It's inevitable! I mean, it was bound to happen. There's just no way around it. It's just the natural progression of things. Some things just cannot be stopped, right?
It's basketball! I love basketball. I've played my entire life. That is, until the winter of 2023-24. That's when my basketball and shoes sat in the back of my closet, unused, for the first time.
So why would the day come that I would not play basketball anymore? Well, old age, a bum knee, arthritis, a lack of desire or some other physical limitation, right? I mean hey, I did turn 61 my last birthday. From looking at most other guys my age I know, that's way past the time of such activity. But I don't feel that way at all. I revel in being the old guy out there keeping up with the younger guys. In fact, it's great motivation. For all I care, that recliner can sit in the corner unused for a few more years anyway. I've still got decent stamina. My body, despite shoulder surgery a few years back, is in pretty good shape.
So why did I quit playing basketball? Attrition. No, not me but others. I'd been playing pickup basketball with the same core group of guys for the last couple of decades. True, guys came and went but we kept playing. We would play once or twice or even three times a week when I lived in Lolo. Even after moving to Frenchtown, I kept making the 25-mile drive back to Lolo for a couple more years. Maybe that's because I was the guy who hung on to the church gym key and kept messaging the group to make sure we had enough to play. But the drive got old so I invited the guys to come play in Frenchtown, which we did for another five or six years.
During that same time, I was invited by a softball teammate to join a nondenominational group of Christian guys playing at a high school gym in Missoula. They were a bit younger, more skilled and competitive - all things that really drive me. And yeah, I was the old guy in that group too. It was great - basketball on Frenchtown's short court on Thursday nights and again Saturday morning on the sweet, wooden full court in town.
But then COVID-19 hit and things were never the same again. The high school gave us the boot so that group shifted to a church in Missoula. It was still a full court but the floor was tile on top of concrete and after two hours of running and gunning, my joints (for the first time ever) were yelling at me to stop playing there because of the pounding they took, so I did. We struggled to get enough participation to keep playing in Frenchtown. We just could not consistently get six or more people to commit to at least 3-on-3 basketball on our short court so that was that. Still, I found out about another group of guys playing full court in Missoula. That went on for a year but that, too fizzled out. I was so disappointed. I could no longer be the old guy playing with the young 'uns. I did have occasional trips to visit my son in Spokane to play pickup hoops there, but those also fizzled out this past year, not because they're not playing anymore but because they were playing tournament games when I visited and I was an out-of-towner. So I would go to support him and became the designed scoreboard operator. (Hey, if you can't play at least you can support others doing so, right?)
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| Manning the scoreboard with my grandson |
The longer 2023-24 winter hockey season was ongoing so I looked forward to the 2024 spring league. Unfortunately, I waited to long to register and could not get into Patty's league so the commissioner suggested I play in the novice league.
So excited for this!
Perhaps Mark Twain said it best: "Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." I'm with you Mr. Twain!
