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Organized Sports

Writer's picture: Dan BermanDan Berman

OLD MAN SHAKES FIST AT CLOUDS – organized sports


I wasn’t good enough to play any competitive sports in high school, and I was fine with that. I was content to go to the games and cheer the people who were. But I was in the Lutheran church basketball league in Cleveland, and it meant I got to leave the house on a school night – Tuesday – to practice in the basement of the church, where they had a regulation basketball court. Mostly, the basement was for Bible Study, or Alcoholics Anonymous, maybe some square dancing, but on Tuesdays, the Mt. Calvary Wildcats took over the court.


 



It’s not like I had to try out for the team. No one had to try out for the team. You showed up for practice, and you were on the team. Our team had one kid who was 5’4”.

I was one of the taller kids, but nowhere near as tall as Ricky Z, who was the center and 6’2”.

We were uniformly terrible. No one knew where to play, or what to do when you had the ball. Our coach had us run wind sprints during practice, and we sort of practiced dribbling, but there was no such thing as pre-set plays. We didn’t set anything up. Just run to our end of the court, pass once or twice, and take a shot. Hopefully you hit the rim.


 


Our record for that year was 1-14. Our one win was against the Bethel School for the Deaf. They were hands down the dirtiest players in the league, and we only squeaked by them by a few points.


I saw my coach fifty years later when I was in Cleveland for my dad’s funeral. He was still active in the church, and wound up coaching a few years with winning seasons. I told him that for the longest time, I was kind of bummed at being on such a terrible team. Then it dawned on me that he wasn’t really a coach, he was just giving up his evenings so some kids could play basketball. I got to play a team sport, made a few points in a few games, and got out of the house on school nights to practice. He said that was probably the best way to look at it.



 





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