I played basketball in high school. Small town Minnesota. But we had a great basketball culture and legacy going back to when I was in elementary school, so the idea of suiting up on the varsity team one day was a pretty big deal.
It was my sophomore year and already some of my friends were getting bumped up to varsity while I politely and diligently held down the point guard position on JV.
The season went on through January and February and I’m still rocking JV ball, game after game. It didn’t seem likely I would get called up.
And then I did. This was exciting.
It wasn’t the beginning of the season, it wasn’t mid season or the end of the regular season.
It was the beginning of March and we had just won our section tournament.
Which meant…
The first time I am ever dressing varsity is going to be our first game of the STATE TOURNAMENT.
I could hardly believe it.
So there I was.
I triple checked and then checked again to make sure I was wearing the correct jersey color. New socks. New hair cut. Warm ups that were too big for me because those were the only set left.
Time to run out of the tunnel. Huge screaming crowd. State tournament. My first time. Pure electricity.
We always started warmups the same way. The most classic of all warm ups. Layup lines. And we’d line up shortest to tallest.
Being that I was the second shortest on the team, I’m second in line.
The first guy goes. A perfect layup. Good job, Jeff (He was the varsity starting point guard and All State first team, one of the best basketball players in the entire state of Minnesota).
Now it’s my turn in my baggy warmups.
The pep bands are blazing. Cheerleaders cheering. Mascots. Face paint. TV cameras. A huge arena. Everyone was there. It was THE. STATE. TOURNAMENT.
I’m a few feet behind the three point line and start dribbling toward the basket. Just be cool, you’ve done this before. Getting closer. Getting closer. Now it’s time to take my two steps and jump and raise my right hand with the ball and bank it sweetly off the backboard, through the rim, swish the net making that beautiful string music.
The ball goes up, hits the backboard…
For that layup I jumped higher than I have ever jumped in my life. The adrenaline pumping through my body was like nothing I’d ever experienced. Yes I was short, but in that moment I swear I could have just as easily dunked that basketball, with both hands.
But alas…When I went to gently lay the ball up and in, the ball instead hit the backboard so hard, with such force, with such speed, with such impact that the backboard was in fact the only thing the ball hit.
No rim. No net. No string music. The ball hit the backboard and flew away. Far, far away.
And then I had to run and get it.
I was devastated, humiliated…BUT…
A few minutes later it was my turn again. And this time, a perfect layup. String music.
See, since I was in second grade I’d been practicing layups. I’d done thousands of them. Probably tens of thousands.
I had practiced doing it the right way so many times that when I slammed my first ever varsity warm up layup off the backboard it wasn’t hard to adjust and get it right again the next time around.
The backboard incident was a one off. A new situation that caught me by surprise but then all the years of practice caught back up in an eye blink and I was good to go.
Practicing the right way over and over gives you the ability to quickly course correct when surprises (and adrenaline rushes) happen.
Keep practicing the right way.
