Getting into a Groove with Basketball

We work really hard. Most of our work days are of the 10-12 range or more when you figure in time we spend grading at home, meetings, getting to school early to set up lessons and the like. One of my personal outlets in dealing with the workload is basketball. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but we have weekly games of pick up basketball that keep us in shape (sort of), keep us sane, and allow us a moment to juggle those goals with socialization. It is one of my refuges from the stresses of work and the wonderful responsibilities of family life.

I detailed in a previous post how we gained enough attention in our play to be invited to play the Saudi National team. We got smashed, as we should have. But that exposure also led to us getting some other games. In addition to our weekly pickup games, we have been contacted about scrimmages against local professional teams. Not long ago, we hosted a local team at our gym. They came in looking way better than us in warmups. Part of that is because most of their guys were 6’6 or above, and, you know professional athletes. We were a group of guys who like to play once or twice per week for fun. We played them in five games to 21. Their coach worked on some plays to help them with their league and we just got out there to have some fun. We ended up winning 2 out of the 5 games nonetheless.

About two weeks later, our school hosted a charity basketball tournament with different divisions for different ages. We showed up early that day and watched some of our high school students take on other local clubs. Then in the afternoon, it was time for the adults. Our team of teachers plus two parents of students at our school was prepared to take on all comers. We showed up and had to wear borrowed pinnies from the PE department, while various other teams rolled in with their custom jerseys and in some cases coaches. We rolled them. The first game was against a team of guys from the Phillipines. We beat them 78-30. The next game, against a group of Saudi guys was a bit closer at a final score of 74-33. The last game was against a group from Lebanon and was much closer. That game ended up being something like 52-38. It was weird how each team had a collective nationality. It was sort of a quasi-Saudi based basketball Olympics of sorts. But in the end we prevailed. We even had one of our tall guys become a sort of celebrity that other teams wanted to take photos with. It was surreal.

One of our well connected players was so excited about our recent performances that he had some jerseys made for us for future tournaments and exhibitions. So now we will be rolling into these tournaments with the same level of professionalism as the rest. Of course our team name had to be the "Compound Kings." But win or lose in the future, the games have been a great outlet and a fun way to get to know people outside of my usual social circle.