basketball
Posted by Drew | Filed under General
Today we’re going to try to play basketball with some students. Every saturday there’s a group of Italians who come together around mid afternoon to play pick up half court 5 on 5 games. Ages range from 17 or 18 to a handful of seasoned veterans who could easily be over 50 or maybe even 60 — you know, the kind who are far too slow, but seem to always be in the right position, and shoot 94% from the field. Anyway on this court, as an incentive to play “with passion”, everyone is required to put 2 euro in the pot before each game, which will be divided among the members of the winning team for that game. Basically you pay the guy you guarded if your team happens to lose, or vice versa.
The last time (and first time) we played out there was on my birthday in February. Ryan and I were there early enough to participate in the warm up game (no money for the first one) and his team won so they stayed on the court for the first “with passion” game. I went to the other half and started shooting around with a few other guys - one Italian, one guy from Angola, and two American guys who are here studying abroad for the semester. Both over 6-5 with obvious playing experience. One more guy walked up so we started a game of 3 on 3. No money necessary for this game to have passion - especially between the two American guys.
But being my birthday, having only been on the basketball court once or twice in the last several years, I was wondering how my now twenty nine year old body was going to handle 2-3 hours of jumping and cutting and short sprints. Particularly, (this really made me feel old) I wondered about my back. And the next day I felt my age more than I ever have. But I really didn’t have to wait until the next day’s Advil for confirmation that I am indeed older. On a disputed out of bounds play the ball bounced through a crowd, hitting my knee at some point, but passing other players on the way out. There was an argument, so to avoid controversy I announced that it had touched me, and the other team should get the ball. The American on that team, who was probably 19 or 20, feeling vindicated by my explanation, and wanting to clarify to the rest of the players that the situation was resolved, repeated my confession by informing everyone that “the old man said it was off him”. The old man.
Happy Birthday, old man.
One Response to “basketball”
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Chiharu Says:
April 14th, 2008 at 7:09 pmLOL!! That is such a great story! But, trust me dear, you are not old yet, even if your back is starting to bother you! 29 is not old! (because if you are, well then, that means I am too…and I don’t want to be!)
