I remember when I was a sophomore in high school, I showed up to basketball practice the day before our first playoff game, our district opener, about 45 minutes late. And, um, you know, it kinda felt like a big deal ’cause I was, I was this small, kinda scrawny 15 or 16 year old playing up on varsity. Playing a forward position on varsity, which is usually reserved for taller, stronger people than myself at that time. And I was proud of being a starter on the varsity team. And then here I was showing up 40 minutes late for practice the day before playoffs, which clearly meant that I was going to lose my starting position, probably for the rest of the year. And it was kind of a big bummer.
And I remember my assistant coach coming over, just clearly disappointed in me. And I was like, “I’m sorry.” Like, my excuse was like, “My mom forgot about me,” which was totally true. And I remember him not accepting that excuse and he was like, “W- why didn’t you run here? Or walk?” And I was like, “I did.” Um, which was true. My mom did forget me. I couldn’t get a hold of anyone’s pager — this was the year 2000, before — right before cell phones became a real deal thing. So, like, if I needed a teammate’s attention, there was a few of ’em that had pagers I could call.
And so anyway, when it got to that point where it became clear my mom was not going to get back on time, I took off. I threw on multiple layers of clothing, tied my shoes into a knot and wrapped ’em around my head — my basketball shoes, that is — and began running. But as it turns out, it took me some time to cover that four to five mile trek to school. And, um, technically, yes, it was an excuse. My mom forgetting about me, me running to practice. Excuse. But I felt like it was always kind of a good one, in theory. You know, there’s worse ways to be late which is, you know, when you have your own means of traveling and you just don’t show up on time. In this case it kinda felt like it was out of my hands and I did what I could.
And I do remember, I’m proud to report that my assistant coach was pleased to hear that, I think. It kind of like changed his, his look where he’s like, “Oh. You, you did run. Okay…” And I think he could probably look in my face, because it was around this time of year, and he could see that I was probably not making that up. Because I probably looked pretty cold and red and all those things at that point. And the best I could do was hope that he would tell my head coach, which I’m pretty sure he did. But it did not help me too much, because I still lost my starting position for the remainder of that year, and, um, that’s all I have to say about that.