Once Upon a Dylan: My Tryout for the Freshman Basketball Team

Even though the Bruins had an epic OT win last night to even their series with the Capitals, that’s not what this blog is about. And even though Soulja Boy might have his hands full with a lawsuit against Icebox, this blog isn’t about that either.

If I wanted to, I could go on and on about things this blog isn’t about. Penguins of Madagascar. Peaches. The conversion scale between Kelvin and Farenheit. Sugar free peaches. The conversion scale between Celsius and Farenheit.

But let me be clear: this blog is about none of those things.

Instead, I want to try something a little different, something as old as the Earth itself: story time.

Cavemen did it for years with their cave drawings. A little further down the line, humans invented the pencil and things got even more complicated. Now, you can be a dope with a blog like me and type whatever you want, it gets posted to the internet, and boom it’s there forever. I always thought history was so fascinating.

I don’t see why this can’t be something I intersperse between my sports blogs from time to time. I mean, how many stories do I have rattling up in my brain? I would say at least a hundred and six. Maybe more. And that means over a hundred days of blogging just waiting to be called on.

But let me not get ahead of myself. I haven’t even written the first one yet. But that’s about to change right……..NOW:

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It all started back in December of my freshman year of high school. Naturally, with the basketball season about to begin, my school was holding basketball tryouts. Being a freshman, I was attempting to make the freshman team, where all the newbies start their illustrious careers. Except for Michael Jordan I guess.

It is not crystal clear in my mind, but I don’t believe I expected to make the team. I decided to try out more because I could rather than because I thought I’d be in the starting lineup averaging 25 and 10.

Also, I had tried out for travel basketball multiple times before and never made it. There were a couple years where I thought I should’ve, but it never happened. I always ended up in Rec Basketball as one of the better players on the worst team in the league. What are you gonna do.

So I had low expectations for the tryout from jump street; basically just to get some exercise and spend a few nights not playing Madden on Xbox.

I showed up to the gym where the second of three tryouts were being held. I missed the first one because I forgot to fill out some form that I needed to fill out. Already off to a smashing start.

I remember the gym being packed, and I remember the number of open slots on the freshman team being not-so-packed. Only like 12 or 13 kids make the team, and there must have been 30 or 40 freshmen there plus all the people trying out for JV and varsity. I felt like I had the same odds as someone who spends all their money playing the Powerball.

At some point, with maybe 60 kids in an entire middle school gym, we formed the longest layup lines of all time. I remember missing my first layup and thinking “Boy, if they weren’t already impressed with me wearing the same pair of shorts I wore on the first day of fifth grade, they must be now!”

But only moments later, I had my favorite moment of the tryout. We were doing this drill where one kid would start at the top of the key with the ball and another kid would be defending. It was a one-on-one, but the guy with the ball only had five seconds to try and score.

It was my turn to try and score, and I think the kid defending me was trying out for the varsity team. He was definitely NOT a freshman.

So I took a deep breath, said a quick prayer, and tried to think of some move to put on this basically grown adult with a budding mustache. I think he might have had a wedding ring on too, but I’m not sure.

I dribbled the ball a couple times, then turned my back to enter a post-up. The self-created post-up is my go-to move. I have no idea why. Maybe I just love the feeling of my sweaty back on another man’s sweaty chest. Why did I write that…

Anyway, the clock was running down. Nobody’s eyes were on me (there were six baskets at the gym and this drill was going on at each one) but I felt the pressure anyway. It was time to shine. I spun around to face the basket, threw up a fadeaway, and watched it soar towards the basket.

It went in.

If you’ve ever played basketball, then you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say that I had no idea where the ball was going when it left my hands. I just looked at the basket and my body reacted the way it did. No conscience or aiming of the ball whatsoever.

But hey, I got lucky, and people were impressed. The 26-year-old kid guarding me said “Nice shot!” and gave me a little low-five on the way back to the sideline. It felt good. Even if I didn’t make the team, I had that moment. And still to this day I remember that shot and the way it bounced right off the backboard and through the hoop, almost like it was meant to be.

Fast forward to end of the tryout. We had one more drill left to do, and it involved one of my not-so-favorite things to do: run. The objective was to run from one baseline to another, and then back. Pretty simple.

Except there was one minor alteration: you had to run backwards.

Now, I know most everyone reading this has seen a basketball game before. I know I have, and I can’t say that running backwards is a particularly crucial skill when it comes to the game. I understand it must happen sometimes, but, I mean, come on. Running backwards? How about just let me knockdown 40 fadeaway jumpers in a row and make me the starting shooting guard.

But I wasn’t gonna boycott the tryout or anything, so I went along with my six dozen other companions. Seriously, there were so many people there that we had to do this drill in two heats.

I made it down to the baseline no problem. It was on the way back that things went awry.

There were no banana peels, but I slipped. That was not supposed to be a part of the drill. But as embrassing as being the only one to fall down in a group of thirty-five kids was, it wasn’t even the worst part.

As I fell down, I reached out my arms to break the fall. The natural thing to do, right? Well, because I was running backwards, the full weight of my body landed on both my arms. Pain shooting through each one, I speed-walked to the bathroom, red from embarrassment, and for some reason started running cold water on my arms. Miraculously, it didn’t help. Both of my arms were still hurting.

But were my arms broken? Was the pain only temporary and I made the team? Was the grown man who I scored against earlier snorting coke in the bathroom stall?

I’ll never tell. At least until the next story time. Hope you enjoyed, and I’ll continue the adventure another time.