|
By Ben McCarty
News staff writer
June 26, 2010
By the end of the winter basketball season, I typically feel
like I don’t want to see the inside of a gym for a long time.
By the time late February rolls around, the long nights and
short summer days have typically taken a toll on me, and this
year, with four wildly different storylines to follow among the
four local teams it was even more difficult. Add to that
watching enough devastating injuries to players to last a
decade, and watching the sport just really wasn’t fun anymore by
the time the HRV girls team was eliminated from the state
playoffs.
But it’s amazing what a few months away will do.
Last week I wandered into Horizon’s gym to watch a summer youth
camp.
Then this week I went out to HRV to watch another youth camp.
And finally back to Horizon, to watch players from the 1A Valley
10 and Big Sky Leagues, among them, Horizon’s Ramon Martinez,
practice for an all star tournament this weekend in Sisters.
I’ve noticed this plenty of times before, but there is a big
difference between watching games at the end of a long season in
a hot stuffy gym on a dark, cold winter night and watching the
next generation learn the game in a cool, clean gym on a sunny
summer afternoon.
Maybe it’s just because there is something more innocent about
it. During the summer months, anything is possible for the
future. One of the gangly kids just learning how to dribble with
his or her off hand could become a starting point guard, last
year’s JV back up could be next year’s varsity star.
On Wednesday I dropped by Horizon to watch the 1A all-star team,
under the direction of Columbia Christian coach Jim
Flint, practice. A few of these young men
will get the chance to play college basketball, for all of them
it will be their final game in a high school uniform, and likely
their last in an organized competitive environment.
Many of them hadn’t played in months, and you could tell
watching them suck in wind as they did full court drills.
Still, they were determined to make the most of their last game,
and quickly soaked up the flex offense that
Flint
was busy installing.
It was the same offense that my team ran in high school, and I
remembered it fondly, including the traffic jams that could
ensue if a point guard forgot which version of the play was
called, or a post forgot to set a screen –– which I did more
often than not.
One thing that doesn’t change much over the summer is my
basketball shooting ability.
While I was at the HRV camp Wednesday, they broke for lunch, and
I sat around to chat and shoot around with some of the HRV
coaches.
I began trash talking Jon Hiatt after he missed several shots
from right in front of the hoop.
“Come on Hiatt, it’s a two foot jumper!”
So I picked up a ball and began taking shoots, loafer’s, khakis
and all.
I stepped up to where Hiatt had been shooting moments before,
and tossed up a shot.
Naturally, I missed.
“Come on Ben, it’s a two foot jumper!”
|
