other · basketball
Perhaps We Might Consider Holding Hands Before the Parking Lot Committee Convenes
Reflections on a quiet autumn Friday in Tulsa, where the basketballs sit undisturbed in their racks and nobody has said an unkind word to anyone all afternoon.
It is, when one pauses to let the quiet settle over the Mabee Center concourse, a very still kind of Friday. The parquet floor has been swept, the scoreboard lights are resting in their dark housing, and there is not a single bounce of a leather sphere to disturb the dust motes hanging in the afternoon sunbeams. October brings these weeks where the schedule offers nothing more demanding than an open door and a faint smell of floor wax, which is perhaps for the best. We have all been running quite hard since the summer exhibitions, haven't we, and it might just be that the Lord wants us to sit down for a moment and look at our shoes.
I spent some time this morning looking out the press box window toward the campus green. The leaves are turning a lovely shade of amber, though I suppose they do that every year without needing anyone to write a column about it. There is a profound comfort in routine. One arrives at the arena, brushes a speck of lint off the desk, and tries very hard not to wonder if the recent turnover percentages in late-clock situations are somehow a reflection of our collective spiritual lukewarmness. Not that anyone would ever say such a thing aloud, of course. It would be terribly presumptuous to assume that an unforced turnover on the wing is anything other than a momentary lapse in spatial awareness, though one does occasionally find oneself staring into the bottom of a lukewarm styrofoam cup of decaf coffee and wondering if we are truly walking as closely to the baseline as we ought to be.
The team is practicing in small groups today, or perhaps they aren't practicing at all. I didn't want to peer too closely through the glass of the side gym because it feels a bit intrusive to watch young men work on their free-throw mechanics when they might prefer a bit of privacy with their thoughts. Free throws are such an intimate thing, really. Just a player, a orange iron, and fifteen feet of empty air filled with unseen expectations. When they miss long, one feels a sudden, sharp pang of sympathy in the lower ribs, as though one's own quiet failures to be a better neighbor are somehow manifesting as a clank off the back rim. But we don't dwell on that. We simply adjust our spectacles, wipe the condensation from the folding table, and tell ourselves that everyone is trying their absolute hardest.
There is no opponent listed on the whiteboard this week. The schedule is a blank slate, which is both a mercy and a mild invitation to overthink. Without a scouting report to study, one's mind tends to wander into dangerous theological territory, such as whether our transition defense is truly honoring to the creator of the universe. It probably isn't our place to connect those two things, and yet, when the guard fails to communicate a screen on the perimeter, one cannot help but feel a tiny, silent shudder run through the press row. We are all just fragile vessels, bumping along on a hardwood floor, hoping the whistle doesn't blow against us when we finally reach midcourt.
I should probably mention that the vending machine in the lower lobby is still eating fifty-cent pieces, but I didn't leave a note for the maintenance staff because I didn't want to make a fuss. It's such a small thing, really, and the gentleman who services the machine has kind eyes and likely has enough on his mind without me pointing out the mechanical deficiencies of the snack dispenser. We must bear one another's burdens, even when those burdens involve a stale package of cheese crackers that refuses to drop.
[If it wouldn't be too terribly inconvenient for everyone involved, and only if the athletic department leadership feels completely comfortable and not at all pressured by this little suggestion, perhaps we might take just three tiny minutes before next Tuesday's walkthrough to bow our heads together in the corner of the auxiliary gym, or near the water fountain if that's more accessible, for a very brief and quiet word of thanks—though absolutely no one is obligated to participate, and I completely understand if everyone is simply too busy with film study.]