Sporting memories: Being a legend before I even hit the basketball court

Of all the sports that I excelled at, basketball can probably be the one that we can look at my abilities and say that I was only slightly above average. I wasn't really built for basketball because I was 6 feet tall and around 175 lbs. This was perfect for the 2 sports that I ended up being extremely good at in the footballs - both the American and soccer variety. However, being 6 feet tall in basketball is nothing special and 175 lbs at that height is actually a bit too heavy.

I ended up leaving the basketball team electively in my sophomore year of high school by the various coaches advisement because I was spreading myself too thin attempting to excel at EVERYTHING instead of just focusing on the sports that I truly had a gift for. I am forever thankful for this intervention on their behalves because I ended up getting a full-ride Division-1 athletic scholarship for one of the sports that I was really good at.

This story isn't about how I excelled at something though, it is about how the expectations of me were extremely high going into this sport at all. My older sibling was already a legend in basketball by the time I got to high school as she has already gotten to the state championship at one school in Illinois (they lost in the end) but she did this as a major part of the team as a freshman, in her 2nd year of high school at a different high school they won the State Championship. So when she started her junior year in high school, I was starting my freshman year. She had built a name for our family as far as this sport was concerned that a lot was expected of me once I made the team my first year.

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_{Not my gym, digital cameras didn't exist when i was in high school}

I remember practicing with the team and really giving it my all but even I could tell before we even played our first game that I was not one of the best players on the team. I was too short, too slow, and while my ball handling skills were pretty on point I had a pull up shot that was too slow. I also easily got into foul trouble because well, my main sport expertise lied in sports where you are supposed to tackle the hell out of the other team.

I do recall our first game of the year though and coach decided to put me in about halfway through the 2nd quarter. As I was coming onto the court, I heard several people on the opposing team saying that is (my sister's name)'s brother! They were immediately afraid of me even though this fear was completely unwarranted because I knew that I was nowhere near the level that she was on. Even though I am 6 inches taller than her, she would ALWAYS win in a game of one-on-one against me. She was just that damn good.

Anyway, the very first play that I was involved in the ball got passed to me on the outside and I pulled up and launched a 3-pointer and absolutely nailed it. Nothing but net... swish.

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That felt really good and the opposing coach must have been very afraid because he immediately called a time out... possibly assuming that I was some sort of John Stockton that needed to be double covered otherwise I was just going to be raining down 3's from all directions.

Little did they know that this would end up being my ONLY moment of excellence in that entire game. It didn't help that the opposing coach put someone on me full time, I'm presuming it was one of their best defensive players as well, but that dude gave me absolutely zero space. So even if I was the excellent player that they presumed I was, I wouldn't have been capable of doing very much and the ball rarely got passed to me. I ended up taking a few more shots in the game and even got a few of them in, but mostly, it was revealed to me in that one game that I was not the player that the legacy my sister had established prescribed that I would be. I finished the game with 12 points, which is respectable for someone that is 13 years old and only played for 2 quarters, but for every shot I made, I missed 3 of them. I also missed a free throw and ended up fouling out of the game halfway through the 3rd quarter and even earned a technical foul because the foul I committed was more akin to American football than it was to basketball. I look back on that foul and laugh because yeah, it was flagrant. It was terrible and I don't know what I was hoping to accomplish by doing it.

I suppose for those first 3 minutes that I was in that game I felt really good about myself because the other team, and even the other team's coach and fans were familiar with my family name and simply presumed that I was going to be an absolute terror on the court. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for me, I was anything but that.

At one point in the game I attempted a "no look" pass to someone that wasn't even there and the ball went out of bounds for a turnover.

Throughout the season I averaged less than 10 points a game, fouled out of almost every game I played in, and was responsible for quite a few turnovers, many of which were quite embarrassing. It was about halfway through the season that "Coach K" called me into his office only to have the football and soccer coaches already in there. They at that point advised that I stop playing basketball and focus instead on one of the other sports.... or both... but just not basketball. They weren't kicking me off the team and it was totally left up to me whether or not I was going to take their advice, they were just intervening to try to help me to focus on what I was truly good at.

I left the team and aside from pick-up games here and there or at the local YMCA, I never played another game in my life. I suppose it was fun for those 3 minutes being feared, but it was also a huge letdown to myself, my team, and the parents that I was anything but exceptional at this sport.

The good news is that I went on to excel at both football and soccer and I am forever grateful to the coaches for being so selfless when it came to looking out for my sporting future. They ALL wanted me on their teams, but they were also looking out for my best interests in the end. Honestly, that is a sign of a good coach. I hope all of those guys went on to do great things with their lives.