Today I went to play basketball during lunch. I normally play with some old friends from 3M. Today nobody showed up. There is another group that come in and plays on the other court on Wednesdays. We call them the “pro-am” group. They take basketball much more seriously. I have played a couple times with them. Last week, for example, I played 5 games with them after playing 3 on 3 with my friends. They were also playing 3 on 3 and one guy was waiting to play. So I figured I would make it even so they could play 4 on 4 and run full court (this is going somewhere… I promise). It was a good game. It was tough though I was guarding Paul Milsap’s (Utah Jazz star) younger brother. He nailed a lot of 3 pointers over me and dunked a couple of times. We lost the first two games, but then came back to win 3 in a row (yes this has a point too…). So today, I figured since I played last week and I didn’t get to play ball with my friends I would get in on a game with them. Everything was cool at first. They were running 5 on 5 and there were 4 of us waiting to play the winners. Then just before the first game ended, two more guys showed up. So as I was stepping on the court to play one of the guys tells me “Sorry, you can’t play. If we have more than 15 people, new guys can’t play.” At first I was dumbfounded that he would even say that to me so I just ignored him. My team was ready to go. But he keeps getting louder and saying I can’t play. Obviously, no one is really stepping in to help me out because I’m just a dorky white guy joining in. So, I start walking off the court (seriously, I feel like a kid getting kicked off a playground by a bully). Then I hear a little chatter and one of my teammates yells at me to get back on the court. Okay, maybe it is corny, but I can’t tell you how good that made me feel. The guy that stood up for me (James) is one of the better ball players there. I think he played college ball back east somewhere. I’ve played with him before on tuesdays a few times and whenever we’ve been on his team we’ve never lost a game. I don’t think he remembered me from any of the Tuesday games though, because last week he kept calling me “new guy”. I think after winning 3 games in a row last week against him I earned his respect at least. I didn’t hear the conversation that got me back on the court but I’m sure it was all him and the respect that the other guys had for him. 

Now I must admit that I generally play a lot more timit with this bunch since many of them are bigger, which I’m not used to. Also, many of them have played college ball. I know one of the guys playing today used to be the point guard for the U of U a few years ago. So as we are just getting playing, James tells me to work down low. So I go down there and he dishes me the ball and I made a basket while getting fouled. He then came and said, “See, I told you. You can do this. You can play!” Unfortunately none of the other guys really gave me the ball and that was the extent of my scoring. We ended up losing after fouling 3 times on a game point and they made a foul shot to win (yeah, I wasn’t aware of this rule, but I’m glad it was nothing I did.) After that game, rather than stick around to wait to play winners again, I changed my shoes to leave. Someone came and asked why I was leaving so soon and James was there to stick up for me again. He told them I got here way early at like 11:00 and I had to go. He then said “we’ll take MIlsap I guess. As team mates we’ve won nearly every game. We’re like 115 (wins) and 3 (losses)” He then turned turned to me to give me high five acknowledging those three game we beat them last week.

Yeah, this may be cheesy, but it made me feel great today – especially from a guy I would have never expected it from.