Chapter l
"You can do anything as long as you have the passion, the drive, the focus, and the support."
-Sabrina Bryan
Sometimes I pretend shooting hoops in my backyard is my earliest memory.
I’m just a kid, so Dad gives me one of those smaller basketballs and lowers the adjustable rim. He tells me to shoot until I can make one hundred baskets in a row, which seems impossible. Then he goes back inside to make dinner. Our house has been silent for a very long time and I understand that my brother is never coming back, but I don't want to think about it, so I do what my dad instructed.
At first, I am unable to reach the rim when I shoot, even though the hoop is lowered. I shoot for hours and hours, until my neck is stiff from looking up and sweaty. When the sun goes down, Dad puts on the floodlight and I continue to shoot. It's better than being inside and staring at my ceiling for hours at end and listening to my mother cry, and it's also because Dad told me to.
In my memory, I shoot through the night and don’t stop for days and weeks and months. I don’t even break to eat or sleep or use the bathroom. I just keep shooting hoops, zoning out, pretending that I will never have to go into my house again—that I will never have to remember what happened before I began shooting hoops.
You can lose yourself in repetition—quiet your thoughts; I learned the value of this at a very young age.
I remember the leaves falling and crunching under my feet, the snowflakes burning my skin, the yellow long-stem flowers blooming by the fence, and then being scorched by the powerful July sun—through it all I kept shooting.
I must have done other things—like go to school, obviously—but shooting hoops in my backyard is the only thing I remember from childhood.
After a few years, Dad began speaking more and shooting with me, which was nice.
Sometimes, my mom would even come and watch me perfect my jump shot.
Each day, the rim was raised as I grew.
And then one day, a boy appeared in my backyard. He had a smile that lasted forever.
“Hey, I just moved here. I live down the street,” he said. “I’m in your class.”
I kept shooting and hoped that he’d go away. His name was Daniel and he seemed really nice, but I didn’t want to make friends with anyone. I only wanted to shoot hoops alone for the rest of my life.
“Hey, dude?” he asked.
I tried to pretend he wasn’t there, because back then I was pretending the whole world wasn’t there.
“Your weird,” he said. “But I don’t mind.”
My shot clanked off the rim and headed straight for his face, but his reflexes were good and he caught the ball just before it smashed into his nose.
“Do you mind if I take a shot?” he asked.
I didn’t answer, so he shrugged and fired and the ball went in.
“I play a little with my older brother,” he explained.
Whenever I shot around with my dad, the shooter got the ball back after a made basket, so I passed the ball to him and he shot again, and then again, and again.
In my memory, he hits dozens of shots before I get the ball back, but he doesn’t ever leave my backyard—the two of us keep shooting for years and years.
Chapter II
"Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later."
-Og Mandino
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One week before basketball season begins, Dad gives me a little speech of his.
My father says, “Just do your best. Remember—it’s a long race and you can always outwork talent in the end.”
That’s Dad’s personal life motto, even though he ended up alone and working the night shift, collecting tolls at the bridge, where he needs neither talent nor a good work ethic.
Mostly because of my mom, my father’s life always been pretty dreary. But his eyes always seem hopeful when he says that I can outwork talent over the long haul, and so for him—and for me too—I try my best to do just that.
The nights Dad watches me play basketball, I truly believe that those are the best in his entire life. That’s one reason I love b-ball so much: for the opportunity to make Dad happy.
