Hoop Dreams

Every Sunday, I play basketball with my friends. Though I've always enjoyed the sport, the fact that I'm not tall/athletic/competitive has generally prevented/intimidated me from partaking. The Sunday games with my friends, however, are non-threatening: for the most part, everyone is supportive and friendly making for a fun experience. Fun is important, it's what games are supposed to be about. I'm a pretty streaky player, I either keep hitting my shots or, more frequently, have them bounce off the rim for minutes at a time. While I excel at knockout, I attribute that to requiring only quick sprints with regular breaks, a solid free throw shot (and failing that, a consistent second shot), and no defense.

One of my teacher friends, who coaches basketball, wanted to start up a weekly pickup game amongst the faculty after school. I accepted the invitation, looking forward to a social engagement with my coworkers.

I showed up today, a bit late after helping a student, and was terrified by what I saw. All of the other teachers that came were muscular and at least a foot taller than me. This game wasn't for fun, it was for pride and bragging rights. The players were no nonsense, calling each other "ladies," even though there was not a single female in attendance. Come to think of it, I doubt any were invited.

In my experience, I've found that there are a few different kinds of teachers: people who are in the business because they are genuinely interested in educating today's youth, people who are in the business because they never want to leave high school, and people who live and die for sports and are in the business so that they can coach. (The staff has first dibs at coaching positions and cannot earn a living off coaching wages alone.) The people playing the game today were those in the third, sports-obsessed category. Please understand, I don't mean that they are not good people or not good at their jobs, but they have this underlying aspect to them that I find it impossible to relate to.

Frankly, once I whiffed the testosterone, I wanted to run, but I couldn't just make up an excuse at that point. So I played, despite being out of the others' league. These people were about domination. I hope I at least served as an ego boost to people nearly a foot taller than me who demonstrated their brute strength and athleticism by effortlessly blocking my shots, then later, just as easily, shooting it over my head. Nearly everyone would either take the shot or at least make ridiculous drives to the basket; passing was for the weak and people not out to prove their manhood.

To say I was outmatched is an understatement. I think the guys were embarrassed for me, but whatever, I refused to feel anything more than uncomfortable about the whole thing. I kept hoping the game would come to a merciful end. About an hour in, it finally did, when someone's flying elbow clocked another person hard in the forehead and drew an immense amount of blood. (Did I mention that in addition to playing intensely, they also played roughly?) The court was splattered in blood and everyone acted macho as if it was no big deal.

As luck would have it, the administrative team walked in just then to heckle us, only to find blood everywhere. There are all sorts of procedures when blood is involved, and though I tried to tell people not to try to clean it themselves, they were caught essentially breaking the law in the way they were handling it. The admins wanted to know who was responsible for the accident, and immediately everyone fingered me. Because, you know, it's funny to blame it on the scrawny short guy. It's even funnier to repeat the joke, which continued well past its welcome; I found it condescending, actually. Meanwhile, the elbow victim's white t-shirt was now drenched in red, his face still gushing. In my recent pursuit to recover from blood phobia, I did my best to look at him and not freak out - surprisingly, I did all right. At any rate, this guy was so badly injured, he had to be taken to the emergency room and get stitched up.

So for the sake of my health and sanity, it looks like I'll be sticking to the Sunday games from now on. I'll find excuses to keep a student after class on staff game days if I have to.