Dribbled Into My Heart

Right now, the Missouri Tigers are preparing for a face-off against the University of Connecticut in hopes of making it to the Final Four. If the Tigers prevail, it will be their first trip to the Final Four in Mizzou history. I have been glued to the tube for each game thus far & today, at 3:40 p.m., I'll once again take my seat on the sofa & watch in anticipation of a Tiger victory. I've not always been a fan of basketball. In fact, I use to think the sport was boring more or less. I think that could be due to the fact that I never really took the time to "watch" it. I had no interest in it or desire to watch. In his senior year of high school, my friend Jase was on his school's varsity basketball team. He had pleaded with me many times before to come watch him play & each time, I told him I could care less about his basketball game. Since he had been begging me for 4 years to come to at least one game, I finally caved & decided I would try to go survive one game. I figured it was his senior year & there was little time remaining to watch him play. I made my way to the high school with little enthusiasm & took my seat. The game got going & it was "OK". Not knowing anything about basketball, I could not have told you if Jase was playing well or not. Then, the horrible moment came....Jase fell to the floor & was laying there in pain. As I sat in the stands, I felt my heart sink. I would love to have been able to jump right up & run over to check on him but I knew that was not an option. Jase never came back into the game. That Friday night proved to be the ending to his high school basketball career as he had torn his ACL & had to have surgery days later. I did sit still & watch the rest of the game. I do not remember if the Bulldogs won or not but I do remember thinking that despite Jase's injury, the game & the sport itself was not so bad afterall. Soon after, I began to express a little more interest in the sport. My dad & sister had went year in & year out to the Coca-Cola high school shoot-out in downtown St. Louis. Though I had never wanted to go with them, I suddenly was quite eager to go see what it was all about. I was blown away by the amount of talent we witnessed on the court throughout the day as the top high school teams in the country featuring the most highly recruited stars played. I began watching the Missouri Tigers under the direction of Coach Q (Quinn Snyder) & have been watching them faithfully ever since. I've made it around to catch some high school games as well. While basketball will never replace the love I have for America's greatest past-time, baseball, I do enjoy it. I only hate that I never was able to see Jase play a full game. After his game, he kidded me relentlessly for some time & joked that I should feel bad that he had never been hurt before but as soon as I showed up, he went down with an injury. I really did feel bad about that. I realized that there was nothing I personally could have done to prevent his getting hurt but I still felt like I disappointed him by not having ever shown up to a game before that night when he had been waiting on me to do so for 4 long years. While I hate the fact that my like of the game began as I watched my dear friend in pain, I'm glad I finally made it to a game & had the opportunity to learn a little bit about the sport. And that is how the game of basketball dribbled it's way into my heart.