Road House
(Crouching From Left: Cam Glass, Chris Selle
(Crouching From Left: Cam Glass, Chris Selle
Semi-Crouching Like a Fool: Ryan Smith
Back From Left: Ken Baer, Joe Bailey, David Hall, Sam Brenner, Tyler Whittington)
Basketball has been in my blood ever since I saw Hakeem and the Rockets take out Ewing and the Knicks for the '94 championship when I was less than six years old. Granted, I was too young to really know what was going on (I am pretty sure I spent most of the game playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2), but that didn't stop me from going out to Dillard's with my family the morning after to pick up a hilariously over-sized championship shirt. After my parents got me a basketball hoop the following Christmas and Houston repeated the following season as NBA champions, my life and basketball were destined to intertwine. As I briefly mentioned in an earlier post, I used to cry every single time the Houston Rockets lost from about age seven to nine. What can I say, I've always been a pretty passionate guy. (I still hate you, Utah Jazz and Derek Fisher.) Basketball was the common factor with all of my friends growing up as well as over half of my game when it came to impressing girls (which still probably put me at a disadvantage).
In high school I was lucky enough to be named on the All-District and All-County team my junior year, despite being a key part to a terrible team. A team so terrible, in fact, that the coaches began to hype up kids the next season that weren't even old enough to take high school algebra yet. Nearly overnight, I went from team MVP to team scrub, and if TLC taught me anything, I was a "guy that couldn't get no love" from anyone. So what did I do? If you read my last post, you can probably guess that I played the tragic hero card and stubbornly quit the team rather than be a drone on the bench. I lost a lot of love for basketball after that. I barely played my first two years in college.
Arriving in College Station changed all of that. It was here that I reconnected with an old friend from high school named Ken Baer. Ken played with me growing up, but it wasn't until he started doing Aggie yells that he had a ridiculous growth spurt that transformed him from a 5'10'' undersized post to a 6'5'' behemoth down low. He introduced me to Tyler Whittington and Cam Glass, two guys from his organization One Army, and together we formed a very formidable quartet our junior year. After spending most of the summer playing basketball with Ty and Cam (not to mention watching the 2010 NBA Finals together with the aid of some Beach Bums), we had more team chemistry than the characters from Weird Science. For the first time in years, it was actually fun to play basketball.
"The Rule of Three": I learned early at Texas A&M that you should never attempt to play pickup basketball unless you have at group of at least three players with you. There are too many selfish ballers out there and anything less than three will leave you feeling bitter and angry. With three, you can monopolize the team to your liking. (And that, my friends, does not make me a selfish baller.)
Ronnie "Red" Smith and the "Junior Farcity"
(This picture, amazing on so many levels, still hangs in Gregory Gym at the University of Texas. My dad is second from right in the back.)
My dad may be the greatest storyteller that I know. Ever since I was a kid, he has told me the story of his intramural basketball team at the University of Texas, creatively named the Junior Farcity (The team was named after his friend claimed "it would be a farce if we won the whole thing!" Hearing that only confirms my suspicions that I am living in the wrong era). The team went on to have some miraculous feats, including being the first team in UT intramural history to score 100 pts in a game against the likes of Elgin Taylor and Little Kenny Ferguson. They made it to the championship game as a motley crew of freshmen. These stories have stayed with me my entire life and subconsciously I always knew I wanted to try and match him. However, it wasn't until my senior year before I finally was able to assemble the team to take on the new generation of Little Kenny Fergusons.
The Team: Road House
As I mentioned before, my mom dated Patrick Swayze when she was young. They even went to prom together, not to mention the University of Houston. It's always fun watching people's reactions when I reveal this information, but truthfully I really have no interest in the situation; my dad is much cooler (not to mention much more alive) and he doesn't have to rip out a guy's throat or become a ghost to prove it. My mom could not have picked a better husband. That being said, Road House is an incredible movie and a well-deserved moniker for the greatest team I have ever played on.
The roster:
-Cam "The Little General" Glass - Road House's Kyle Lowry. Also known as The Post Up King.
-Tyler "The False Prophet" Whittington - The heart and soul of the team. A complete glue guy, does everything it takes to win.
-Ken "Papa" Baer - The man in the middle. May have the coolest post passes I have ever seen.
-Sam "Slytherin" Brenner - The wildcard. Mysteriously drains dagger 3s.
-Chris "Swat Team" Selle - the lockdown defender. In the words of T.Whitt-"A high school coach's wet dream."
-Joe "Houdini" Bailey - My roommate at The Orchid. Has a sick running jumper.
-David "Detention" Hall - an unsung hero (partially bc he missed a few games), can do a little bit of everything.
-Ryan Smith - I'd like to consider myself a much more selfish, much more turnover-prone intramural version of Steve Nash. I don't know...just don't call me Matt Maloney.
