Pick-up basketball was a frequent activity of my youth that continued on through college. After college, life got in the way and opportunities to play naturally dwindled. So it was exciting when the opportunity arose to re-unite with many of my fellow hoopsters in a men’s rec league in the late ’90s.
If memory serves correctly (and that’s an assumption), our first go at it was in a CYC men’s league and we played via Mary Queen of Peace (MQP) courtesy of the Shorey brothers’ and father’s affiliation there. What could be better? Some competitive hoops action to break up the work week, camaraderie with old friends, and although unspoken, a chance for each of us to prove that we belonged on the court – some retribution for being passed over by our high school teams.
We rolled out in silky white uni’s as a very under-sized, but determined group. Oddly I have no group photos, no video (although one existed at one point) of our team. Most of those that participated in my pre-wedding softball game played at one point on the team.
The silky whites – 2013 wrinkled version. The matching jersey is currently in storage. Sorry to disappoint.
The results were nothing short of disastrous.
Our rookie season in 1997 netted us an 0-11 record despite our supposed athleticism, steady practices and access to the MQP Playbook. What was supposed to be an outlet from daily frustrations actually added to them. We were a bunch of smart guys that had no idea how to fix our atrocious play. We underperformed, individually and collectively, in real-game action. Our lack of size was a huge factor. And we were missing a leader on the court. We were all similar in terms of talent and a go-to guy never really materialized. Oddly, we never came to the conclusion that we just stunk as basketball players.
The MQP Playbook was filled with offensive, defensive and in-bounds plays combining word processor text with hand-drawn graphics like the examples above and below.
But our horrific debut season didn’t stop us.
Oh no, we made the jump to YMCA men’s rec basketball and played for three more seasons, to run our franchise record to 3-37-1 (at least 2 of the 3 victories were forfeit wins). Each season the roster was tweaked to add friends and relatives, but the results were the same. We kept stats for seasons 2-4 and the PPG averages for the 6 players that appeared at least once in each of these seasons is telling: Deters 7.1, Shorey 7.1, Bachmann 5.7, Lubbe 4.6, Thomas 3.9, McLaughlin 2.4.
Weak. So weak.
I suppose I was the team’s 3-point guy (hitting 34 threes in seasons 2-4, next highest was 17 by Shorey), but I’m sure I took quite a few more attempts that the other guys. Shorey and I were also the clear leaders when it came to fouls. Shorey trying to play the big man down low; me serving as the super small guy mixing it up with the fat and tall.
Some exceptionally low, low-points: MQP II game on 2/15/98 where our offensive explosion netted us 4 total first half points on the way to a 49-28 defeat and MQP IV games on 2/14/99 and 2/21/99 where we suffered 72-28 and 72-26 beatdowns.
2/15/98: Scorebook indicates 2 field goals for 4 total points in the first half. At least we picked it up in the second half.
We’re closing in on 15 years since these glory days. I believe that the same group of guys today would beat the younger version from years past. I also think we would be much more competitive if we played in the same league.
What am I thinking. We’d probably still stink.