When I was growing up, my friends and I were gym rats. Whether it was outside during the summer or inside all winter long, we never had a basketball off-season. We were more or less the WNBA players of the South Dakota circuit. As I mentioned in great detail in a post on the Mondays blog, we all had our specialties. My specialty was never shooting. I was the rebound, post-up pass, Johnny hustle guy. Although I idolized Michael Jordan, my dreams were more geared towards being the white guy at the end of the bench who came in to play defense when the starters needed a rest or to jump up and down waving towels when one of the good players hit the game winner. The less the other team expected me to contribute, the more deadly I was. I was more or less a ninja. Part of this was because I had better players around me, and part of it was that I understood that every team needed the rebound guy as much as they needed the scorer. Basketball, more than any other game, needs role players, no matter how big or small that role is.
Well, right about junior high my friends and I had become a pretty well oiled machine. We had been playing together since the 4th grade, and we out chemistry-ed most teams. One of the highlights of our roundball glory was my friend Ryan's mom, Sherry. Sherry was best friends with my mom, and she was a loud, charismatic, superfan mom. She went to every game, screamed louder than anyone else, wore the most Trojan gear, and even had her own special cheers she would do. One of the best ones was when she would stomp twice on the bleachers every time someone made a shot or a free throw and would yell, "Whoomp, there it is!" at the top of her lungs. In case you forgot this awesome reference (and even if you remember it), here's a flashback:
Still remarkable. To this day, the "Whoomp, there it is!" chant is a running joke when we all get together.
Anyway, since I wasn't much of a scorer, I never really felt like I got my fair share of Whoomps. Flash forward to 2013. As you all know, I've been playing ball pretty regularly for the past two years. As you may all also know, it was pretty much my sole source of exercise. However, the past week I've stepped up my training regimen with cardio and strength training, and I've had a bit of a revelation. As I've built up my strength and my wind, I suddenly don't half to take half the plays off. I don't have to cherry pick and decide whether to use my energy on the offensive or defensive side. I can suddenly shoot accurately from all over the court. I can make my own offense. I can get to the hole (not the rim just yet). In particular, I've developed a nifty play that I affectionately call the Reggie after one of the best step-back shooters of all time and a first class-sonuvabitch, Reggie Miller. I am literally days away from starting up an informational video series and posting it to the Internet. It'll probably look something like this:
I'm not going to lie, I'm feeling pretty proud of my new found athletic prowess. Don't get me wrong, I'm still most certainly not the most talented guy on the floor, but there are times where I show flashes of a younger, stronger, faster 18-year old Jeff who suddenly has the self-confidence of the older, wiser 31-year old Jeff. Mix that with the competitive juices that have never stopped pumping (ask Molly, playing Phase 10 with me is never a casual activity), and you've got a complete basketball player that I'm pretty proud of and who is earning his fair share of Whoomps! As long as my body holds up, you should probably keep an eye out for a Wheaties box near you.
Jeff
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