The First Quarter: How it all began…

Here I am, 20 years old and I’m sitting in my college house, thinking of how to start my new assignment on my second education…Over the next couple of months I’ll be taking whoever reads this through the journey of how I grew up with the game of basketball, and how it is my second education.

18 years of playing with a ball, 12 years of playing to win, and 3 years of playing for fun. As I get older and older, my memories of when I was younger slowly fade away. When was the first time I even touched a basketball? When did I hit my first shot on a 10ft hoop? How did my love and passion for this sport even begin?

Lets start from the beginning.

Ever since I was born i’ve always had some type of ball in my hand, always being active and trying to have fun. From there I developed into attempting to dribble a ball when I was around 2–3 years old.

The reason for me always having some type of ball in my hand was because of my dad; his love and passion for the game of basketball instantly carried over into my life, the minute I was born.

I can remember wherever we went whether it was my Grandmas, or the park, or in our backyard, we’d always be either playing catch with a baseball, or passing a basketball back and forth. This constant activeness with sports made me LOVE playing it, no matter what game it was. I just always enjoyed being active and running around. I was never the type of kid who liked to do puzzles, or read, or go fishing and swimming. I would always choose to either be playing with my toy figures or as I used to call them “little men” or playing some type of sport.

So, it all began with my Dad. He introduced the game to me. He had played his entire life, having a very successful career. He played on a legendary High School team called the Rockland Bulldogs, and then went on to play at Dartmouth College.

A little background about my Dad… I started to play with him competitively when I was about 15 years old. Every league we went to, he was the best player on the court…and TODAY he still is. He’s 56 years old now, but man does he ball out. This guy throws no look passes full court, hits jumpers over everyone, and still can cross up any of my friends. So, when my dad introduced me to this game, I knew that if I ever tried to disrespect it and not take it with care, that I would let him down. He built the passion for this game in me, from telling old stories, to watching him on the court diving for the ball or to even getting in arguments with other grown men over bad calls. I learned from the best and i’m still learning today. But the saddest part of this, is thinking that when he did first teach me how to dribble, he realized his era was done, and my era had begun.

When I hit age 6–7 I began to play for “fun”. I consider myself only playing the game solely for “fun” for about 3 years or so. You’ll learn why soon. My Dad signed me up for a Winter basketball league which was run by one of my Dad’s good friends. Every Sunday, at 10am we’d play. A group of about 15–20 kids all around my age, would be split up into two teams and we would play for about 40 mins, with substitutions every 5 mins. I really enjoyed this league, in fact, it’s one of the things I miss the most. It wasn’t even basketball that was my favorite part about it, it was hanging out with my friends before and after the games and running around the school just having fun. From ages 7 to about 10, I had a blast going to this league and not caring about winning or losing. I solely remember just wanting it to be Sunday over and over again. Then I became 11.

Angry, sad, happy, furious and then comes the constant crying. I started to learn what losing was. Not winning….but what losing was. There’s the famous saying “Losing hurts more than winning feels good.” I live by this saying. In a non boasting way, I would consider myself growing up, one of the better basketball players from my town. But being good at that age didn’t matter to me at all, I just wanted to win or….I just didn’t want to lose. Emotions…they got the best of me. I acted like a little brat who would complain about every “bad call” or every shot I missed, or every bad player on my team. I just complained non stop. But if we won, oh it was a fantastic day. Now, I’m not saying I didn’t have fun anymore playing the game of basketball, but starting at age 11 to even my age now, I wanted to win, and I still want to win every single damn game. To defend myself, I wouldn’t label the 11 year old me a brat, or a punk, i’d label myself as a kid who LOVED the game of basketball, and would do anything to win. There really is only one reason for why I would cry after I lost a game….passion. The passion I had for this sport was incredible…It was through the roof, and kids my age didn’t recognize that, I don’t even think Parents did. Parents most likely looked at me as a kid who had never lost a game before. haha. Trust me….I’ve lost just about every important game in my life and that’s counting every sport I’ve played growing up. Getting a tad bit off track here..but what i’m trying to get through to you is that I cared about winning and the game of basketball more than I cared about my appearance. Even if at the time I didn’t know that, that’s what I was doing. No kid ever likes to lose, and if they don’t have a hard time with losing, then I don’t believe they have the passion for it. It’s as simple as that.