BASKETBALL JONES



I have never been much of a basketball player.  Unguarded, I am not able to hit the backboard from the top of the key. (whatever that is)  I learned quite quickly that I should work on my defense if I were to ever play this game.  The following true story took place in 1986(?)

This version of the story was written by Grant, one of the participants that day.  I altered the story by changing the names of the players.  I also changed some of the wording so that all readers can better understand. 
 

The scene:  3 on 3 basketball



The setting:    Behind the church that is across the street from the high school we each
attended.  Why? Because we weren't good enough to play with the
big boys at the school.  At this time,  that particular court was ranked
by USA TODAY as one of the top 25 places in the United States
to "pick up" on a game of basketball.



The characters: Grant, Ernie, Mitch, Charlie.... Starring Lars Reach and Dave Rolfson
 

Before I go any farther, let me say that I'm LOL (laughing out loud) while I'm typing,  just picturing
the whole damn thing..... also keep in mind what Dave said about defense being
his forte', and that (nothing personal Dave) he couldn't hit 3 unguarded lay-ups
in a row if his life depended on it, that is to say, when we "chose" teams at
the start of each game, seeing that none of us really cared much about defense,
Dave was usually not the 1st guy picked.

In the opening scene:



5 of us were warming up (horsing around), waiting for Ernie
to show up. (This was an unusual circumstance, Ernie is almost always first on
the court.) We were trying to decide whether to phone him to see if he was
coming, which may not seem important, but had he been his normal punctual self,
none of the following events would have taken place, because the game would have
already started.

I should add at this point, that while it may have seemed like I was picking on
Dave, I'm not much better. I'm fairly confident that I could hit 3 free lay-ups
in a row, but beyond about 8 feet out from the basket, I've got the shooting
touch of a cross between Dale Davis, Andre the Giant and Lurch of the Addam's
Family. YOU RANG.

I put up a shot from about the free throw line, that I'm proud to say hit
nothing but the back board. Not even close to the rim, not even close to that
little red square above the rim... I almost missed the backboard, and the shot
was way too hard, the rebound coming off and almost hitting Charlie. He yelled at
me, "What the hell are you doing, you're gonna kill somebody," then threw the
ball at me kinda hard. He wasn't mad, he was just teasing me because of my
excellent long range skills. I said "No, if I was trying to kill someone it
would be like this,"
and threw the basketball as hard as I could off the backboard at an angle so
that it bounced right back to Charlie again. Well, Charlie caromed it back to me the
same way, slamming it off the backboard, and we went back and forth, doing that
several times, making it hard for the other guys to take real practice shots.
Lars was getting a little tired of our game and said "you guys should stop,
someone is going to get hurt". LITTLE DID HE KNOW!!!
HA HA HA HAAAAA HAAAAAA
 

Scene 2:



Just after Lars gave us that warning, my next blast off the backboard
was, shall we say, a little off target.

Lars was standing under the basket and my toss hit the under side of the rim
sending the ball straight down and striking him in the head at about the speed
of sound. The jolt knocked his glasses off his head, the ball went flying across
the parking lot, stopping about 70 or 80 feet away. It looked really funny, but
no one laughed because of the fear that Lars was hurt, except Mitch, he was
rolling on the ground. The blow did cut Lars a little, but he was OK, and after
we realized that he was all right, because of Mitch's laughing, Charlie and I were
laughing a little bit. You know how it is, sometimes laughing is contagious,
even when you don't think something is as funny as the next guy, you laugh
because he's laughing.
 

Scene 3:



Dave and Lars were the best of friends, and I think, to keep from
laughing at his buddy, Dave went to get the ball. He was looking at the 3 of us
who were laughing very hard by now, and you could tell he wanted to laugh, so
getting the ball was a chance to get away for a minute, (I bet he was laughing
on that long walk across the lot to get the ball, as soon as he got out of range
so Lars couldn't hear him.)
Back to the contagious laughter, by now the 3 of us were laughing so hard that I
couldn't breathe. It wasn't at Lars, it was because we knew that we shouldn't be
laughing and that made it all the more hard to stop. If I were Lars, I would
have been very pissed, both at me for hitting him and at us for laughing about
it. To this day I'm not sure if  he wasn't dazed by the blow, and therefore
didn't even know what it was that we were laughing at.... who am I?... where am
I?... how did I get here?... what are you laughing at?... where are my glasses?
After a few seconds, which seemed like hours, Charlie and I got our composure, and
tried to help Lars. Mitch never did stop laughing, and eventually sucked me and
Charlie back into the uncontrollable laughter.
Lars's glasses were the type that had "fishing line" holding the lenses to the
frames, and remarkably, the lens didn't break, it just popped out of the frame,
which once Lars got his senses back he said that was good because the frames
could be fixed, but if the lens had shattered it would be expensive to fix.

By this time, Dave, you remember him, the guy who can't hit 3 lay-ups in a row,
had reached the ball which was across the parking lot and decides to throw the
ball back to us instead of carrying it back. So Dave, the guy with the aim of a
blind man in a shooting gallery lets it fly, and as you might have guessed, from
all the way across the parking lot he scores an accidental direct hit on Lars's
head again. Mitch, Charlie and myself saw it coming, but were laughing so hard from
the first one that none of us could catch our breath to warn Lars of the
incoming missile. When shot # 2 (from the grassy knoll area) connected, Lars was
busy trying to get his lens back into the frame, but the ball knocked the lens
out of his hand and it shattered on the pavement. So much for that " at least
the lens didn't break" theory.

Have you ever heard of someone passing out from laughter? I was literally
rolling on the ground, I couldn't stand up. The other 2 were the same way, and
that's when Ernie drives up to see 3 guys laying on the asphalt gasping for air,
another with a bleeding head and broken glasses in hand and Dave apologizing to
the bleeder.