Back to Basketball

 

I did a thing last week.  For the first time in 12 years, I played a game of basketball!

It seems crazy now, but I played regularly until I was 59.  I didn’t play in high school, choosing football instead.  But I kept playing whenever possible. Intramurals. Pick up games in the HPER building at UT.  Anywhere I could find a ball and a basket.

After college, I played pickup basketball wherever I could find a game.  Springbrook Park.  Sandy Springs Park. Everett Park. The Courts at the Candy Shop in Alcoa.

I played in Parks & Rec leagues back when the “over 28” league was considered the “old man’s” league. I played a few years in a church league, but that one got too rough. 

We had a standing game at noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Maryville College and one on Sunday evenings at Maryville High school. That one went on for decades.

In 2013, my right knee problems just got too bad. I couldn’t run, couldn’t cut. Never could jump much so that wasn’t impacted.  After going off ibuprofen for a week before a colonoscopy, I was achy for days.

So I quit playing basketball.  I could still ride my bicycle without pain so I had to be satisfied with that.

But oh, did I love playing basketball!  Loved it.  In my dreams, I never missed, made great passes, and rebounded like Dennis Rodman.  But only in my dreams.

After I quit, I missed playing dearly.  But it just wasn’t prudent.  Then, in 2019, I had my right knee replaced.  The result was life changing. It had been years since I could run—now I could run. 

During the 2019 football season, before I got my new knee, a white-hat referee made fun of how slowly I moved onto the field.  In 2020, with a new knee, I made a point to sprint past that same official on my way onto the field.

Yet, returning to basketball was never on my radar.  I often thought I might be able to play again, with the new knee and all, but never did. No real opportunities came up.  Then, a patient of mine suggested that I join this group of “older” players for a weekly game. She assured me I would be fine.

So, I showed up. And played. It wasn’t really an “older” group, but I didn’t care.  For an hour and a half I played, without coming off the court.  It was heavenly.  I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn door but the basics of my game were still there.  And although I doubled my Aleve before bed, I didn’t really hurt that much. I do plan to go back but my work schedule often interferes. 

For years, patients with knee replacements were told that they could only do sedentary activities, like easy biking, golf, walking, maybe doubles tennis.

I’m not going to tell you that you can do anything on a replaced knee, but I know for certain that you can do more than you could before replacement.  Do the rehab and be smart about it and you can do most anything. Although I still don’t recommend jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.

Be Prepared

 

It happens. Sometimes, just when you least expect it. They don’t call them “accidents” without reason.

Just a little over 2 weeks ago, a colleague was out walking her dog. Nice evening. Weather was good. Nothing too ambitious.

Unfortunately, her dog suddenly went one way and her ankle went the other.  In a flash, she was lying on the ground with a badly broken ankle. She was alone and her dog didn’t understand what was going on.

Her training as an Athletic Trainer kicked in immediately. She knew her ankle was broken. She also knew that it was dislocated. The pain was bad but, with all that, she was still able to reach down and reduce the dislocation. In other words, she put the ankle back where it was supposed to be.

A couple of Good Samaritan strangers arrived maybe 10 minutes later, and, well, to make a long story short, she headed to the hospital where X-rays confirmed what she already knew.  

Later that evening, Orthopedic Surgeon Shane Asbury put plates and a whole bunch of screws in her ankle, holding it all together and setting the stage for a great recovery.

So, what would you do if faced with the same thing?  Would you be calm and know the proper steps to take? Maybe.

Maybe not. Several years ago, I had a patient who was a mountain biker and who had wrecked while riding alone.  He had badly broken his hip and could barely move. Unfortunately, he was in a bit of a remote area and his cell phone wouldn’t reach emergency services.

In what must have been an achingly long time, he crawled about thirty feet to where he was finally able to get a cell phone signal, so he called 911 for an ambulance. 

In most cases, that’s all you need to do—make the call and wait patiently until emergency responders arrive.  The only problem with that is that you might be hard to find.

This fellow was.  Stuck on the side of a mountain on a narrow trail, it took forever for those first responders to find him.

I was on a bike trip in Colorado a few years ago when one of the guys on the trip became severely dehydrated. There was no choice to it—we had to get him out of there.  Our only problem was that the nearest phone was 17 miles away and we were on bikes.

While a couple of us stayed with him, two more headed out to find a phone.  Fortunately, we were traveling by GPS coordinates and a back country rescue team found us easily.

So, here’s the advice for today. Ride, hike, swim—whatever—with a buddy. Know where you are. Carry your cell phone. There are phone apps that allow you to be traced. Have a plan. Anticipate the worst case scenario. 

Stay calm. Work the plan. Breathe. You’re going to be alright.

You are making a difference

 

I had a recent visit back to my hometown. I was there to celebrate the life and passing of the Mom of one of my best buddies growing up, one of the “Three Amigos.”

Growing up, we were inseparable. We were as close as brothers, without the sibling conflicts. Oh, we had rivalries, but those were all on the tennis court.

Ronnie the handsome one, Teddy the best athlete, Joe the smart one. Or so it would seem. Truth is, we all had more in common than in difference.

We are friends to this day, and although we don’t see each other often, that deep bond is always there.  You may have friends like that—you can go forever without seeing them and then, when you do, it’s like time hasn’t passed.

It’s rare when all three of us get together, but when we do, it’s special. We remember good times and bad, telling many of the same stories.  It always comes up that we were involved in a food fight in college, each of us blaming the other for starting it. Truth be known, it was probably Marty from Oak Ridge, but that was a long time ago (a REALLY long time ago) and maybe the memory is fuzzy.

