Another basketball season is rapidly approaching. I’m not talking about the basketball played by our beloved Hoyas over at the MCI Center. No, this game is played in the humid squalor of Yates with no spectators other than those who happen to be working out on the exercise machines above the courts. These Joe and Jane Hoyas aren’t playing for fame or glory, or even because they’re particularly talented. Instead, they’re playing for the love of the game, the pride associated with winning an intramural basketball tournament and the knowledge that, for that semester, they have the best intramural team at Georgetown.
My personal odyssey through intramural basketball began last winter when the real college basketball season began and my friends and I began to attend the games. You might even say that it began in the summer when my parents decided that I needed season tickets. Don’t get me wrong?I have nothing against basketball. Come March, I’m as glued to my TV as the next person, taking breaks only to check out the status of my bracket. However, this doesn’t mean that I understand anything that’s going on or any technical aspect of the game. A sample conversation during a game: My friend, (outraged), “Can you believe that! He was just blatantly fouled and the ref did nothing!”
My response, (faking outrage because I really have no idea what just happened), “I know! That’s ridiculous! He must be blind!” Then I whispered to another friend, “What just happened?”
Or when I thought I was understanding what was going on, I’d say, “That wasn’t a foul. I don’t know what that ref is thinking.” Then all my friends turned sympathetically towards me, and said, “Yeah, Meg, it was. One more time, this is what a foul is … “
Judging from my obvious ignorance regarding basketball, it’s hard to believe that I would voluntarily get involved in playing the sport. Well I did; I blame my roommate. She’s an awesome basketball player. Her high school team won the state championship, they were nationally ranked?you get the idea. So when the winter intramural season came around, she was ecstatic and quickly found a team to join. Several other of our friends also decided to join, again all girls with some serious high school basketball pasts. The last time I remember even touching a basketball was in 10th grade gym class, and even those memories are a little blurry. Still, my roommate said that I should join too; it would be fun and she would give me pointers.
At that point, I began to get excited, too. I mean, how hard could it be to take the ball, dribble it and shoot it in the general direction of the net? I told myself that it would be easy?I could handle shooting a ping pong ball into a cup of beer, and both the ball and the opening were a lot bigger in this case. I convinced myself that I would get out there on the courts and discover I was a natural and everyone would wonder why I had kept my considerable talent hidden.
This didn’t happen. Within five minutes of arriving at our first game, while everyone was taking practice shots, I was asking my roommate for advice. Unfortunately, I was so intently focused on her pointers that I neglected to see the basketball bouncing off of the backboard and into my head. Score: Basketball 1, Meg 0.
To give my teammates credit, they actually sent me out to play. “You want me to play what again?” I said. “Pole? Oh, post? Oh, just wave my arms around … OK.”
I was fine with this scheme; in fact, I was so comfortable with it that I continued to do it when my team was on offense. Turns out, that’s not what you’re supposed to do. I was so intent on guarding the girl I had been defending that I didn’t see one of my teammates pass me the ball. It went out of bounds, giving the ball to the other team. Oops.
Later on in the game, my roommate took pity on me and decided to try to give me the ball again. To make sure I was paying attention, she called out my name as she passed the ball. My response was to duck. One of the girls on the other team grabbed the ball. Oops again. After that, the team and I decided that I should just watch and learn … from the bench.
I’m proud to say that I finished the season. It wasn’t a long season, and we had a stellar record, 0-6. My teammates eventually learned to not even bother passing me the ball, and I learned that my talents were better suited to sitting on the bench cheering them on.
