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Re: Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Doc: Thanks for the fun post - it reminds me of all the pickup ball and plain ol' shooting around I did in college. Here are a couple of free-association riffs: "Though his best moment was a mind-changing in-the-air reverse layup while cutting behind the backboard in a game against the Lakers." I've cited this Dr. J. moment in conversation with fellow sports fans as one of those rare moments when visual evidence seems to confirm that Player X was able to suspend the laws of physics temporarily, i.e. that Player X is literally superhuman. Given my rationalist bent, this is said tongue-in-cheek, but it does help explain, for example, Joe Namath's deep-bomb highlight reel, which shows him barely flicking his arm to send a ball 50+ yards in the air. "I only brought one talent to the game. I wouldn't call it a skill, but it was definitely a talent. I was good at shooting the ball from the outside, if nobody guarded me. At my prime I was good for 50% or better from the floor, and maybe 70-80% from the foul line. And since defense wasn't a major part of pick-up ball back when I played, I scored some. Not a helluva lot, because there were always better players around. But some." This *exactly* matches my own experience. In my pickup-ball days, I was 5'10", 160#, slow of foot, and with slow reflexes. I've never been a good athlete at anything that required agility or speed. But if you gave me an open 17-footer, I was money in the bank. Ten years ago - i.e. a few years after I graduated college - I spent the summer at Middlebury College's German school. This meant a couple of months away from my pregnant wife and all my friends back here in Austin, which was taxing even though I made a lot of new friends in Vermont. Much to my pleasure, I found a brand-new, fenced-in basketball blacktop behind my dormitory. For those seven weeks, my afternoons reverted to what they had been in my first two years of college: long sessions of shooting around by myself, or playing H-O-R-S-E with my pals. Good memories. TW
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