The Hot Corner
I have talked about the reasons basketball is my third favorite sport in this column once already, but I felt it was time to discuss why I truly have a deep-seated disdain for the sport.
It has nothing to do with the sport itself, and certainly not the players or their coaches. My issue with the sport is a personal one.
After eight years of junior high school and high school football and baseball, I finished my athletic career without any major injuries in 2014. I suffered no broken bones, no torn ligaments.
Just a few less brain cells from concussions and some weird bruises and calluses that have not gone away to this day.
I escaped high school athletics without any major injuries and headed off to Texas State University healthy and limber. My freshman year, I began to play several different sports, one of which was pickup basketball at the school recreation center.
I was never very good, but it was a good way to spend time with friends and get in a workout.
After living in the dorms my first year, I moved into an apartment with a friend from Dallas and my cousin. Joey, the friend from Dallas, and I continued balling on the basketball court at our apartment in an attempt to stay active.
One day, we had the opportunity to play a pickup game with several other young men who happened to be on the court as well, which wasn’t a rare occurrence.
What was rare was the fact that one of them happened to be Lucas Humpal, a Texas State baseball player who went on to break the school record for strikeouts before becoming a ninth-round MLB draft pick of the Baltimore Orioles. Anyone who knows me knows I am a baseball guy and that I tend to get very competitive. I immediately recognized him and I was pumped to have the opportunity to get to know him, but also challenge myself against him.
While playing with this elite athlete, I, being a not so elite athlete, attempted to block a layup.
When I landed after leaping to try and block the shot, my foot caught the edge of the blacktop, sending my foot one way and the rest of my leg the other, resulting in a torn ACL in my right knee, among other things.
I knew instantly this was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Throughout my athletic career and even to this day, I pride myself on my high threshold for pain and ability to ignore the pain and play on, but this time it was different. I could not put any weight on my leg. My knee instantly swelled up to at least twice its normal size and I had to lean on Joey as he helped me hop on one leg back to our apartment, which happened to be up two flights of stairs.
I had knee reconstruction surgery the next summer and began to work my way back up to being normal and healthy over the next few months.
Since that injury, which occurred in 2016, it has been a struggle to fully let loose and be my old athletic self on the court or in the gym. There is always a fear in the back of my mind that my knee is going to pop out of its socket and give me trouble again. It gave me a new respect for anyone who has suffered injuries similar to mine and returned to their respective sport in such short amounts of time.
There is a mental wall you have to overcome to be able to push yourself the same way again. Since that day, I have decided short, red-headed dudes named Reed don’t belong on a basketball court.
Sure, I’ll do some shooting around if the opportunity presents itself and the house my fiancé and I bought here in Snyder came with a basketball hoop short enough for an average joe like myself to dunk on, but I don’t see myself stepping into a full speed basketball game anytime soon.
I will settle for covering the sport and watching the superb athletes that play it. They are some of the most electric in the world and it never gets old watching them fly all over the court.
Reed Graff is the sports editor for the Snyder Daily News. Comments about his column may be sent to sports@snyderdailynews.com