Part of being growing up tall in your class is you’re expected to be good at basketball. It’s the first thing anyone thinks of. They’re not wondering if you have a career in playing movie henchmen or stocking shelves or working the carnival circuit – they wanna know if you’re gonna have a chance at basketball superstardom so that you may touch that rare thing so many are curious about: lots and lots of cash for playing a childhood game.
So I felt the pressure early on. I would emulate my hardwood heroes. Their plays, their moves, their very essence. And if I did it all in the right order and in the right combination, I’d be fast tracking myself towards building some generational wealth. The problem is that I emulated the wrong players. I had the lanky, awkward body of a center when I wanted to be the local Spokane hero, John Stockton, dishing dimes and knocking down heat-seeking treys. The fact I started playing soccer in the 2nd grade meant that by 5th grade, I had enough footwork to fool myself into thinking I was capable of streaking up and down the court like a steady, Stocktonian point guard. I was so resolute in this vision that I begged my basketball coach to once, just once, switch me from the body-banging, frustrating position of center (the 5, as we called it), where I felt like a gawky bird with clipped wings, to the graceful, visionary position of point guard (the 1, of course). That’s when I learned to never fuck with art teachers moonlighting as basketball coaches again. Their wisdom isn’t always in their art; it’s in letting people catch themselves in their own lie.
My first few possessions as point guard were my last. Everything felt more scattered and cumbersome. I could barely keep possession of the ball. The enemy’s limbs seemed to stretch into tree branches, waving in the wind, taunting me into another turnover. When the coach finally called a timeout, we didn’t need to say anything. We knew. It was a mistake that had to happen. I’m grateful he gave me the space to stumble into my own bullshit. Like I said, I will never underestimate an art teacher again.
Middle school reminded me of how important my size was, but in a rather dispiriting way. On what I’m assuming was the pure merit of being one of the tallest kids in the class, again, I made the varsity 7th grade basketball team. But I rode the bench most of the season. The few glimpses of the court I got only reinforced how much I didn’t belong. I tried to make the moves of a 1 while playing the 5, showing the creativity of going baseline for a reverse lay-in, but lacking the grace to do anything other than hit the underside of the backboard. I convinced myself I was a streaky shooter. But I knew the truth: I’d never get enough reps in a game to truly catch fire. The most flammable thing of all? My internal conversations about my own game. It’s a miracle I, a middle school boy, did not burn up my own playing career before it even started.
The fact I made JV in 8th grade when there were no discernible changes in everyone’s height just proved the point I had internalized all along: I was there for my height. Not my shotmaking. Not my passing. Certainly not my swift, smooth moves. I spent a lot of time being fouled and then getting called for a foul because my anger at the situation had become too combustible. Why did the refs swallow the whistle when I got whacked from all sides? Why did they brandish them like new toys whenever I bumped into others? It was the first and only time in my life I’d completely relate to Shaquille O’Neal. Here we were, two men determined to show we were more than our size, but weighed down by the misunderstanding that just because a bigger body can absorb more punishment doesn’t make it any less of a foul. At least, unlike Shaq, I could make my free throws.
When it became clear I would never be a leading scorer on my team, I gravitated towards defense. There, hustle won the game. There, you could be tall and lanky and big and you could show your worth. And I was taught to do this by standing in the middle of the key, like a lighthouse halo effect, and hold my arms out, pointing to my main one one side and the ball on the other. Often, I’d yell at my teammates to do the same. It felt, if only for a moment, like you could finally control something within the game. You couldn’t always control whether you made a shot or not, especially when limbs and sweat and hostility surrounded you. You couldn’t always control whether the ball would bounce in your favor or reflect into someone else’s fortunate hands. But you could always control when and how you raised your arms on defense, pointing to the ballcarrier and your defensive target, convinced you were really going to blow this possession up for the other team and get the ball back.
But there was a limitation to this system. And it came when your arms would need to resemble a compass. When your arms were at different angles, looking like clock hands, you could manage everything. But when they came towards you with the ball, the man you were marking would often slide in behind you. You were suddenly standing perpendicular to line that went from the front of you through the back. Game over. The pass would squeak through you. They’d lay in the shot. The frustration would only build.
At some point I realized basketball would never be my game and that soccer, despite its valley-low odds of superstardom, would allow me to put my best feet forward. Lacking the offensive skill to really wow anyone, I once again gravitated towards defense. I would go whole games playing what my coach considered to be pretty outstanding defense only to be done in by the same goddamn cross or corner kick. In those plays, my arms would form a truly straight, 180 line from the tip of my left index finger to the tip of my right. On one end would be the player about to kick the ball. On the other end would be the player I’m defending. I would have it all figured out until the ball became airborne, and once again, a player would slip behind me and make a play I could not stop. They’d head or kick the ball into the goal, and the coach would give me a look that wondered when I would finally play some defense. It was demoralizing. To be doing everything right only to be outdone by the simple fact I cannot spread my arms wide and know exactly what goes on behind me. I have my limits.
So I think about that a lot when I think about this compass and this particular drawing. Balance is an illusion. We can hold our arms up and point to whatever we want, doing our best to convince ourselves that hey guys, we got this shit covered. But there will always be something that sneaks behind us and catches us unaware. You hope it’s for something as simple as a lay-in or a goal. But you know won’t always be so lucky.
