When I first came to America and settled in Rochester I taught for the City School District.
One day I happened to take a shortcut through the gym where some of my students were playing basketball. Now I should tell you right away that I had never played basketball—-I’m a football player (soccer I mean) and I haven’t been able to get past the fact that the players never seem to kick the ball or how the referees allow all those handballs, seems unfair to me—-and anyway when I went to school in England the girls played a game called netball that was remarkably identical to basketball and that left me with an inerradicable unease with the game.
So that was the background I brought to crossing the gym that fateful day. “Yo Mr H-B!” one of my students cried as he caught sight of me, and promptly but casually tossed the ball to me. Caught at unawares I caught the ball, one-handed as I had books and files under the other arm, and, forgetting my lack of history with the game, I threw the ball to make a perfect basket—from somewhere near the center line! Boy! Did I impress those students—it was well worth the sacrifice of never taking that shortcut again to be on the safe side.
And of course I’ve never touched a basketball since.
Think of it: one hundred percent of my shots for my entire basketball carreer scored.
I bet even Michael Jordan doesn’t have a success rate like that! And just because I knew when to quit the sport (unlike Mr Jordan apparently).
When I first came to America and settled in Rochester I taught for the City School District.
One day I happened to take a shortcut through the gym where some of my students were playing basketball. Now I should tell you right away that I had never played basketball—-I’m a football player (soccer I mean) and I haven’t been able to get past the fact that the players never seem to kick the ball or how the referees allow all those handballs, seems unfair to me—-and anyway when I went to school in England the girls played a game called netball that was remarkably identical to basketball and that left me with an inerradicable unease with the game.
So that was the background I brought to crossing the gym that fateful day. “Yo Mr H-B!” one of my students cried as he caught sight of me, and promptly but casually tossed the ball to me. Caught at unawares I caught the ball, one-handed as I had books and files under the other arm, and, forgetting my lack of history with the game, I threw the ball to make a perfect basket—from somewhere near the center line! Boy! Did I impress those students—it was well worth the sacrifice of never taking that shortcut again to be on the safe side.
And of course I’ve never touched a basketball since.
Think of it: one hundred percent of my shots for my entire basketball carreer scored.
I bet even Michael Jordan doesn’t have a success rate like that! And just because I knew when to quit the sport (unlike Mr Jordan apparently).