It's Always the 4th Quarter

daily gratitude list 10.20.22

I’m grateful to realize I have choices. I’m grateful to be building a life I want. I’m grateful for the people who get me. I’m grateful for the new equation of my life. I’m grateful for what had to happen. I’m grateful to be sober today.

It’s always the 4th Quarter, baby.

I had a coach who used to say that to me and I always thought it sounded kind of cool. He added, “Baby,” to the end of pretty much everything he said, which I definitely adopted when playing.¹ My playing style is very similar to my writing style: undisciplined, usually a little too exuberant, very questionable shot selection, and consequently a fair number of bad misses, but always enthusiastic. I showed up every day.

My nickname (TBD) was bestowed upon me during a junior high basketball practice.² I’m not sure when I fell in love with basketball. I know that I loved it enough to make a hand-lettered “Lew Alcindor” t-shirt/jersey as a Milwaukee Bucks fan in the 3rd Grade.³ I grew up in Iowa City, not far from the football stadium and the old Field House—I think it seated 13,365 for Iowa basketball games. I started playing pick-up games there when I was in high school and it quickly became my favorite destination in the world. After school, weekends, after dinner, whenever I had free time, I’d grab my ball and jog over to the field house for a few hours of pick-up basketball. When I got to college, I can for sure tell you I spent way more time playing basketball than I did going to classes.

I didn’t have a Walkman yet, so the music had to play in my head. I listened to a lot of Parliament and George Clinton and Bootsy Collins and loved Earth, Wind and Fire —that was the basketball soundtrack. I like the sound dribbling a basketball makes in an empty gym. I love the ripping sound the ball makes when it goes through the net with a lot of backspin. I realize that I make the same face when I hear a really great passage of music or watch someone make a great shot. I love shooting the basketball. When Coach would say things like “gotta get that butt down, play some defense, baby,” I’d say things like, “Coach, it’s called shooting guard…” My favorite utterance in all of the english language is the wailed “Nooooooo” that turns into a strangled, sort of dejected, “nice shot.”

One of the many things I’ve re-discovered is how happy playing basketball makes me. I often go over to the park immediately after finishing the morning manifesto and shoot around for a while. There are some other regulars over there: Joe, who I call “the Mayor,” because he knows literally everyone who walks by. Joe is a courtly South American in his mid 70’s and a self-described hermit. I have actually observed him being asked out on dates by women walking by the court with their dogs. He always comes back smiling and shaking his head, “I tell them I don’t enjoy going out—not even to restaurants,” shrugs his shoulders and goes back to shooting. Pierre comes a little later in the morning and often shoots shirtless.⁴

Joe once told me that I should never retrieve Pierre’s ball for him—that he had been scolded once for doing this. It turns out that Pierre and the Mayor have some history and that Pierre actually enjoys it when I chase down his errant shots and then throw some fancy pass back and celebrate when he makes the shot. Yes, that’s the kind of stuff I do over at the park. My daughter does a semi-restrained eye-roll when I even mention playing basketball and I’m sure she would be horrified to see my coast-to-coast dribbling exhibition punctuated by a three from the left side, free throw line extended, complete with holding the pose while ball hopefully goes in.⁵

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, I do like talking about basketball, but I think I’ve realized it’s one of the true expressions of myself. For someone with a brain that just spins way too much, basketball is a time when I simply get to let everything go and just be me. Of course, nothing really ever stops me from thinking, but you won’t make many shots if you’re thinking about too much other than the back bracket on the rim. Like walking, basketball was a place where things got worked out in the background, where I found peace, where I almost always could find myself.

Playing does come at a cost these days—my knees and ankles have taken a beating over the years and there is an extensive protocol now of icing and applying various gels that allows me to walk a little less like Frankenstein’s monster.⁶ If you think about average life expectancies and me turning 60, maybe it is the beginning of the 4th Quarter. When Coach said that, he meant it was time to go, to leave it on the floor, as the saying went. The 4th Quarter was when winners went to work. The 4th Quarter always mattered.

I qualified at a meeting the other day and found myself saying that “recovery” to me was not simply about recovering from a disease, it was recovering myself, the person I was meant to be and the life I was meant to lead.

I think that’s what I’m recovering with every day of sobriety. That process has included basketball, I don’t think it was entirely accidental that I ended up living 3 minutes from a great basketball court. I don’t know how much longer my joints will be able to keep this up, but I know one of the keys to my sobriety has been realizing Coach was right, it’s always the 4th Quarter. Let’s go, it’s game time, baby.

Thanks for Letting Me Share

1. I also loved that moment on TV when Artis Gilmore swatted a ref on the butt after a questionable call and did a hot mic “c’mon, baby” for the ages.

2. As you may know, I take nicknames very seriously and my nickname meets two very important criteria: (a) it was bestowed by someone else; and (b) was not intended as a compliment.

3. The librarian at Mark Twain elementary sent home a note that my Mom still has, complaining that I had read all of the sports books in the library and needed to be willing to read something else and would my parents please speak to me about that.

4. Pierre is French, but if I write that, you are for sure going to think I’m just making this all up. Which, in a funny way, would be a really amazing compliment.

5. Holding the pose after a bad miss can look a little silly.

6. Important to remember that Frankenstein was not the monster. And was it really pronounced “Franken-ShtEEEn?”