We recently watched the movie "Hoosiers" again, one of my all-time favorites. I love a good sports movie, where there's the struggle of rising above defeat and the limitations of bodies to find victory. Think: Rocky, Remember the Titans, Rudy, Coach Carter, Glory Road... In seeing Hoosiers again, however, I was transported back to my youth. Even though this movie was set in the year 1951 and my basketball days started in the 70s, there were many similarities. I could smell the musky, dusty, antiquated locker rooms of my beloved McEachern in Powder Springs, Georgia where grades 6-12 were all on the same campus. One of the gyms was a big, white building that seemed to be a hundred years old, with barely room enough around the playing box to even walk. They called it the "Girls Gym" and we did P.E. and practiced basketball in there. It was also the best Battleball arena because the walls were high, with grates on them. My sister and I played intramural ball of every kind during middle school years in that old white gym. I wish I had those legs back. The larger gym was still older than dirt but was considered the "Big Gym" where games were held.
The trials of Middle School must be eternal. I remember fifth grade at Powder Springs Elementary, where I was on top of the world. They now say that you should go back in your head and find your ten-year-old self and try to emulate the good things that were going on at that time (this isn't true for everyone, and who is "they" anyway?) But if my life were my a mirror of that season, then the world is my oyster. Confident, fun, successful, dancing on chairs. Then sixth grade happened, not just to me but everyone. My elementary grade friends emerged from that summer, changed, alien, strangers. The world became scarier overnight and the walls fell away. New faces joined us as we started changing classes instead of being cozied up all day with the same teacher. When you are eleven, it seems that the whole world is cavorting away on Friday night at the skating rink while you're stuck watching The Brady Bunch with your siblings. The culture was telling us that everyone who was anybody already had a boyfriend and was applying layers of makeup, while my country self was still combing the fields around us for tadpoles and daisies and playing ball with Daddy and my sister. I'm truly thankful for good parents who kept me grounded.
It was with great relief that high school finally rolled around, because it affected another sea change in my life. I clearly remember the day it was announced that basketball tryouts were coming up and we were to meet in the Big Gym. The new ninth grade coach was introduced -- strong, tough, no-nonsense, intimidating. That was how I loved my teachers and coaches -- Daddy was our first coach when we were little softball players, and even though he was the sweetest of men, he ran us hard and expected our highest efforts. He believed in us; we were pushed hard and encouraged to the maximum. How lucky could I be, to have that kind of man raising me?
Coach Brown was like a drill sergeant, running us over hill and dale, teaching us Maravich drills and learning to pump iron in the weight room (this was new to women's sports). Before we even touched a ball, he had us in good shape. I couldn't wait until classes were over every day to hear the thumping of balls on the court and face the challenge of stretching ourselves to the brink. Every spare minute at home was spent shooting hoops in the driveway on the plain, small plywood backboard Daddy made. If I missed, the ball would roll down the hill, motivating me to rebound before it got away.
Those high school years were wonderful. I ate, slept and dreamt basketball. There were so many life lessons learned there -- how to endure beyond what I thought possible, how to give way to others, how to follow leadership, how to see nobility in the daily grind, how to reach deep. Those things translated to so much of what I have had to do as an adult...I've pushed out and raised four strong-willed Viking babies; the slow and difficult constancy of keeping little humans and husband alive and fed; years of fixing up and maintaining impossible houses; all manner of cottage industries done from home; homeschooling said humans despite my frailties and crazy-brain; ladder-climbing of all sorts as I've painted the world; and so much more.
Yes, basketball has been very, very good to me. I miss the musty gym, the sweaty and earthy connection to the struggle. That rangy, coltish girl is still in there. I must visit her soon...
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