Scott O’Brien
Sports Editor
It’s what every athlete strives for. To be the best player in any given situation at any given time. When you’re 8 you want to be the kid who can touch the net on your elementary school’s 7 foot hoop. Then middle school comes and all of a sudden your legacy as the grade’s legend vanishes because, let’s face it, middle school basketball brings out the worst in every player. The kids who hit puberty first are stuck playing Center and Forward, positions that most of them will likely abandon if they continue on to play high school basketball.
Then there’s the less fortunate who end up handling the ball and attempt to throw 20 footers in an event where they aren’t able to get a fast break off the other team’s missed shot or errant pass. It’s humorous to think that at one point we actually believed we all had what it took. During that time no one ever thought practice was needed and why should we? If you averaged 15 points a game against kids who barely understood what a zone defense was then you were pretty much destined for the NBA right?
Well, as a star on the team you have a lot of things you have to do, such as decide if Duke or Syracuse is the right fit for you. However, while you sit in your room contemplating whether Coach Beoheim’s controlled tempo or Coach K’s erratic run-and-gun scheme was more appealing to you, your parents had other ideas. Although you disagreed with their demands you willingly laced up last year’s basketball shoes and went out in the driveway to shoot. You knew it as your sanctuary by the time your freshman year came around and at that point it started to set in how important practice would become.
Dreams of playing in the NBA becomes a distant past and now all that matters is fitting in with your new high school classmates while also trying to stick out your high school JV coach. In 9th grade, making the JV team seems like a dream. You know, like the ones you have in your driveway about facing off with the great Michael Jordan. So maybe you make the JV team by playoff time and then finally after a year of hard work you’ve regained your social status as the big man on campus.
Scared to death by the idea of failing and motivated to hell by the prospective idea of you being the superstar of the varsity team, you work. 200 jump shots, 150 foul shots and 100 miken drill lay-ups consist of a solid workout, and then comes conditioning. About 2 miles suffice and give you enough satisfaction to rejoin the real world with relaxing homework and dinner conversations with the family. Later, you lay in bed thinking, “remember when I hated practice? Remember when I used to play with the dog outside and bounce the ball occasionally just incase dad was watching?” It’s not that you don’t hate practice equally as much, it’s just that you hate the feeling of not practicing much more. It gets to a point where you start to wonder if your practicing for yourself or maybe just practicing because that’s what people expect.
Nonetheless, you’ve written your fairy tale and the ending does not disappoint. The paper showers you with accolades from your performances during the last couple years of your high school tenure. Everything you’ve worked for is coming true but still nothing satisfies you. You hear the whispers of naysayers who despite your success, say you aren’t good enough. A matter of fact, that starts to become all you hear. Every game becomes an overall assessment and instead of getting praise for responding, they just ask what’s next. Failure will not be tolerated by anyone. I mean, how are you supposed to play college ball if you can’t handle a silly high school game. Under the scrutiny of your peers, and under the stress you create for yourself there’s only one place that makes it all go away.
Addiction in the form of hard work again saves you and like any addict the drug sends a rush of calming sensation over the body. It’s not being seen but rather being hidden that comforts you the most. What ever happened to the glory? Where’s the so-called life that superstars live? The lime light you have obtained seems rather dim from right underneath its glow.
Then, all of a sudden the dim light turns off. It’s April and your high school playing days are over but instead of taking off the Kobe replicas and hanging them up in your closet to collect dust, you prepare yourself for the revolving door to spit you back out into the wild and leave you to fight a bigger monster. Yes, that’s right the familiar feeling of being the low man on campus returns and this time in a more literal form. Even a parrot knows the emotional roller coaster that will probably follow for the next four years but no addict admits they have a problem. Eventually the rehabilitation process will start and a man who was once was defined by his role on the basketball court will find his niche in the real world. The trick to the game is… who can keep that process from happening longest.
