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i love this game
October 12, 2005
so, after work yesterday, i went to lovejoy's with felipe. it was glassware tuesday, where you get to keep the glass that comes with the featured brand of beer. i had just the one beer, a bass that felipe paid for, and i gave him the glass.
i had mostly decided that i didn't feel like playing basketball. looking back, i'm pretty sure i've only missed two games in over five years of playing. maybe i missed playing in a game or two when some guy broke my nose for me, but i still would have showed up to watch. surely, with all the time and expense and commitment i'd spent over the years, i'd earned one night off.
earlier in the day, i called around to make sure we'd have enough players. our usual starting point guard, jacob, felt he should give his knee another week to get better. i asked charles, a player from last season, to come out and step in to give us some depth. i left the jerseys with nigel, along with some suggestions on player rotation and substitutions.
i still was leaving myself the option of playing, but as the early evening progressed, i decided that no, i would fight the urge to go and play the game. i knew that people would get more playing time without me, that our undefeated team didn't necessarily need me there, and that ultimately, the game would only grow false hopes and frustration for me.
i still love the game, the flow and rhythm and drama of it, but my social discomfort with other guys and the disappointing limits to my abilities have taken a lot of the drive to play out of me.
now i pretty much only play once a week, in our league games. i score no more than 4-6 points a game, i play solid defense, i rebound, i annoy the other team, i lead the league in taking charges. but realistically, statistically, i contribute less than any other player on the team. my teammates kind of joke about me scoring when i'm out there. they try a little too hard after the game to praise my 4-point performance. i just roll my eyes and pick up the jerseys, knowing that if nothing else, our uniforms would smell fresh and clean for the next game.
the games have become the last stages on which i hope to someday play out the epic battles i imagine, each game valuable mostly for the chance that i'm going to emerge as some sort of hero.
it's what i do in my entire life, really. competence isn't enough - i've got to be, you know, really something. it's not until the past few years that i've realized that god doesn't make any superheroes, because no one really deserves the weight and effort of being morally superhuman. anyone that wants to be a superhero probably has the least business being one.
a friend of mine has been trying for a while to get me to come out to pub quiz at a place called mother egan's, yet another irish pub-wannabe with overpriced beer and overpriced, overmediocre food. it does host, however, the preeminent pub quiz in austin, and last night, the mayor actually was present and took over officiating and conducting the event. i talked to him briefly - the summer book reading program he sponsors had featured "writing austin's lives." i thanked him for that, mentioned i had a story in the book, and he asked me to contact his office to have me sign his copy.
the book came out over a year ago. there was the release party, the austin chronicle award that made me 1/129th of the "best writer in austin," the reading at the texas book festival, the reading at zachary scott (in which i literally made people, laugh as well as cry, and from which i picked up two short-lived dating adventures), and now some props from the mayor.
surely, this has been the longest 15 minutes since kato kaelin.
i helped out with the quiz, although we had, like 11-12 people on the team. it was like china invading rhode island.
i looked at my watch at 8:30, and felt sad. my game was tipping off, and i wasn't there. at about 8:50, i couldn't stand it. i left the quiz - we had just landed a perfect 10 in a round, and these guys clearly didn't need me.
i had had a few, but was not by any means drunk. i popped in audioslave's latest album, and got to the gym in record time, but safely.
i walk in, and there's about 9 minutes on the clock, and we're down two points. damon and julian are sitting on the bench. they don't look happy, and damon hardly even looks at me. everyone's missed games for this or that, but my guilt spoke up - "great, rob. they hate you now, because you displayed a lack of commitment, and smell of overpriced beer and overpriced and overmediocre nachos."
i watched for about a minute. we were frustrated, and we were trying, but our efforts were desperate and unfocused.
i had the urge to go put on my shorts and my spare pair of shoes that i had in the trunk. but that was the hero thing talking again. so, instead, i started yelling, trying to get them a little passionate. i checked, and we had four timeouts. i startted using them.
charles had the Comeback Player Syndrome, which is similar to New Guy Syndrome. he was bringing the ball up, and pushing it straight to the hole. no clock management, no ball movement, and maybe a little rust on his conditioning and rhythm. shots came up short, a sign of fatigue, or he would go so deep to the baseline that he had horribly shallow angles to the backboard, and would miss layups.
with 30 seconds left in regulation, he missed a forced shot, and damon went at him pretty hard. these situations are always tough, because i hate people not getting along, and teammates should never be fighting each other, especially at the end of a winnable game. on the other hand, i don't want to be such a fence sitter that i lose players' respect. i told charles that damon was right, that we needed better decisionmaking. i told damon that charles wasn't trying to be selfish, he was trying to get us the win, but he was doing it the wrong way.