What else is needed? Sometimes a little extra help from the worst pair of basketball shoes in history doesn't hurt.
The Kicks: The Gentleman's Starbury
Anyways, back to the Starburys. If you don't know anything about the maker of the shoes, Stephon Marbury, this next sentence will sum him up: He tattooed his logo onto the side of his head, was paid over $20 million to stay away from his team, and ate Vasoline on a 24/7 webcam show he put online. Hilariously psychotic. So of course my Oklahoma roommate and friend Cale bought a pair on Amazon for $12 and somehow ended up with two extra pairs a few years back. It was like he drew a Monopoly community chest and had a bank error in his favor, except this was "Ridiculous-Amazon-User-Selling-Mass-Amounts-of-Starburys-Error in your favor." He handed me a free pair and I never looked back.
Okay, maybe that is a slight lie: I did buy a pair that were better (the inside souls to the Starburys eroded over a year ago), but I ended up wearing the Starburys for the first game this season as a joke. After a miraculous comeback win where I drained a few clutch long-range 3s, the superstitious side in me decided to ride the Starburys till the end, no shoe souls included. In the least, they are a great conversation piece on the court.
"Hey, look at Captain America over there." (I've heard this on more than one occasion, said to me both jokingly and hatefully.)
The Last Stand
The next part of the story should be the part where we heroically run the tables on the rest of the students at Texas A&M, the part where you are given fulfillment on reading this far into an overall ridiculous post. It's the part where I finally can hang my hat on advancing past the Junior Farcity and live the rest of my life in the glory of knowing we were the best. However, it didn't happen. Like many other things in my life, Road House ended in complicated heartbreak. However, we did not go quietly into the night.
After rolling through the first four months of the season rather painlessly, beating teams like "Trees & Threes", "White & Slow", "The Nerdlocks" and "Erf, Wind, and Fire", we found ourselves in the Final Four. We were set to play "Beer 30", and it was clear from the start that the two superior teams in the league were playing a game too early. Led by two talented guards, Beer 30 led the game by 7 with 2:30 left in the game. Never knowing a shot I didn't like (something that had hurt us for much of the game), I drained two 3s back to back to put us down 1. On the second shot, the painfully inexperienced referee crew called a foul on the other team underneath the basket as the ball went through the hoop. Now, most of the players were aware that the rule is an "And 1" for our player who was fouled. However, the painfully inexperienced crew decided that with 2 minutes left in the game and with momentum on our side that they should hold the game up for literally ten minutes while they looked to the rulebook for the correct answer.
Ten minutes pass and one referee awards our team the free throw, which we make to tie the game. However, he is overruled by the other painfully inexperienced referees who are not ready to call it official. A few more minutes pass and the ruling is confirmed. By then our team has as much momentum as Vanilla Ice had with the rest of his career after Ice, Ice, Baby died out. After our first made free throw is called off, we miss our second chance, keeping us down 1. With one minute left we are forced to foul, putting us down 3. After Selle comes up with a huge "And 1" with 30 seconds left, we are tied. We lock down their two best players, leaving the ball in the hands of a player who hadn't scored all game. He pulls up inside the three-point line and drains a jumper at the buzzer. Road House dies. Beer 30 goes on to win the championship in a much easier game, and I experience another tragic ending to something I care a little too much about.
The End
It dawned on me that this may be the last time I would be playing for something that meant anything, albeit something small. No more community league games where I can end the season by taking home cheap trophies, no more games where my roommates and I can half-jokingly draw out the tournament on a blackboard, no more games where I can legitimately get away with writing such an unnecessarily drawn out post. This was it. I can always play in adult league games, but that's not the same. Graduation is in less than a month and after that there won't be time for me to call up my friends and ask them to meet me at the Rec Center on a Tuesday afternoon. I think I am more disappointed in the idea that my basketball career may finally be over than I am that I won't be able to live the life of a college student anymore.
Picking up my Aggie Ring
(Ken, T.Whitt's thumb, my brother-in-law George, Joe, me, my dad, my mom, as well as my nieces in nephew in the front)
(Me, my sister, and Hudson)
(Me, my sister, and Hudson)
However, what's important to me is the relationships I've been blessed with from the game of basketball. Several players on Road House will be my lifelong friends and although we may not have the chance to meet up and play any time we want like we used to, the knowledge that I've made friends with upstanding people is the most important thing to me; much more important than that elusive championship. As for Road House vs. Junior Farcity, we'll never know who was truly better. I feel pretty comfortable taking it to my grave that we would have taken them out, just as my dad would probably say the same. At the end of the day, though, I am truly grateful for my family and friends. It makes things like receiving my Aggie Ring that much more special.
So thanks, guys. Road House.
-PB (thanks to my brother Denver for the song)
I would give this two thumbs up...but since you conveniently chose the picture with me cropped out I'll have to pass. :)
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