Games – Junction Point

It’s Only Basketball

My first memory of playing sports is a third-grade basketball game where I blocked a classmate from behind. He was taking every shot. I didn’t know the rules—I just knew he was supposed to pass the ball to our team. And I was on that team. Later, my father talked about liking two college teams because of how their coaches coached the right way. I never got behind the more local IU but rooted for Duke because of that for a long time. It wasn’t long after that conversation that my father passed away. I found myself in a new city and new school with no idea of how to talk with guys my age.

Sports was the language that helped a young and hurting boy make connections. Exuberance, pain, unity, anger; I could express all of these things while competing in sports. I also could feel those things while watching along with professional athletes while living vicariously through their accomplishments. Seasons felt like stories, complete with heroes, heartbreak, and high stakes. It wasn’t therapy—but it was the closest thing I had.

My relationship with sports is different now. I don’t need them the same way. I basically only watch disc golf and basketball. I watched the Bucs win the Superbowl. I didn’t cheer because it felt like being a bandwagon fan for my own team. The Braves and Avalanche both won titles around the same time but I wasn’t invested anymore.

The Pacers still hold a special place in my heart. I am not as invested with the wins and loses as I used to be. But I think I’ve been through too many heartbreaks and near misses to ever let them go. The 2024-25 team carried a lot of promise after pushing the champion Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. It took them a while to get going after lingering injuries slowed them but in January they hit their stride. The postseason felt like magic. Haliburton had the offense humming, the defense was physical, and the team was full of guys that never quit. They had improbable comebacks in every round of the playoffs while defeated teams they were considered underdogs against.

Even in the first game of the Finals, the magic continued, with Haliburton hitting yet another game winning shot. This Pacers team felt like they were destined to bring the trophy to Indiana. Fans reflected on past losses to the Bulls, Knicks, and Lakers . And injuries to star players to stop the team from reaching its potential. The awful malice in the palace in Detroit that depleted a team with the best record in the league.

It felt like it was our time. I heard the Morpheus line in my head from the Matrix, “He’s beginning to believe.” Narratives fall in line as teams fail or succeed spectacularly. It felt like this story was the one of the underdog losing for far too long before finally reaching the goal.

By the time Indy pushed the series to game 7, even with an injured star player, I was fully in. Indy looked good to start the game. It didn’t take long for that all to change. Hali’s injury in that first quarter shut down the chance of the storybook postseason having the storybook ending. I couldn’t and still can’t get over how unfair that felt. To try so hard and get so far and in the end?

This one hurt. It wasn’t just the loss of a title so close at hand. It was all the years of heartbreak, the missed opportunities, the bounces that went the other way. It was watching a young man who devoted his efforts into a game that he loves only to have his body let him down in front of millions. It was watching the game that I love, the one I lost due to my knee failing me years before. It was seeing a team that had multiple victories in this run that defied stats and probabilities.

Sometimes sports can be the Cinderella story that defies the odds or of a player finally reaching the mountaintop. But often the real story is messy and beautiful and painful just like real life. Not all losses are as devastating or all wins as euphoric so that they overshadow everything else. This Pacers team ha great accomplishments with memorable moments that will be forever true even if this still hurts. I don’t need sports to fit it and express things any longer. I can just say that this loss hurts. But I’ll be okay. It is only basketball.

Never Too Late

My wife and I had the chance last month to visit Geekway to the West, a board game convention in St. Louis (and a lot of fun.) It was way more laid back than our time at Gen Con or Comic Con, and I enjoyed the smaller, more intimate vendor spaces and the focus on playing games. One of the vendors there, Dragon Phoenix Games, caught my eye for the unique art and mechanics, but also the heartfelt conversation with the couple running the company. Harvey and Carlie Cornell, a husband and wife team who make up the full staff of Dragon Phoenix Games. Carlie takes care of the art while Harvey heads up the design work.

Vesta by Dragon Phoenix Games

Board gamers are drawn like flies to the hot new thing. In board games there is the phrase Cult of the New to describe how many people are only about new releases. It’s also uncertain times when it comes to producing games, with a lot of the pieces manufacutured overseas and costs and tariffs making things difficult.

The couple faces some uphill battles in the later years of their lives. But I walked away impressed with their resolve to do something they loved and work towards a dream. Many of us are too lazy or too timid to do so even in the primes of our lives. Harvey and Carlie are putting in the effort in their later years, and it’s incredibly inspiring to see how, even in creative endeavors, it truly is never too late.

