mental passings in my mind as I hit
another eight out of ten.
FREE THOW PCT
7/10 9/10 10/10 10/10 10/10
5/10 7/10 9/10 8/10
I missed one early on in the last set of ten. Maybe it was the second
or third one. But I managed to hit the rest, and I finished the last set
with a nine out of ten.
I added it up, eagerly, and came to 79%.
Frankly, I was disappointed. I was a little satisfied though also. I
mean, I hadn't hit the gym in months, and I still shot better
than Shaq. But it wasn't that eighty percent.
I shot some nineteen footers. I ran up and down the court, imagining
a crowd, keeping my head up, trying to see the invisible teammates. I
spun to juke the defender. I laid it up with my left. I worked up a
sweat. Something bothered me.
I went back to the board, and counted again.
I don't know where I miscalculated before, but it was 84%. I counted
backwards, subtracting the misses from a hundred.
Eighty-four percent.
Inside, I was happy.
Even though I struggle, and even though I have lost a step when a
basketball game is live action, I can still hammer out the necessities
when the focus is on.
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
I realized that I had, in fact, lost a step
and a half when I hit the courts with my classmates during first year.
It was then that I was designated to the second string in our line-up,
appropriately so. It was then that I realized that my body couldn't
quite do what my mind intended. DAMN IT!
Nevertheless, there's still some hoops left in me, though perhaps
limited. Hoops Ltd., I can deal with.
After a shower, I put on my scrubs, chatting with Mike Bertram who is
the current CFAR administrator at
UAB, staying in touch with my recent
former life.
Back to the hospital, before our final afternoon for Scholar's week
session began, our group's
small talk turned to my solitary hoops workout.
"I shot a hundred free throws," I said, almost begging for the
question.
"How many did you hit," asked Stephen Tanner, a basketballer whose
skill surpasses mine by both quantum and physical leaps.
"Eighty-four," I didn't even try to disguise my joy.
Tanner-man glanced at Benji to my left. "That's the real deal," he
said.
I could have not said that I hit thirty-nine straight, a
best-ever-in-my-life, but I didn't.
I said it. I did it. And my competitive side wanted to broadcast that
I still got game.
The photo above, in a non-sequitor, is of my beloved, blowing
out the birthday candles on her 38th. I've been telling everyone that
she's turned forty.
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
14 May 2007: Hoops, Ltd. Epilogue
I've since tried to duplicate the 84% free throw shooting and
fallen short.
69/100
60/100
72/100
63/100
But tomorrow, I will be hitting the gym with my ipod again.
I think it's going to push me up over 80 again.
