BRACKET-OLOGY

 

                                                                        Reid

      Check your calendar, it's March.  For lots of people in the US, that signifies "Madness", at least of the basketball kind.  Do you have a favorite team? This year in our area, 3 high school teams made it to their State Championship games. However, the title eluded them all.

    I live in central North Carolina where there is a kind of year 'round mad-ness for basketball, given the proximity of several college and university teams with national prominence.  As a college freshman, I watched on tv the undefeated UNC Tarheels defeat Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas in triple overtime.  So intense was the play that one person in our state had a fatal heart attack watching the game. 

    Duke's presence in yet another NCAA tournament this year evoked my memory of a long ago athlete at that school telling a pep rally "I used to be arrogant but now I am humble and proud of it !"

   While my "career" was hardly stellar and my general interest has waned, I once upon a time enjoyed playing the game. I had not played high school varsity sports until my Junior year and spent most of that season sitting on the bench next to the coach. Sometimes that carried its own form of entertainment such as the night a guard on the visiting team was 'hot dogging' in front of our bench. Coach drawled, " Name , I would like to buy you for what you're worth and sell you for what you think you're worth." As I recall, we lost that game badly. Occasionally, I would get to play and went scoreless the entire season up  to the last game when I scored my 'all time high' of 18 points. The final score of our 77-27 win  is sealed away in some corner of my brain.

   The following year I was a starter but hardly a 'star'.  We did avenge the previous year's loss to Name's team with all our starters scoring in double digits. When we played the team from my previous school, I played respectably and when my former algebra teacher said to me after the game, "I didn't know that you could do that", I replied, "Neither did I!". Not much else of that season was memorable. Gratefully, I was a better baseball player.

   Two of my wife's great-nephews are outstanding high school athletes, especially in basketball and baseball.  Luke excels in both sports as well as track;  and this year Reid is opting to focus his energies on his basketball travel team. Their travel coach has had a colorful playing career, having once played with the Harlem Globetrotters. (Johnny coached at a nearby high school team this year. Last year that school had a lackluster season and his first year as coach this team posted a 29-5 record and played in the State championship game. They lost to a school that was also coached by a former Globetrotter.)

  This year,  Reid's consistent performance earned his selection to First Team Conference All Star team in his Sophomore season. His average per game statistics are impressive: 19.8 points, 10 rebounds, 3 steals, 55% field goal accuracy, 40% 3-point shot accuracy. His season totals were 496 points, 120 assists, 249 rebounds and 46 steals.  And, there is another most important attribute that does not show up in a statistical compilation : He is an overall "good guy".  We are proud of him---for his hard work and achievements and for who he is.

   When I told a friend of Reid's achievements, he wrote back, "I guess you are no longer the best basketball player in your extended family." No longer?  How about Never was !

   Satchel