Respect the Call

Went up to the gym last night feeling a little grumpy, for various reasons having nothing to do with basketball; but it didn't take long for that same grumpiness to come out on the court. Here's the deal. Before anybody can start to play, first you have to figure out the teams. This is done different ways in different gyms. Probably the most common method is simply to "shoot 'em up" -- the first five guys to make their free throws (or sometimes threes from the top of the key) are one team, the next five guys play against them, and anybody left over has "next" and plays the winners. Sometimes you just play in the order your arrive at the gym, either by signing in on a board or putting together a group on the sidelines while waiting for the teams on the court to finish. Or you can pick two captains and let them pick their teams, back and forth just like you remember from Jr. High. But generally in the gyms I play in these days, we "make" teams -- once ten players have arrived, somebody takes the scrimmage jerseys (we're all too old and flabby to play "shirts and skins") and picks four teammates -- and those five guys play the other five. The point is to try to make the teams as balanced as possible (since it makes for a better game) and because we don't play "winners" (but simply rotate teams on and off in turn) there's really no incentive to try to stack one team with the all the talent. That just makes for quick, one-sided games, and not much fun for anyone.

But some guys just don't seem to get it. Which is neither here nor there, except that since I was already in a bad mood to begin with, not being especially happy about the composition of the teams didn't do much to improve my attitude. And being pissed off at the guy who'd made up the teams in the first place of course made my mood even worse. It's not that my teammates all sucked (because they didn't), but we also didn't really know one other very well, didn't have much chemistry on the court, weren't really sure how we wanted to defend or where we wanted to go to get open shots (but instead were constantly getting in each other's way on both the offensive and the defensive end), and basically just ended up fighting one another for rebounds, throwing the ball away, taking ill-advised shots, and generally playing like five guys playing with ourselves rather than five guys playing together. And because there were fifteen players there overall, the teams didn't really change much over the course of the night either. Which on one hand was good, since after an hour or so we finally did begin to figure things out and started to gel a little. But even so, it was still pretty frustrating most of the evening...and rather than just kinda taking it all in stride and going with the flow (like I normally would), I could feel myself getting more and more aggressive as the bad mood I'd brought to the gym with me began to blossom in the heat of competition.

Now before you get too far ahead of me here, let me just reassure anyone who may actually be reading this by saying right now that No, I didn't punch anybody out or commit a needlessly hard foul, lose my temper, or even start trash-talking (much). But at one point when I found myself matched-up on a switch against the culprit who made up the teams in the first place (someone who doesn't especially care for me any more than I care for him in the first place), I did "D" him up a little more aggressively than HE liked, and when he went to create a little space for himself by trying to clear me out with his off hand, I called him for the offensive foul.

Let me try to put this in context for those of you who are not regular gym rats. NOBODY calls offensive fouls in a pick-up game. I mean it just isn't done; it's a matter of pride. You might as well try enforcing the three-second rule, and since there aren't any free throws in a pick-up game anyway, fouls of any sort are generally just a matter of giving the ball back to the offense at the top of the key, where they can "check-up" and try again. Likewise, without referees players are pretty much on the honor system -- the basic principle is that the player who is fouled has the right to make the call, and everyone else on the floor respects the call whether they agree with it or not.

Of course there's still more. From the time I first started playing with these guys two years ago, I've gone out of my way to establish my reputation as an "honest" player -- someone who can always be counted on to be fair and impartial, and to make the correct call whether it favors my team or not; someone who knows the rules but isn't obnoxious about "enforcing" them, and who is always going to give an opponent the benefit of the doubt. Both because of what I do for a living off the court, and for the integrity of the game itself, it's important for me to have established this reputation and to enjoy the kind of authority and respect that come with it. So when I made the call (and yes, make no mistake, it really was an offensive foul) both authoritatively and without hesitation, naturally it was respected...by everyone except the guy who'd committed the foul in the first place, and who has been doing the exact same thing half-a-dozen times every night we play and has never been called on it before. Oh, people complain -- I've complained to him many times...even threatened that if he threw that elbow once more I was going to tear it off and shoved it someplace I'm too polite to mention here, which is how situations like this are NORMALLY handled in a pick-up game. Somebody pushes you; you push them back -- that's how things are done when there are no zebras in the jungle.

But in this particular case the foul offensive offender in question (let's call him "Curly") simply went ballistic...while I walked calmly to the other end of the floor, giving back verbally as good as I got, and smiling inside as everyone else on the court (including Curly's handpicked teammates) backed me up and followed me toward my team's goal. Of course, many of them had also been the victim of the infamous "Curly clear-out" on previous nights, so it wasn't really a question of whether or not the foul had occurred. It was simply a matter of their respecting MY call, and me keeping my own cool while Curly lost his.

And I wasn't quite done with Curly either. Since he also tends to have a fairly exaggerated view of his own skills, I took no little glee in exploiting the one real mismatch that worked in our favor, by feeding the ball to our best player (Curly's chosen defensive assignment) every time down the floor, who in turn lit Curly up for three straight scores to end the game and send Curly and Company back to the sidelines.

OK, I admit it -- there's no real point to this story. I'm not especially proud of my own part in this episode, and all I've really done is create more bad blood in a "relationship" that is marginal enough as it is. I already try to avoid being on the same team with Curly whenever I can, and I don't especially like being matched-up directly against him either -- but neither of these options is always possible, so I've had to learn how to make the best of a less-than-optimal situation which I have now helped make even worse. And Curly does tend to bring out the best (or the worst) in me -- I always play a little harder and more aggressively when we're both on the floor at the same time, and it does give me pleasure to show him up or shut him down...a pleasure I don't generally allow myself with most of the guys I play with (and against).

And then there's always the old proverb: "Choose your Enemies (Rivals, Opponents) well, for you shall come to resemble them." That knowledge alone makes me want to walk away and sin no more. To put it mildly, if I truly wished to have a worthy rival, I would choose a much better player than Curly. And that's a matter of respect as well....