Age and Treachery

I play basketball a couple nights a week with some guys in a tiny gym that is part of a local church. It is not a full size court, by any means. As a matter of fact, it is most likely smaller than the small court I used to play ball on down in the bowels of the Columbia Daily Tribune complex. The guys I play with are as misfit as the court on which we play. We have an age range from late teens to early fifties. We have a skill range from non-athlete to former prep star. What is similar amongst us all, is that no one gets too worked up about the games we play, and everybody plays fair (within the bounds of a pick up basketball game...there are some ways to circumnavigate the rules that are as time honored as peach baskets and the movie Hoosiers).

This weekend, a group of the over-35 guys are playing in the Cornhusker State Games. We run our first game at 8:30 in the morning. Yes, EIGHT THIRTY IN THE FREAKING MORNING. However, that's no worse than when we used to play softball games that used to start at 10:30 PM. Remember that?

Yesterday, our "coach" (the guy who registered the team (who is in Florida this weekend, and most likely won't even play in a game with us)) sent out an email telling us that we were mixed in with the over-19 age bracket. Why? Because they only had two over-35 teams sign up. So, as a result, instead of playing some old-timers league games with some equally slow guys who used to wear parachute pants, we now are expected to run (regulation-sized courts, mind you) with caterpillar-lipped boys who think Vanilla Ice is something you use to "ice your bros."

Are we bugged by this misrepresentation of our expected competition by the Cornhusker State Games? Well, I am. However, as you know, I will not back down from a challenge. As a matter of fact, I make them up for myself, sometimes. (Wait til I tell you what I bought today....) So, tomorrow morning, I am going to arrive at the Lincoln High gymnasium, with a backpack full of IcyHot, and the will to show some bad-ass kid who's been buying his own cigarettes for six months, that we old guys might not be at our physical peak, but that our years have honed our "skills" to a razor's edge, and that we might know a little Harlem Globetrotters trick or two (Is pantsing a foul?). The old saw: "Age and treachery will over come youth and enthusiasm" may never be truer than tomorrow. On the other hand, there is also the adage that says: "If you can't catch them on the fast break, you might as well pack it in." I'm expecting NOT to be packing it in.