Always Living and Learning

For college basketball fans, this might be the best part of the sporting year as both men’s and women’s teams are right in the thick of `March Madness’ with their respective NCAA tournaments underway around the country.

I’ve always loved basketball and covered many high school and college games during my numerous years as a newspaper reporter.

Here in Cibola County, the many youth teams are currently participating in their respective age group boys and girls’ tournaments. I can’t help but recall a story of my own youth basketball days within the Vienna Youth Incorporated (VYI) in Northern Virginia in the mid 1970’s.

I was on a talented team of 11-12 year olds – the Cougars. Our uniforms were dark maroon and we were one of the best teams in the league. Members of the team included old friends Ted Vincent, our best player, and Rodger Melchiori, a tenacious defensive guard. Matt Brewer, who passed away much too soon, was an awesome inside presence and our emotional leader.

Anyway, one day our head coach, Monty McMichael, a middle-aged man with a cool and calm disposition, let us know he was displeased with our overall team aggressiveness. So he gave us a mandate for our following game – each player had to shoot the ball at least one time, and each of us had to also commit a personal foul. He felt these two instructions would bring out a more aggressive Cougars team.

So in our next game, we were winning fairly easily. My teammates were smart enough to realize they better fulfill our coaches’ instructions by both committing a personal foul and getting off a shot. Me, well I had kind of drifted through the game, not giving much thought to getting a shot off or fouling an opponent.

Late in the game, Rodger, my teammate, told me on the court during a stoppage in play that I still needed to get my shot/foul quota in. All my teammates had done so – all except me! So in the game’s final minutes, I would run up to an opponent who had the ball with the idea of fouling him. But almost every time, the opponent would pass the ball away to a teammate.

Rodger, who would one day be in my wedding, implored me to foul and/or shoot. Time was running out. Offensively, I still hadn’t taken a shot.

In those closing minutes and seconds, teammates would pass the ball to me, screaming, `Shoot it, shoot it.’ But I couldn’t seem to find an opening. I didn’t want to desperately throw up a crazy shot, so I didn’t.

Finally, the final buzzer sounded. We had easily won, but coach McMichael was not happy with me. He took me aside, shook his head, and said, `You had a whole game to take a shot and commit a foul, and you did neither. Your penalty is you will not be in the starting lineup for the next game.’ And I wasn’t. I remember watching the first quarter of our next game on the bench feeling out of sorts.

What’s the lesson? Sometimes – in basketball, personal relationships, professional endeavors, or any important decisions – you just have to freaking be aggressive in life and go for it! (Not all the time, now!) I don’t know if I totally learned my lesson that day. But over the years, I’ve come a long way. Hey, better late than never!

I thought the following basketball poem from the book, `Jump Ball – A Basketball Season in Poems,’ by Mel Glenn (Dutton’s Children’s Books, New York; 1997) was quite appropriate for the times we’re living in.

This keeps basketball in perspective, but also reminds us we need to keep on living! And keep on Hoopin’!

Rhythm of the Rim

‘Just because I come from Kiev in Ukraine,

Does not mean I do not know

How to play basketball.

My family had to flee Kiev

In middle of night

There was not enough time to pack

More than single suit case for each of us.

When I asked my father why, he said,

“There is no time to explain, just hurry.”

Here in America, I have unpacked my suitcase

For last time, I hope.

I go to school; I play ball.

In a recent practice,

I got called for traveling.

And it had nothing to do with

Border patrols and customs offices.

I feel safe and secure here.

I’ve learned the rhythm of the rim,

And sweet swoosh

Of ball hitting nothing but net.