Pound for Pound: Life lessons and benchings

Published 10:28 am Wednesday, December 18, 2024

We live in a world where everything doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.

For instance, one could say: ‘Our quarterback is playing like utter garbage.’ That doesn’t necessarily mean he should be benched. There are shades. Degrees. Not everything is black and white.

I’m thankful for that because it opens the door for me to say two seemingly very contradictory things. Like, ‘I loved playing sports. They were an important part of my personal development and helped me so much as a kid.’ But, I can also admit that I’m still – about 20 years later – carrying around some baggage from my days gone by as an athlete.

That much was apparent from a dream I had Saturday night where I suited up in a high school basketball game. Not uncommon. Basketball was always my favorite sport to play and it shows up in my dream theatre fairly often. Another common occurrence in these nighttime flicks is I keep missing wide-open layups. And not just the layups, but the easy putback attempts too.

Saturday night brought a new wrinkle, though. There I was missing layups and putbacks, passing the ball to the other team, and dribbling all over the place (not in a good way). Two minutes from tipoff, Bob Peck, my actual high school head basketball coach, pulled me from the game and sat me on the bench. He got no quarrel from me. You read the play-by-play. I clearly deserved it.

That didn’t stop me from waking up mad. What was I doing missing all those easy shots and playing so poorly? I could hit these shots in my sleep. Then again, it is at least a little difficult to make a layup with your eyes closed. In related news, what deep-seeded issues do I have 18 years later that these high school basketball shortcomings are such a frequent flyer in my brain’s nocturnal programming?

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Hard to pin down. Finding the answer might actually require multiple hours laid out on a therapist’s couch, though it feels like there’s some sort of lesson there. Sports can simultaneously be the most important thing in the world and also mean nothing. Unless you’re part of the small percentage that’s going pro, they won’t directly help you go further in life. Anyone who puts “high school state champion” on their résumé is going to get laughed out of a job interview.

But when you’re in the game, the focus is on getting those next points or stopping the opponent from scoring. Then the next day you’re taking a math test.

For me, it will always be the lessons and the memories that mean the most.

Would still like to see myself make at least one layup in my dreams though.