Tag Archives: Journal

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.

97,000

As I started my commute this morning, I noticed my odometer was only a few miles short of hitting 97,000. My mind flashed back to making my first car purchase. That 2002 Chevy Impala had just over 97,000 miles on it but all I could see was potential. That car was freedom. I held pride in the purchase I had made. I wasn’t focused on where the car had gone or what it had been through but instead on where it was going and where it could take me.

I’ve had my current car for several years now and its mileage doesn’t bother me because I got it with lower mileage and have kept up on its upkeep. Now in my forties, I have am continuing to pile the miles on. Not just the years but the stresses and events and memories. I hope that I find more chances to look more at where I’m going and even look at myself as someone with potential and not just focus on the years of wear and tear. I have an infatuation with being transfixed on the what-ifs and seductive alternate scenarios of the past. I look at the things missing from my life that will never be returned. Maybe I can take a look at see the freedom I have to take myself down roads I’ve never been and make the miles count.

Future Memories

I’m quickly approaching one of those milestone birthdays. Normally, I keep the fact it’s coming up low key because it’s not something I want to make a big deal of. This year, I want to keep it unmentioned because I don’t want to look at the number. It has a silver lining though, as I’m pulling a few things into better perspective, turning over memories in my mind, and checking myself for misplaced priorities. It’s the kind of self reflection that brings things into sharper focus.

Although I’ve often found myself treading water in the present, spinning in circles trying to exist in both the past and the future. That’s a recipe for disappointment. A dish I serve myself all too often.

But a strong presence in the present does need a healthy view of the past and a good plan for the future. I want to exist fully in the present, fully comfortable in my own skin. I approached that this year with a few points in a plan. I committed to being more forgiving of those who have hurt me in my past. I am making steps to be more realistic about my life goals, letting myself be honest about what I want and giving myself permission to go for it. I’m honestly still struggling with that one.

I am always looking for more ways to solidify my present presence. A few weeks back I bought a cassette player from Amazon. I had recently come across an old tape that I had recorded a message to a family member with my grandmother. She’s been gone a few years now and I was really looking forward to hearing her voice. When it came in the mail, I popped in a set of charged batteries and rewound the tape to the beginning. Man, remembering when that was cutting edge tech just added to the birthday anxiety. I was pretty quickly disappointed when the crackly audio coming from the tape player wasn’t my childhood voice and my grandma’s. It was a Pacers radio broadcast as they took on the Allen Iverson 76ers. I was pretty obsessed with radio back then. Podcasting was a logical step for me. It was fun to hear that old broadcast but man, I was bummed to not hear the voice I hadn’t heard in over a decade.

I forgive young me for writing over the memory in an attempt to preserve and enjoy something he cared about, not thinking about a trivial birthday message to a family member could one day have been the last way to hear the voice of someone I loved dearly. But I also look to find more ways to preserve memories I have in the moment so myself and others can look to reconnect with moments in the future, whenever the moment is no longer close. Although I’ll look to preserve them on a medium where the rewind button is no longer a thing.

Basketball In Heaven

I sure hope there’s basketball in heaven. I hope I’m running fives with all the savvy of an old man and the youthful athleticism of a young buck. Honestly, I hope I have more hops in the afterlife than I ever did hooping it up here on Earth. I really hope I get the chance to express my joy on the court if I am lucky enough to find myself in life after death.

Have you ever, as a full-grown bill-paying adult, thought about what you’d hope to find? Not that regular business about how well the streets are taken care of and which dead loved ones you’d hope to find. Important details but not the point of the exercise. How would you want to be able to spend your time if you had more than all the time in the world?

Man, I’d like to be running the break, pushing the ball up and surveying the defense. I’d love to be making cuts, reversing the ball, making smart passes. Some of those passes would be throwing lobs to Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. Some of them would be a little more special, finding my buddy Dave on the move with a pocket pass, letting out a yell as he finishes through contact. I’d also be making chest passes to my dad, who would be firing off jumpers from the elbow. Go ahead and try to wipe the smile off of my face after that kind of assist. Man, I’d be making spin moves on every play. I wouldn’t be spending every day thinking that my joints stop me from not only being physically but emotionally the same person. I wouldn’t be held back by thinking about whether or not I had the juice to move in the way I want to move. I would melt into the joy and poetry found in the beautiful freedom of movement that mesmerized me about the game in the first place. I would find joy in the expression of joy itself. Man, I sure hope there’s basketball in heaven.

Taking Time Off

As I type this, I have one week of work left before taking my first full week of vacation of the year. To say I’m looking forward to it is putting it mildly. My wife and I are heading to Kansas to visit her old roommate. Oh, and the pro disc golf World Championships are happening there too. So while I get ready to take time off, ironically it’s at the same time I’m deciding to push forward and stop taking time off with posts here at the site.

While I have been planning and projecting for the site over the past year, the site itself has gone silent. And that’s not okay. We’re not ready for all of the moves I’m planning on making yet. But the site will see flickers of life along the way. My last project, Generally Trivial, got going the same way. To that point, one of the things I’m looking to do is fold that project into the umbrella of Junction Point. But more on that later.

Now, my focus is on enjoying some time off with my wife. For me, when visiting a new place, I love finding a new spot to get some disc golf in. As a big fan of the game, I always enjoy thinking about some of the beautiful courses I’ve seen while away from home. For us, we always have to find at least one great place to grab a meal and hopefully a local coffee spot. Grabbing a great cup of coffee in a place with a great atmosphere often ends up being part of the story we share about our time together. I’d love to incorporate some new family traditions during our trips. I’ve looked into the idea of finding the best possible places to catch the sunset in the area. Maybe learning to improve our photography skills. Do you have any tips or traditions that you think we should incorporate? Let me know what you guys do while on vacation in the comments.