High school basketball had its ups and downs for me. While I love the sport of basketball, and still play a couple times a week, practicing and having to answer to a coach was just never for me (a microcosm of my entire life, if there ever was one.) As a result, I quit after Sophomore year. One of the biggest memories of my short-lived high school basketball career was our coach, affectionately called Uncy Aaron because, as an older brother of one of our friends, we had known him since we were just little tykes. His rants/biting comments were the stuff of legend. Here are some of my favorites:
- One member of the team who shall remain nameless (it was much easier four years ago, when only like 20 people read this blog and I could throw around real names like it was no big deal- although I doubt this guy would be that pissed, he had to know he wasn't exactly Reggie Miller out there) was an absolutely horrible shooter, yet still put up his fair share of jump shots. When it invariably missed, he had a habit of staring at his hands in disbelief as he went back down the court on defense. Needless to say, he was a favorite target of Uncy Aaron. When he was getting pulled from the game after another airball, and was on his way to the bench and had to walk past the coaches, I practically held my breath and did everything short of pull out a tape recorder in anticipation of these gems:
"Hey! When you woke up this morning, did someone tell you that you were a good shooter? No? Then QUIT SHOOTING!"
"Oh, I get it, it's your hands' fault you missed that one?!?! Hey don't worry, just grab a new pair and I'm sure you'll get rim on the next one...."
"You wanna stare at your hands some more?!? Go to the end of the bench and bury your face in them, I'm sure you'll get a great look!"
12 years later, I still use the "When you woke up this morning, did someone tell you _____?" line, it's one of my all-time favorites. I just used it the other day, which was the impetus for writing this post.
- Freshman and Sophomore year, most of my friends and I fell in love with wrestling again, during its big comeback, with nWo and Sting and all that crap. Admittedly, we were pretty ridiculous. We always had around 15 minutes or so before practice to shoot around and screw off, so we would have three-point shooting contests and stuff like that. Except that the winner became the "Heavyweight Champion", and in order to "challenge" him to a "title match", you had to win your "challenger matches" or win the "Battle Royal" or some other wrestling shenanigan. Suffice it to say that Uncy Aaron wasn't a part of the wrestling craze this time around, and let us know that fact every chance he got. Usually by walking into the gym and beginning practice by yelling "All right, quit with your tag-team matches or whatever you idiots are doing! God you guys are dumb. Shouldn't you be out trying to get laid instead of watching wrestling?"
One time during the first half of a game, Carson was driving the lane, so Lane cleared out of his spot on the low block, letting his man step in and block Carson's layup. At halftime, Uncy Aaron wasn't pleased:
Uncy Aaron: What WAS that, Lane? Why would you just move out of the way instead of setting a screen or something?
Lane: Well, I was just trying to get out-
Uncy Aaron, getting progressively louder and more annoyed: Trying to get out of his way WHY, Lane? So he didn't catch a turnbuckle? Is this wrestling, Lane?!? Is this the nWo, Laaane?!?! ARE YOU HOLLYWOOD HOGAN, LAAAAAANE??!?!?!
Lane: .........(speechless for probably the only time in his entire life)
That outburst, particularly the line "catch a turnbuckle", was probably the funniest thing I heard during the entire calendar year of 1998. It made absolutely NO sense at the time, and even less the more you replay it in your head. You just know Uncy Aaron had been gearing up for an anti-wrestling rant, and that play was the excuse to do it. And that was pretty much the end of our wrestling-themed, pre-practice, three-point shootouts.
- This one is part Uncy Aaron, part Brooksy. We're playing crosstown rival Central, the "poor" school in town, as opposed to us being the "rich" school in town. While it's true that more people have money at Red River than Central, there are still plenty of families at Central that make more money than I'll ever dream of. We're not talking about the Greasers and the Socs here, Ponyboy.
So Uncy Aaron is giving us this impassioned pregame speech to fire us up, stuff like "they're from the wrong side of the tracks" and "they've had to work for everything to get where they are" and "their whole season hinges on beating you guys, because they resent everything that you guys and your families are about".....just hilarious stuff. Like we're from Beverly Hills, and we're on our way to play a road game in Compton or something. So most of us are just trying to keep from laughing, when he asks the question "Seriously, have you guys ever had to work for a single thing in your entire lives?!?!"
Brooksy, god bless him, raises his hand and answers the (obviously rhetorical) question in his most solemn tone: "Well, Coach, my family used to live in a trailer when I was a little kid."
It was at that point that the entire team busted into hysterics and Aaron dismissed us from the locker room. But apparently something worked; we beat Central by 30 that night. Probably because their families couldn't afford to buy them nice enough basketball shoes or something.
