After three days of nothing but practice drills and conditioning, Coach Langley finally turns us loose for a light scrimmage. Not an all-out run-and-gun open-gym-style pickup game, but a chance for the varsity team to knock some of the rust off against our lowly JV squad. Coach blows his whistle every other minute and steps into the action to smooth some kinks out of the varsity’s offense or to correct their positioning on defense. It gets annoying, really, because anytime we get something going on JV—a turnover fast break or an open jumper coming off a screen—it usually means that the varsity squad didn’t do something right, and Coach blows his whistle, stopping the play before we get to the good part. Coach Wise, our JV coach, stands idly behind him with his clipboard. It kinda sucks: on JV, you’re allowed to keep playing only if things aren’t working for you—if you’re getting your ass kicked properly by the big team.
So when DeAndre Miller, a massive junior without enough coordination or experience to play varsity, sets a huge screen for me down low, leaving Trevor Lighty trailing me across the lane, I expect Coach to blow his whistle, to squash my first chance to get an open look on the block so he can show Lighty the proper way to slip the screen and keep his massive forearm planted into my sternum.
But for whatever reason, Coach lets us play, and Trip gets me the ball right off the block with my back to the basket. Trevor is a step behind, his hand on my back as soon as the ball is in my hands. I glance up at Coach Langley on the sideline, still half expecting him to stop the play, but he stands watching us, arms crossed, his whistle hanging around his neck. And I know this is it, my chance to show the varsity coach that my scrawny freshman ass has the post moves to play with the big boys.
Because, dammit, I know I can get him on the duck-under.
I’ve been working on this move in the driveway for forever. I saw it on this old NBA Superstars show they were running on ESPN Classic a few years ago. I’d stopped on what I thought was a Gatorade commercial, because it was that slow-motion clip of Michael Jordan dunking from the foul line. I get a basketball boner every time I see that clip and have to head straight up to the Nerf rim in my room for the replay, which always comes just before Mom yells at me to go outside.
But it wasn’t a commercial. Right after the Jordan clip was a guy named Dominique Wilkins, a star for the Atlanta Hawks in the eighties, nicknamed the “Human Highlight Reel” because of these ridiculous power dunks he’d do. I swear, it was like he was jumping over people. He’d fake his defender out of his tiny 1980s short-shorts. Then he’d go up.
I was literally sitting on the edge of my dad’s chair, my cereal bowl frozen in midair. I remember the announcer calling it a duck-under, and instead of going up to the Nerf rim for flight school, I went straight back out to the driveway to work on my new signature move.
It took me all of two tries to get a feel for it out on the driveway that morning. Two tries before I was ducking under imaginary defenders with ease.
And I’ve been playing this scenario in my head all week—I know I can get Lighty to bite on the duck-under, make one of the varsity studs look like an idiot, getting burned by some freshman on the first scrimmage of the year.
And right here is why I truly hate my brain.
Instead of my brain going on cruise control through the move I’ve done a thousand times—acted out in almost this exact scenario—making Coach really have to consider the feasibility of a 160-pound freshman forward on varsity, my brain flashes to all the ways I can possibly screw this up, all the ways that would prove that I don’t belong here with these guys at all, that I’m a junior high player who showed up at the wrong practice time. It’s this instantaneous montage of me looking like an ass in front of Coach and the entire JV and varsity team: Trevor not biting on the fake and me slamming into his chest, bouncing backward onto the floor like a little kid; Trevor going for the fake, but me botching the layup, shooting it into the bottom of the rim; me power-dribbling off my foot like I’ve never touched a basketball before today.
As soon as I start my pivot toward the foul line, it’s as if everything goes into fast-forward. I’m so hyped up and overanxious that I go into the duck-under unnaturally fast. It probably looks more like I took a hot poker in the ass than pivoting for a smooth fadeaway in the lane.
Had my brain not intervened, it would have worked beautifully. Trevor does bite on the fake, just as I imagined, but because I jerk through the move so fast, he doesn’t fully commit to going up to swat my shot. So instead of flying past me, he only half jumps, trying to stay on his feet in position between me and the basket. He’s off-balance, and it’s enough for me to get by him with my power dribble. But as I start going up for the layup (power layup, mind you), my inside foot catches Lighty’s, and I sprawl forward, landing nuts-first on the ball before rolling onto my face out of bounds.
Not what I pictured.
I immediately hop back to my feet and bounce the ball to Coach before he can blow his whistle, as though everything is fine and that didn’t hurt at all and I am more than ready to shake it off and play some serious lockdown defense.
But I can’t breathe as I jog back down to the other end of the court, hunched over like Quasimodo.
“Dude, you all right?” DeAndre asks. “That looked like it hurt.”
I nod and give a thumbs-up without looking at him, trying to get a few deep breaths in without puking before play resumes.
Trip looks at me and laughs—the sign of a true friend. “Don’t worry, Matt, I’m sure the trainers will find your balls in there somewhere.” Then he turns and yells, “All right, D it up!” as Leppo brings the ball up the floor.
When Lighty makes it back down the court, he says, “I told you, none of that weak shit.”
Luckily, that is the last possession of the scrimmage, and I somehow make it through the last ten minutes of suicides without blacking out.
On the way back to the locker room, Coach Langley stops me and says, “Matt, that was a good move in the post. When you get stronger and can finish it, that’s gonna be a really effective move. Keep working.” He slaps me on the butt and turns back to the other coaches.
Okay. So, the take-home message: awesome move, and you’re weak like a little kid. I’ve never felt so shitty after a compliment before.
Well done, brain. Well done. You win again.