2021 Disc Golf World Championship Tees Off in Utah

The 2021 Professional Disc Golf World Championships gets rolling today in Ogden, Utah. While crowing a world champ always carries a lot of weight, this year in particular has a lot riding on the men’s pro open (MPO) division. Who will come out on top in Utah? Which legacies will be impacted the most? I’d like to take a quick look at the landscape leading into the tournament and the three competitors that, in my opinion, have the best shot at securing the win.

As parts of the world slowly turn toward normalcy after bearing through a year plus of a pandemic, 2021 brings a return of the disc golf World Championships, held yearly since 1982 until last year when Covid-19 threw a wrench into the plans for the tournament in Ogden, Utah. But the effects of the pandemic weren’t all negative when it came to disc golf. Creating a need to find activities that allowed for social distancing, the indirect effects resulted in a massive spike in popularity of the sport. For most fans, Youtube has been the place to catch tournament coverage over the years on channels like Jomez Pro and Central Coast. Now, fans have the Disc Golf Network but one of the things adding hype to this year’s Worlds is that two different tournaments made network television, on CBS Sports Network and ESPN 2 respectively. This increased level of interest in both breadth of ways to view disc golf content and total numbers of players in the sport, the one year break creating a pent up energy to find the next champion, and what this year’s title could mean for legacy all add up to bring a lot of excitement when players tee of on Tuesday June 22nd.

The first name that you have to bring up while discussing the men’s field in disc golf right now has to be Paul McBeth. He is the best player in the game and the newly minted ten million dollar man. He’s been making big moves on the course and off, garnering a Discraft sponsorship the likes of which the sport has never seen. He’s already second all time in total MPO titles with five and would likely have been the favorite to pull off another win in 2020 if the event had been held. Since his first Worlds win in 2012, his finishes are more than impressive, finishing first, first, first, first, second, second, second, and then first again in Peoria in 2019. In 2015, he took down every major of the year to complete the Grand Slam. This is the greatness that has come to be known as McBeast mode, often the name given for McBeth’s obsessive focus that has helped him demoralize opponents with his skill. After losing the chance to add to that total of six in his pursuit to catch Ken Climo’s 12 wins, McBeth has to be itching to get out there and prove once again that he’s the best in the game.

I was able to snap this in Peoria minutes after McBeth hit the final putt to become Champion.

While the past decade or so has belonged to one man, there has been consistently one competitor who has pushed McBeth the most, Ricky Wysocki. Twenty years from now, I expect to be watching a 30 for 30 style documentary about the story of Paul and Ricky. Their rivalry is the most enduring storyline of the 2010s. Entering the tournament on the men’s side, the two represent the only multiple time winners of the event. Ricky is coming in hot, having torn up Texas early in the season and ending up in second place behind Emerson Keith at the most recent even held at the Fort, one of the courses in Ogden that will make up this Worlds. Remember McBeth finishing second in every year he didn’t win? Wysocki was runner up in four of McBeth’s five title runs. He’s the only other competitor to prove he can lean on his mental toughness along with his physical gifts over and over again. Wysocki is already among only six MPO players to win multiple championships, another win for Ricky puts him ahead of Harold Duvall and in a tie with Nate Doss for third most wins all-time. It would also pull him again to within two of McBeth and only add heat to the sports best rivalry.

As has been the case for many, many major championships over the years since the Paul and Ricky show began, there isn’t one clear cut third favorite. My third challenger for taking home the win in Utah this year is the field. Unlike some previous contests though, the field isn’t some risky bet. Many people could make arguments that players like Eagle McMahon, Kevin Jones, or Calvin Heimburg could easily even be considered favorites. That’s without even mentioning Emerson Keith, the player who just beat out Ricky in Utah or James Conrad who tied Keith for third in the last Worlds in Peoria in 2019. Of the players I’ve mentioned here, I would think Eagle would have to be the favorite after a huge win in Portland, even holding off a late charging McBeth. Eagle currently sits second in PDGA ratings behind only Wysocki and is at the top of the newly released Udisc World Rankings. A win by someone in this group solidifies the thinking that parity is coming to disc golf and that the pack is catching up to the top two.

Who do I think will come out on top? I have to go with McBeth. Even though he may not look as dominant as in year’s past, I have to go with the guy who’s showed up time and time again on the game’s biggest stage. I for one am excited to see how it plays out. Below are my Grip6 fantasy picks for Utah. I went pretty much chalk with it, who would you swap in if you were picking?