Track was always my best sport growing up, but at some point in my life, I also competed in baseball, basketball, soccer, golf, karate, tennis, football, and wrestling. This post is about something that happened during one of my basketball games on the JV team when I was in 10th grade.
I had played basketball through elementary school and on my Junior High teams (7th - 9th grade). In elementary school, I was the best player on the team...when I moved up to junior high and combined with all the elementary schools, I was no longer the best player, but I got to be a starter and played a lot of minutes each game. My specialty by far was shooting. I could beat anyone on the team in HORSE or "Around the World", but my ball handling and defense was never very good (so I would lose at 1-on-1). My main job for the team was to try and hit a few 3-pointers every game.
When I got into 10th grade and was on the JV team, everything changed. The 5 starters were all 11th graders. The 5 second-string guys were 3 more from 11th grade as well as 2 of my classmates in 10th. That put me on the 3rd string, and I NEVER got to play. The first and second string would rotate in and out throughout the game, and if it became a blowout, the coach would throw in the 4th string guys (our team was way to big!). So as I was used to scoring several points a game, I had only 2 points (probably from the only time I actually touched the ball) the entire season heading into the final game.
So for the last game, several of us who were used to getting a lot of playing time when it was just our grade were pretty upset with the entire season (in 11th and 12th grade I gave up basketball to run indoor track). So I made a promise to the other guys who were upset that if I got in the game and if I got the ball, I was going to shoot...didn't matter where I was on the court or how many guys were guarding me...I would shoot.
So our pre-game pep talk from our coach went something like this --- "OK, it's our last game. Some of you hardly got to play this year so we are going to give everyone lots of playing time today". So is wasn't long into the game that I got in. The other team was playing a "press" (guarding us so we couldn't get the ball up to our side of the court) so I purposely avoided looking for the ball so I wouldn't have to either end up a liar, or have to launch a full-court shot.
I hear the coach yell, "Mike look for the ball". I turned, and here came the pass. I was maybe 2 steps in from the half court line. Since it was a press, immediate 2 guys ran over to guard me. I kept my word, and launched a shot over top of them. With the perfect line and distance --- SWISH --- 3 points!!! However, since it was a shot I should have never taken to begin with, the coach wasn't too happy and took me out of the game for good.
But hey, what a way to go out huh?
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