In March of 2000, after a disappointing college JV season and a long, unremitting struggle to restore a harmonious passion back into my life for playing basketball, I decided to quit the game cold turkey.
My decision was formalized in a meeting with the varsity coach who had called me into his office at the close of our season to inform me of my promotion to the varsity team. While I valued his offer and endorsement of my playing ability, my mind had already been made up—I would be moving on from the game of basketball.
No press conference. No retirement celebration. No jersey to be raised to the rafters.
My “official” playing career ended with a “thanks, but no thanks conversation” and a cold, lonely walk back to my freshman dormitory where I retired for an afternoon nap.
Strangely, for a sport that had largely defined my adolescent identity and even determined my college of choice, I actually felt liberated by my decision to quit. Proof of my athletic mortality laid on my desk--a copy of our last monthly practice /game schedule full of crossed-off dates and a small countdown in the top right corner of each date box that had finally reached zero.
Though I played really well in our preseason workouts and outran all incoming and returning players during conditioning drills, I purposefully chose not to even try out for the Varsity team, justifying it in my head an easier way to walk away from the game at the season’s end. At some point during my high school career, my passion for playing the game had slipped into an unhealthy obsession that controlled, consumed and conflicted my time and thoughts for pursuing other life activities.
I spent my spring and summer months like most other aspiring college basketball players seeking an athletic scholarship: playing on AAU teams, attending 3-4 basketball camps, participating in exposure showcases in front college coaches and scouting service reps, competing in summer leagues and spending countless hours in the gym and on the pavement refining my skills.
My efforts yielded a few shoeboxes full of letters from college coaches, mostly of the D-III variety; an obvious sign of my athletic fate. During my senior year of high school I spent more time on the phone with small school assistant coaches than I did with my then girlfriend. Don’t get me wrong the attention was flattering. But as a basketball gym rat, this reality didn’t fit the vision of having Coach K or Boeheim popping in for mom’s meatloaf to discuss the advantages of becoming a Blue Devil or Orangemen alum.
In the end, I would become a Red Hawk...or an Engineer depending on which generation of RPI athlete you spoke to.
For part II, click here.
My decision was formalized in a meeting with the varsity coach who had called me into his office at the close of our season to inform me of my promotion to the varsity team. While I valued his offer and endorsement of my playing ability, my mind had already been made up—I would be moving on from the game of basketball.
No press conference. No retirement celebration. No jersey to be raised to the rafters.
My “official” playing career ended with a “thanks, but no thanks conversation” and a cold, lonely walk back to my freshman dormitory where I retired for an afternoon nap.
Strangely, for a sport that had largely defined my adolescent identity and even determined my college of choice, I actually felt liberated by my decision to quit. Proof of my athletic mortality laid on my desk--a copy of our last monthly practice /game schedule full of crossed-off dates and a small countdown in the top right corner of each date box that had finally reached zero.
Though I played really well in our preseason workouts and outran all incoming and returning players during conditioning drills, I purposefully chose not to even try out for the Varsity team, justifying it in my head an easier way to walk away from the game at the season’s end. At some point during my high school career, my passion for playing the game had slipped into an unhealthy obsession that controlled, consumed and conflicted my time and thoughts for pursuing other life activities.
I spent my spring and summer months like most other aspiring college basketball players seeking an athletic scholarship: playing on AAU teams, attending 3-4 basketball camps, participating in exposure showcases in front college coaches and scouting service reps, competing in summer leagues and spending countless hours in the gym and on the pavement refining my skills.
My efforts yielded a few shoeboxes full of letters from college coaches, mostly of the D-III variety; an obvious sign of my athletic fate. During my senior year of high school I spent more time on the phone with small school assistant coaches than I did with my then girlfriend. Don’t get me wrong the attention was flattering. But as a basketball gym rat, this reality didn’t fit the vision of having Coach K or Boeheim popping in for mom’s meatloaf to discuss the advantages of becoming a Blue Devil or Orangemen alum.
In the end, I would become a Red Hawk...or an Engineer depending on which generation of RPI athlete you spoke to.
For part II, click here.
