Playing With Others, Lessons From Pickup Basketball Game

It began on one drizzling Saturday morning, wet enough to detour me from driving to the nearby Wolf community park for a routine physical activity.

Wolf Park in Monroe Connecticut has multiple basketball courts, and at 7 am, which is the time I like to start, other than park maintenance workers and stealth cops, and some insomniacs who walk the trail, the pack is empty, and I will have at least a court to use. My self-imposed three hundred attempted shots are over by 8.30 am.

But today is different, not even a compulsive player such as me would like to play in a water-logged court. Monroe’s neighboring town, Newtown, has an indoor sport facility and offered the best alternative.

They have two basketball courts and four hoops, and I claimed a hoop in one of the courts. Flock of men gathered, preparing to occupy the other court. We coexisted in our individual niches until one of them walked to interrupt my shots.

”Join us,” he said. ”No, sorry, but thanks,” the later added, conforming with what my daughter had drummed into me, be polite while declining offers.

At age fifty and counting, men are set in their ways. Besides, there is a lot to gain by operating solo. Ask physicians in solo practices, ask lawyers who have no partners, or ask men and women who do not have a spouse.

Soccer is the recreation sports of my choice, and had it been pickup soccer, I wouldn’t need much prodding to come over. The problem with soccer though is that it is seldom a one man sport, unlike basketball that anybody can enjoy playing alone. Still, learning new rules on impromptu pickup team does not particularly interest me.

The envoy insisted I join them. ”We need you to complement our team,” he confessed. What a selfish, yet an honest statement, and he won me over. He sensed my trepidations about lack of talent, to which he responded, ”Never mind, we show you how to play, we teach you.”

In less than thirty seconds, they threw on me nine hands tagged to nine first names. To each of them I replied, ”My name is Anselm”, and my hand shook each of theirs with warmth and strength.

Lasting memory is an active, deliberate process, which doesn’t stick if done in a slipshod fashion. And before long they were mangling Anselm in all manners possible; ”tie your sneaker lace, ‘Uslam’,” ”run to the ball, ‘Salam’,” ”defend your man, ‘Absalom’,” ”get back to defense, ‘Ansalam’.”

Loners forget names quickly. Of what value is remembering a name if one has no interest in seeing the other party ever again?

The first quarter took off like a breeze for them, but dizzying for me. The men, age ranging from upper twenty to sixty-two, played with zeal, skills and stamina. They complimented me for not collapsing.

As the game raged on, the shortest guy, incontestably the quickest hand of us all earned himself the first two points by driving zigzag to the hoop. An opponent, who, I think meant to compliment him, likened him to a bunny rabbit. He could as well have called him a runt, because, a momentary silence was cast over the team, the kind of silence one witnesses in capped emotional turbulence.

At the lull in-between the third and the fourth quarters, a guy felt the need to educate me about physical activities. ”Did you know that the heart is a muscle?”, he lectured. Working out help exercise muscles, including the heart muscles. Had he been telepathic, he would have answered my question—-is he a cardiologist?

Don’t quiver when you hear the word loner. Noises and distractions are the media that choke nascent ideas and originality. Surprisingly to me, there were many introverts in the pickup team. Tranquility drives mind, spurring it to do more, quietly without dilution from environmental chatter.

Game ended at 9 am. We exchanged thanks. I had fun, but still wouldn’t trade the pickup basketball team for my solo shots. In the event that outdoor outing fails, and we meet again, I will likely play with them, and I write about my experience.

https://youtu.be/MJTY2wN7Dz4