Basketball

Basketball was a big part of my life as a kid. All through my childhood and high-school years and into college I played basketball. We had a goal in the driveway, and down the street at the church parking lot there was a court where we could get into some good games.

Saturday mornings when I was in elementary school they had organized basketball; no uniforms, but we would do drills and scrimmage.

In middle school I played on my first team (by that I mean of the type that wears matching uniforms). After one game in Kalkaska, which we won, the cheerleaders took me outside, told me to close my eyes, and each one planted a kiss on my cheek. I was too awkward with girls to capitalize on this and actually get myself a girlfriend.

Even my interest in jazz and playing music has its roots in basketball. Our house was only three blocks from the school, so a few friends and I would scarf down our lunches, then play two-on-two the rest of the lunch hour in my driveway, running back to school at the last minute and walking into class all sweaty. One day I broke my ankle. It was during that down time that my brother played Miles's "Kind of Blue"for me, and it was around then too that I ordered a bass guitar from the Sears catalogue.

Playing some half-assed D in my driveway when I was probably a sophmore or junior in high school.


I played all though high school, averaging about 8 pts. a game, setting lots of picks, and getting quite a few rebounds.

Shooting a free throw (three bounces, deep breath, shot)


My freshman year at college I played basketball almost every afternoon. After class, or after skipping class, I would head down to the court and play until supper. I must have been too tired to study in the evening because I almost flunked out my first semester.

For some reason, by my junior year, I no longer played. I was busy chasing girls, collecting jazz records, studying enough to have a B+ average (and enjoying it!), and partying.

By the time I was 30, I was a well-read, Spanish-speaking, wordly dude who had been in three bands. But I had a big belly, and I enjoyed smoking and drinking a little too much. I remember on a lark playing a little half court and almost having a heart attack ... and I wasn't yet 30! I needed a change.

I've been playing lots ball ever since. In the past 14 years I would estimate that I have played about a thousand times. I've played pickup ball in Spain, in Mexico, in North Carolina, in California, in Michigan. I've played intramural and church league (even though I don't go to church). I've entered (and even won!) free throw and three-point shooting contests. I've played with an NBA player once (Johnny Dawkins) and with college players numerous times. And, at only one trip to the emergency room, I consider mysef lucky.

Back in 2000, Atlantic Monthly had an article about "the best pickup basketball player in America," a fellow by the name of Allan Dalton. One guy says about Dalton's devotion to the game: "[he] would shovel off a court at three A.M. in a snowstorm and then bang on the door of a convent till he got three nuns to come out and go two-on-two." That's not quite me, but I certainly understand the compulsion to ball. The article comments on pickup basketball's "common culture and language": local rules vary, "but pickup has a universal spirit of acceptance and an emphasis on teamwork."

(An aside that you may skip if you don't ball: in Carolina, half-court is always "make-it, take-it." In northern Michigan, it's alternating possessions. Last summer, in Mancelona, I stopped by a court at the high school and played some two-on-two. The local rules haven't changed in the 25 years since I moved away!)

At 44, I'm coming to terms with the idea that my best days are behind me. But I can still run up and down the court and get lost in that certain rhythm and flow with its own peculiar beauty that is basketball.