Ihave written in this column before about my late-in-life conversion to basketball mania. As the son and brother of high school athletes, I was blessed with all of the leftover sporting talent in the family, which amounted to none. After a middle school P.E. coach summed up my athletic future by suggesting a career in comedy, I more or less washed my hands of sports. Shamefully, as Coach Jeff Morgan once pointed out to a large crowd at the Rhodes Field House, I attended Chapel Hill for nine years and never went to a single Tar Heels game, nor once genuflected in front of the Dean Dome.
Of course, I’ve seen the error of my ways and am now a regular fan of both our Bison teams. I’ve even been known to arrange my social calendar around the season. But an experience over the holidays has taught me that it is possible to take this basketball fever too far.
It all started when my nephew discovered the thrill of shooting hoops. Samuel is 8 years old and has Down syndrome. Ever since his teachers started taking him to the gym, he can’t get enough of the court. He loves making baskets and does fairly well at it, so my sister wanted to get him a free-standing outdoor basketball goal for Christmas. It came to Mom’s house in late December, and my brother Jim and my niece’s boyfriend Bryan put it together. Somehow I managed to show up just as they were tightening the last screw. Given my skills in this department, no one complained.
The unveiling was a huge success. Samuel lit up like a shot clock when he saw the goal, and if we had not forced him to come in eventually, he would still be making layups at this very hour.
After Christmas we had to transport this goal to Samuel’s house — a 15-minute drive. Since it had taken several hours to assemble, we decided to haul it intact in the bed of Bryan’s truck. We leaned the 8-foot giant against the truck cab and tied it down with rope. We thought, “What could possibly go wrong?” This is why men should not make decisions without supervision.
About a half-mile down the road, a gust of wind caught the backboard, which did a back flip in the truck bed. So now sparks were flying as the rim scraped the pavement behind us. Thinking quickly, we pulled over.
Clearly the rope idea hadn’t worked, so we had to come up with another scheme to secure this monster. Again thinking quickly, we devised a plan. Remember, I said we were thinking quickly. I did not say we were thinking well.
My solution? We stood the goal up straight, and I climbed into the truck bed and sat on the base to anchor it. Thus we headed on down the road, with an 8-foot goal swaying in the breeze, and a 40-year-old academic hanging on for dear life.
It was the wildest ride since the time I nearly threw up at Six Flags when a friend talked me onto something called the Mine Train. Bryan kept it under 35 mph, but he might as well have been on the German Autobahn clocking 120. Every time we turned, I had to grip the side panels, brace my feet against the tailgate and push down to keep the goal from capsizing. To the people behind us, it must have looked like I was in labor.
Three things went through my mind during that adventure. First, I was terrified of winning one of those Darwin awards given for the stupidest way to die. Second, it occurred to me that since I had just eaten lunch at the Waffle House and was now joy-riding in the back of a pickup, I was just one can of Skoal away from a Jeff Foxworthy joke. Third, I was sorry I had not brought a basketball with me, as this would have been an epic chance to practice my hook shot.
I’m happy to say that both the goal and the goalie made it there intact. Everyone who has heard this story has said the same thing: “I would have paid money to see that!” Of course, now that I’ve provided this detailed verbal picture, I doubt any of these folks will step forward with a dime. Some people are all talk.
In hindsight, I wish we had encouraged Samuel to take up croquet.
