When you’re fifteen, bored and stuck with your friends, too shy to meet any girls, but looking to expend hormonal energy, what better to do than grab an indoor/outdoor Spalding and ride bikes to the Rec, then hang the winter coats on hooks and pull the sweats off to carry out the daily wars?
Because only the bounces of that ball, the jump shots flying to the prize, backspin fluttering, are bright enough to tell the world who’s the brigadier general in your army of five.
You don’t think very much of Geology, Social Studies or Math, not even English, when driving the lane off a screen. You cross over by another, look up and see lights and glory etched into orange iron and white thread.
This is how you know the game — by going strong until you drop thirty on your fears.
What makes you shoot and dribble in the dark driveway with frozen hands and an aching stomach until the “Dinner” cries can’t ever be heard again?
Are you expecting a life of arenas, or is it just a feeling? Because if the game is a treasure hunt, don’t attack a zone defense, attack an oil executive. He’ll understand and maybe you will, too – that learning is the important thing and everything else follows. You should know that now.
Live the game first. In honor of the Rec.
.
(for Tony Hoagland)
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