i was starting to feel useful.
we hung together, playing the last half-minute on a philosophy of clean defense and just solidly fundamental basketball. i called strategic timeouts. during the last timeout, aaron, standing next to me, sniffed, and asked, "have you been drinking, rob hill?"
there was finally a little laughter to break the tension, and i told him that yes, this was my best dennis hopper impression. i told them that everyone on the floor had a game-winning or tying shot in them, but they had to be patient and trust each other. i told charles that he had to set an example for his teammates and make good choices and show that trust.
we got to the first overtime, and we kept playing with the same composure. the other team, though, got a slight edge on foul calls from a ref that i know every team has complained about on a pretty consistent basis. our best scorer fouled out. still, we finished well, and played to a second tie.
the problem ref declared that there would only be one more overtime, and that it would be sudden death. at first, both i and someone from the other team talked to him about the fact that i thought we were allowed three overtime periods. he was a complete jerk about it, and said no, only two. we gave up, but as we walked away, it occurred to us that he had said "sudden death." i assumed he meant it to emphasize that the second overtime would be it. otherwise, "sudden death," where the first point scored would win the game, would be, in basketball, well... incredibly stupid and unprecedented.
we went back to him. again, a jerk. he said he meant exactly what he said. i told him that in over five years in the league, i'd seen three full overtimes played, but never seen sudden death. the guy from the other team had been in the league even longer, and said the same thing. the guy wouldn't budge. i asked if we had a copy of the rules, he said no.
then some other debate started, and it turns out the scorekeeper had a copy of the rules. while he had it out, i pointed out that it said that "each overtime period shall last three minutes." the ref still denied it. i told him that i wasn't trying to be an ass about it, but that i worked with statutes and regulations every day, and they wouldn't say "each" if there was only going to be "one." he finally gave in.
we played well again in the second overtime, but so did the other team. we stayed neck-and-neck. the suspense was tremendous, and we were drawing a crowd.
at this point, so many bizarre things happened so quickly, that i can't swear to the order of the events. i believe that with about 30 seconds left in the game, with us down by one point, charles was fouled hard, but didn't get the call. he turned to the problem ref and and said two words that started with the letter "f." one of those words was "foul."
the ref called a technical foul, and the other team made two free throws and got the ball back.
we scored, and began fouling them intentionally to stop the clock. the last minute was all a tremendous blur, but suddenly, we were still down by only three points.
then, on an inbounds pass, the ref blew the whistle, and called a delay of game foul, claiming charles had crossed the plane on the inbounds pass. i had a good angle, and it didn't happen. and, with 9 seconds left, if it was that questionable, you don't give away a game on it. the other team got two shots, which put them up five points.
i suddenly became bobby knight, except i didn't throw a chair (there were none), and i didn't pretend to whip any of our black players. i stormed the court and went at the ref like any good major league baseball manager, except there was no dirt on the court to kick on him.
one tech. two techs. with 8.9 seconds left in double overtime, i was ejected and he called the game. i wasn't done talking, but a couple of guys from the other team physically pulled me back.
this seems like one of my losses of control, the kind i had been particularly prone to over the past several days, but it wasn't. i was a coach. i had held my tongue, calmed my players down, but at that point, i knew the game was unwinnable, and i knew, as many spectators told us afterwards, that the ref had made repeated attempts to give away the game, and had finally succeeded. that couldn't stand.
afterwards, people were bummed. charles felt bad, felt like it was his fault. others were upset at missing easy shots. but overall, i think we felt okay - we pulled out of a nosedive to will the game to double overtime, only to have a moron rob us of a chance to win it or take it to a third overtime.
and me, i felt guilty for missing the game, and for not being there for my teammates and friends. i knew i'd never so casually miss a game again. but i also felt, for the first time in years, that i had a purpose and a role to play on the team, and that maybe i really was needed for something other than bringing the jerseys.
i drove home more slowly, popped audioslave out, and something more mellow in, and i thought back over what i will always consider one of my greatest coaching achievements ever. i could even hear the classic stentorian voiceover they used to have in those old NFL films... "The once mighty team known as Yer Mom was tottering on the brink of humiliating defeat at the hands of a lesser rival. As the temperatures at the Northwestern Recreation Center dipped well below freezing, quieting the capacity crowd, a figure in a beer-stained dress shirt and some very nice european shoes strode to the bench, to coach his team to a heroic double overtime that would later become known as the Greatest Low-League City Basketball Game Ever Played."
Posted by Rob at October 12, 2005 03:48 PM