Category Archives: Sports

And missed. Close game all the way against undefeated #1 team at their loud, full gym. I hit several shots down the stretch but not the last one that counted. 10 seconds to go, we’re down by two. I get it top of the key, wrap around pass to another post player, I flare to the left, the ball is kicked out to a guard and swung back to me. Pump fake, one dribble to the left, pull-up. As it left my hand I knew it was a tad to the left. I was praying for it to inch to the right. Rattles around rim, and out.

We lose by two, the opposing crowd starts chanting "na na na, na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye."

So close. Hopefully we’ll have another crack at them in the playoffs.

I’ve heard this my whole basketball career, and I’ve never really bought it.

I believe life is a series of sprints, not a marathon. We have spurts. It’s important to maintain a baseline standard and continually work to improve that standard. But we will all have stretches of time where we will be amazingly productive/happy/successful. I like to thrive during these periods, then rest, re-charge, read a bunch, and then go back in the trenches. Then rest, read, re-charge, and back to the trenches.

Burnout comes from staying in the trenches too long. Don’t get me wrong — to see something through requires sticking with it in the long run. I’ve been working 65 hour weeks since I was 13 and I don’t see any slowing up. In this sense, life is a marathon, but with plenty of rest stops and water breaks along the way!

My brother (the non-blogger) once told me that there’s science that says in tense, high stakes situations some people perform even better and some perform even worse, not much middle ground. I’ve always liked to think that I’m the kind of person who performs even better when the stakes are higher.

Tonight at a basketball game in east Oakland with 20 seconds to go we were up by 3 points. I inbounded the ball, called for it right back, got fouled, and knocked down two charity tosses to make it a two possession game. A lot of this has to do with a mindset.

I distinctly recall my first sales pitch to a big group of people. I was like 13, standing in my suit in a cold parking lot outside of a City Hall. My teeth were chattering and muscles shaking. I could hardly speak without stuttering over my words because of nervousness. I don’t remember a thing from the pitch (other then when I described the mySQL database powering the software as "robust" – what a weird thing to remember) but I’m told I did a good job. And we had a client to prove it.

In the closing seconds of the game, do you want the ball?

This is a great example of finding something really popular and then calling it "overrated" as a form of originality…But nonetheless Timothy Noah has a good point here. It seems like coaches are always portrayed as heros in movies and books and personal stories. Big time coaches (like Coach K at Duke) write books on success and on life. For many, though, coaches have little impact on their life or perhaps are a scar (just watch Little League World Series coaches…they’re nuts).

Link: The Coach as Culture Hero – What’s so great about the guy with the whistle around his neck? By Timothy Noah.

There is surely no American archetype more preposterously overpraised at this cultural moment than the Coach. He has become a vessel of redemption, a wise old pappy who could tell us a thing or two about this thing we call life if only we’d bother to listen. The Coach is the voice of dedication and tough love, of giving 110 percent, of never saying no to your dreams. His subject is the playing field, but his message is universal. Persist and you will either prevail or go down knowing you gave it everything you had. It’s all about heart.

Ever since I’ve evolved to like the life of the mind more than the life of the athlete, I’ve worked to keep my basketball career intellectually stimulating. One key component of this is my role as captain.

Last season things were going terribly and a lot of people had their own personal gripes/complaints/questions about a whole host of things. I found myself fielding late night calls from guys wondering why they weren’t getting playing time, and secondarily, what I thought about the team’s prospects going forward.

I have serious reservations about the college process, but the one good thing that comes out of it is it ensures that most students will work really really hard during high school and then "fail" by not getting into their #1 choice. For overachievers, this is a critical experience, because our whole life you’re indoctrinated with a falsehood: "Work hard, and you can do anything." (And I posit it’s SO much better to fail NOW than endure the mid-life crisis that David Brooks anticipates will happen to my generation in a big way.)

In basketball, it’s the same way. People assume that if you put in the time and effort, there should be a personal reward (playing time – it’s hard to look beyond yourself, no matter how well the team does). I was trying to articulate this to a teammate a week ago. Even at the high school basketball level, four years of blood, sweat, and tears doesn’t guarantee shit. It should guarantee an opportunity to prove yourself, but after that, it’s about putting the most competitive 5 on the court.