Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Basketball Tryout Bloopers

We finished day 2 of boys' basketball tryouts yesterday. When you put 60 kids in a gym with wide levels of basketball skill, and add a dash of nervousness from the competition, some funny things can happen.

- Player catches the ball on the right baseline and makes a hard drive with his right hand. After one dribble, the ball mysteriously flies up and crashes off the backboard. The back side of the backboard, that is. No, actually, the posts that hold the backboard in the air.

- Shooting contest at a basket. One team on each side trying to make twenty hoops as fast as possible, first team done wins. Exactly one ball per team. At one point each team has missed a shot and the shooter is running down his own rebound. They turn to fire a pass back to the next shooter in line. The balls smash into each other with a Hindenburg-like POP. I'll bet you fifty dollars that if I had asked them to accomplish that feat, they'd have failed in ten tries. And I would win easily, because I had just watched them attempt a passing drill five minutes earlier.

- 6'4" freshman built like a Weeble, but falls down. After being bumped off balance and falling backward about five steps, with his hands desperately and futilely flailing to stay upright. This happens about once every two minutes, by the way.

- Half-court scrimmage. Skins vs shirts. Guard makes a slicing move to the basket and lays it up. Different 6'4" player snuffs the shot. Was it a bad shot? No. Was it an impressive block? Hardly. They were on the same team.

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