Saturday, March 03, 2007

Reality check. I think I am getting old. A Basketball Diary.

The Eureka Recreation open adult Basketball League is in full swing. Last year my team won a championship, but we lost quite a few players this year. (Our team is Samoa Athletic Club, a small business I own holding softball tournaments.) Mind you these league players range from 18 years and up and I have played in this league for over 30 years. So I am at a disadvantage. I did recruit some younger players I play with at Cal Courts to help try to even the competition. Two of the players were recent all county high school basketball players at Eureka High (Ben Horton and David Norton) so I think we will be in good shape. Our first game we played Maple's Plumbing and lost a hard fought battle. I think the final was 77-71. Ex-Logger and all county player Josh Hash a great game against us. I heard he will be playing at CR next year. I think he will be great there. I should note that one of our players, Jason McGuire, a teacher at Eureka had a technical foul called on him for hanging on the rim on a 180 reverse slam dunk attempt with two defenders near by. It looked impressive though.

Before the game I volunteered to work out at Evergreen shoveling wet sawdust for 8 hours. I then went to Cal Courts with Robin. There I met my buddy Ed Fregoso and we did some weightlifting. We were doing sets of 10 pull downs pyramiding up to 170 lbs. And push-ups to boot. I decided to pass on the squats because I was going to play. Oh, I was a hurting before the game. I had 6 points but was over matched on defense. I just could not keep up with the speed of the game. It was kind of frustrating. I kind of look at Basketball as a dance of 5 teammates that need to be in tune with each others strengths. I was the clod stepping on toes.

But the beer was cold and the pizza was fine a Big Louie's afterward. So all was good in the end. Hopefully my game will get better as the year goes on. I will keep you posted.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

My 96 year old grandma says we're just kids. Quit with the whining about it. You're doing a hell of a lot better than most of us.

Anonymous said...

Richard,

Thanks for the help at practice a couple of weeks ago. We lost our first game to Grant Middle School in Redding by 3. Grant easily won "AA" as our game was their toughest by far. We won our two games Saturday to take Consolation. Big tough schools... Our first game Saturday vs. Mountain Shadows from Rohnert Park has over 300 students in the 8th grade alone. We made a fast break layup with 4 seconds to go to win 40-38 and finished up with a 39-36 win in the Consolation game vs Zane.
A spread of 8 points in the three games combined, made for an exausting weekend.

Regards, Mike Harvey

samoasoftball said...

Wow Mike!

Now that would give me a heart attack! You had a good group of kids Mike. But to have to try to compete against a school with 300 students just in the 8th grade? My hat is off to you and your team. I bet the kids had a great time up there in Crescent City.

Looks like the weather held out. If you have never seen this spectacle of 8th grade mayhem, take a drive up next year. Robin and I have had great times taking boys and girls up there to compete. I hope Peninsula Union has enough to make the trip next year!

Anonymous said...

Richard, there's no doubt about it. You are old! Take it from someone who knows.