Have you ever tried to pinpoint how you got to a certain point in your life? Thought back to a decision or a moment where if things had turned out differently so would your life? That point on your timeline you wish you could have back because it was, in that moment, that your whole life went in another direction. Have you ever wondered back to that "What could have been" moment? I have. A lot.
For me that moment was my last high school basketball game. It was a cold, March night in 1999. It was the second round of playoffs and we were a highly ranked team in our section. We were a veteran squad made up of mostly juniors and seniors, but had a dynamic freshman, Brandon Worthy, who was Freshman of the Year for the state of California. Our next best player was his older brother, Terrell. The first day of freshman practice I challenged Terrell to a game of one on one for five bucks. I am pretty sure I didn't score at all, but he let me keep my five bucks. The rest of our team was made up of guys I grew up with, either playing with or against in elementary school, summer camps, or at the park. We had a very solid team and many picked us to win the section title. A title we had been chasing for awhile.
As Freshmen, we came into a program whose Varsity team was coming off a terrible season, finishing last in league. We were looked at as the class that would take the school back to prominence in basketball. As freshmen we were given the task of not only getting the school back into CCS playoffs, but of winning a championship. Each year we got better and eventually the program got back on track. My junior year we were able to get to the semifinal round of CCS playoffs before losing to the eventual champs, Riordan. My senior year we were poised and confident in completing what we had set out to do four years earlier- win a championship.
Now, here we are, in this cold gym in the second round of playoffs. We are playing Seaside High school, a very athletic team that uses its quickness to play a helter skelter pressing, trapping game. At the beginning we were unfazed by their press. We jumped out to an early lead behind the Worthy brothers and were efficiently passing through their press. We were cruising. At one point on a fast break, I faked the lay up and the defender went right by me as I dished it to my buddy, Steve Godfrey, for the lay up. I pumped my fist as we were up by ten with only a few minutes left. In my mind I knew we had this game in the bag.
Then, everything began to unravel. To this day I can't block out the details of those final minutes when I saw my basketball dreams die. A couple of our starters fouled out. I missed free throws. We turned the ball over. Brandon was so gassed that he had no lift on his jump shot. I was hoping at some point I would wake up from a panicked nightmare. But this was real. It was all happening in front of my eyes. The lead was slipping away and so were all of our dreams. It is one thing to fail by yourself, it is another thing to fail as a team, with guys you grew up playing with. We endured practices, hill runs, mile runs, weight room sessions, film study-- all for a chance to win a championship we felt we deserved. It hurts so much more when you care about the other guys that you have been working with and then to see all of that work fall to the wayside.
Our last shot falls short as the buzzer sounds. Its over. I sit in the locker room and cry. I know this is the last meaningful game I will ever play in my life. This was not how it was supposed to end. This team was supposed to win. We were supposed to walk off into the sunset as the champs. That was the script I had envisioned.
It's twelve years after that game happened and it still hurts. It is hard to talk about. It's never easy to look back on your failures. But I always look back on that day, that game, as the day my life went another direction. That day dogs me, follows me like a rain cloud. Maybe if we do win a championship I have more confidence when I try out at St. Mary's the next year to play basketball rather than feeling scared and afraid. Maybe I feel accomplished having won a title and I don't feel somewhat lost or like a piece of me is never fulfilled as I move forward in life. All I know is that day played out like a "choose your own adventure" book, only somebody flipped it to another page for you and had you read an alternate version that didn't end the way you had envisioned. Does it ever end how you envision it? It seems that the only thing you know for sure is that it will end.
Looking back now, that is what hurt the most. That it ended. I was not prepared to face a life of not having basketball. For longer than I can remember I always had basketball. But at 5'10, with no athletic ability(my coaches words), my days of playing competitive basketball were over. It's hard to let go of something you have known for so long. I guess that is why I wanted to win a championship so bad. The championship would be the one thing I could hold onto when my playing days were done. Instead, I have the memory of a stinging loss and a lifetime of wondering, "What could have been?"
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