Last night I did something I haven’t done in a long, long time: I played basketball competitively. For those of you who don’t know I used to play hoops while growing up. Actually, you could say I ate, drank and slept hoops growing up. There was a point I was playing between 60 and 80 organized games of basketball a year (regular season, summer league, camps, etc.). All of that came to a screeching halt when, at a summer basketball camp, I blew out my knee. Not wanting to do things half ass I not only completely tore my ACL, but I also put a half inch tear in my lateral maniscus (the cartilidge in your knee that acts as padding between your upper and lower leg bones). For the most part this was the end of basketball for me.

That is until yesterday. My friend Josh plays in a few leagues around here and he managed to talk me into playing on his team from work. I played about 2/3 of the entire game and didn’t score a single point, but, then again, I was never known for my prolific scoring ability. A few things I did accomplish was a block or two, more than a few rebounds, my fair share of fouls (a whole other blog entry) and burning a few hundred calories. Most importantly, despite us losing, I had fun. It was nice to get out on the court and run plays, throw elbows and generally run around with the little orange ball I had spent so much of my younger years attempting to master.

As a side note, it looks like I will have to look into purchasing some goggles. My glasses just don’t hold up and, while my vision is good enough to be somewhat effective, I can’t seem to hit the outside “J” (jumper for you non-bball people) without them on. I guess it’s off to D.O.C. sometime this week. Oh, and I need to get a patella brace (I get bad jumpers knee since the surgery – an after effect of having half of it grafted for my new ACL).