(Folks, I am gonna try to start something here with this Memoir Monday business. I made a button, and I want you all to start telling your own Memoir Monday stories. I don’t care if your blog is already a story telling blog. Stick this button on your site on your Monday posts, and make me very happy! Qualifications for Memoir Monday is that it must be true. That’s all. If you use the button, make sure that you send me a message so I can link your post to this one! We’re gonna get this going! Thank you! Just copy this HTML code and paste it into the Edit HTML tab of your blog.)
I was not always so athletically inclined. Some of you may be saying, “Oh. You’re athletically inclined?” For those of you asking that, I would point you to this post. Or this one. If you are still saying that after, well then, you can suck it. That’s real.
Anyway, back in the sixth grade, Travis was not getting a lot of play on the elementary ball team. I was tall and skinny, but I had absolutely no athletic coordination whatsoever. To top it off, my family was not wealthy, so the only shoes that we could afford for me to wear were the cheap Wal-Mart ones. This wouldn’t be a problem normally, but 9 times out of 10, these shoes were so slick, they would allow me to stop and slide from the top of the key down to my position at the post. (This was a move I perfected, and I may have on tape. If I do, I will share it.)
So needless to say, I rode the pine pony quite a bit.
My frustration with this culminated in what I’m sure was the most illegal move ever used by someone on the bench in the history of basketball.
We were playing at a school with a relatively small gym. The benches were almost on the court, and so us as players had to do everything we could not to touch the floor while we were on the bench.
The game was going quite well…for the other team. We were receiving a sound drubbing, and I was none too happy about it all. Add that to the fact that I was sitting on the bench, and I had one bad attitude.
As the end of the game was approaching, I was absolutely livid. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t playing yet, and I wanted to do SOMETHING. I got all dressed up for this game, and I wanted some action.
I can remember these next few moments in vivid detail.
The ball was inbounded by the other team.
The point guard ran up the sideline, and crossed half court. He was headed right down our sideline.
“This is bullcrap,” I said to myself, for I was not yet fully versed in the art of cursing.
The point guard was running flat out now, on a fast break and looking like he was going to score.
“I don’t think anyone should be able to play if I can’t.”
I stuck my foot out.
The point guard never really had a chance. I can’t say that I would have either. I had just defied EVERY common sense rule in the game of basketball. He had no idea that someone would even THINK about doing what I just did.
As I stated previously, it was a small gym.
He would up curled in a ball at the end of the court, crying for his mother.
The referees didn’t see my foot, but my coach and every single fan did.
This ended my elementary basketball career.
I don’t believe my parents were at that game, but man. They heard about it. I received a spanking the likes of which I can still feel today. I know that it was a bad idea, and that it was very bad sportsmanship.
But boy oh boy did it feel good.
That little doucher FLEW.
Other Memoir Monday posts today…
Jeff’s Musical Memoir Monday