I was also able to chat with one of my high school football coaches.  Coach Gary Dutton was a Loudon native that played football at Maryville College and then coached football at Maryville Junior High. He and Alcoa’s Clint Abbot remain best friends to this day.

After coaching the 1967 MJHS team, he returned to Loudon to coach football there. That ’67 team is notable because that was the team that went on to win the 1970 State Championship at Maryville High.

I played for the Loudon team that Maryville beat on the way to the state championship in 1970. Loudon had won the ’69 championship so it was definitely the game of the year for both teams, as the winner was the odds on pick for a championship.

Here’s the sidebar that makes for an interesting story—since those were the boys that Coach Dutton had coached at the junior high, we knew their names. Johnny and Joe Emert.  Tommy Beaver. Jim Allison. Gary Burchfield. There were more.

I was a linebacker/guard on the Loudon team and I made a point of calling out the Maryville players by name. You can imagine their surprise, hearing their name called out.  I guess it was a bygone era type of trash talk but it was fun. Going into the fourth quarter, we were up 28-21 but two scores by Maryville, the second coming in the last minute, won the game for the Rebels.

I’ve now lived in Maryville for 46 years and have made great friends from that ’70 MHS championship team, including Coach Ted Wilson. It’s been a blessing.

But here’s the point to all this. After that game, a broken hearted Loudon linebacker was walking off the field when Coach Dutton came up to him and put his arm around him and told him that he was proud of him.

It was almost 55 years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday. It’s hard to explain why or how, but it truly changed my life.  Thank you Coach Dutton.

Coaches, teachers, folks that interact with kids and teenagers—you can make such an incredible difference in lives with the most innocent of comments.  Never forget that.

Carry Your Own Bag

 

Remember in school when you had to write an essay on Pet Peeves?  Maybe you didn’t have to write that one. I did. I have no idea what I wrote about.

Given the era, it was probably something idealistic about saving the world or lasting peace. Or barking dogs. Who knows. It was a long time ago.

If I was to write that column today, it would probably be about helicopter parents. I definitely see my share of those.  You know that creature.  Hovers over their child. Won’t let them speak.

I see it all the time.  The parent strides boldly into the clinic with their child 10-15 feet behind, head down, maybe looking at their phone. The parent does the talking. The parent fills out the forms.

Keep in mind, that a lot of the work that I do is with teenagers. It’s been that way for a long time. I believe it’s what keeps me young (but it may be more  about giving variety to my music choices).

Here’s what I see—parents that want to do everything for their child. And it doesn’t matter how old they are, from 6-16. And, tragically, older.

I get that parents don’t want their children to be hurt. I get that parents want their children to do more, have more, be more.  Boomers benefited from that.

Parents of Boomers went through a World War, maybe even the Great Depression (my parents did). They experienced the Korean “Conflict” then the Cold War. They saw (and some experienced) poverty and racism and the War in Vietnam.

Those parents defined wanting more for their kids than they had. My Dad quit school in the 6^th grade to go to work in a factory to support his family.  My college degree meant more to him than anything in the world.

So, I do get it. But what I’m seeing today is parents that won’t let their children develop life skills.

Let me tell you what a good parent does. The good parent lets their child speak. They don’t talk over them.  They let them answer questions. They let their child fill out the forms, instead of doing it for them.

The good parent doesn’t make excuse for a bad performance. They don’t allow their child to blame somebody else. “The referees were against you.” I hear that all the time.

“The Coach is an idiot.”  I hear that one too much too. Coaches make mistakes. They’re human, after all. But with very few exceptions, in my 47+ years of working with athletes, the coaches I’ve known wanted what was best for the team and for the players.

The good parent doesn’t try and coach their kid on the ride home from a game or event.  Just the opposite. They talk about their day and what makes their child happy.

The good parent lets their child carry their own bag.  

It's OK to ask for help

 

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to ask for? It’s not food nor favors nor a date with someone that you’ve been wanting to ask out.

It’s help.  Most of us find it nearly impossible to ask for help.  It starts early. One of my grandchildren was known for saying “I want to do it mySELF!” 

It’s hard to admit that we can’t do something. Anything. We want to be self-sufficient.

But sometimes burdens can be too great.  Sometimes the task is too large. Sometimes it’s just all too much.  That’s when you need to ask for help.

It could be something simple.  Sometimes, we just need to share our burdens with someone else. Yet, we’re reluctant to do so. Sometimes we need assurances that we’re on the right track. Sometimes we just need validation.

We think asking for help might be a sign of weakness, and no one wants to be seen as weak.  We think it might be seen as a sign that we can’t take care of ourselves and everyone wants to think they can take care of themselves. 

We don’t want to be seen as vulnerable. We might think that showing vulnerability is an opening for someone to take advantage of us. Sometimes we see asking for help as losing control of our own lives.

Sometimes it’s because we have an image of ourselves, or an image that we want others to see, and we don’t want to change that.

A lot of times we simply don’t want to burden others with our problems.

Often, we fear rejection. What if they don’t want to help? What if they think it’s because I’m being lazy?

We don’t exist in a vacuum.  We can’t survive alone. We are engineered to have relationships and communities. If you go back far enough, it was once necessary for survival.

Allowing someone in, asking them for help, may help the helper.   Connecting with others, asking for help, helps to grow a sense of trust. And believe me, you will find out who your true friends are.

We can’t do everything. Some of us think we can. “I can take care of myself!” But really, we can’t.  Oh, some of us are capable of carrying far more burdens than others. The reality is, though, that everyone has a maximum capacity—everyone has a point where they just can’t handle one more thing.

If we get in the habit of asking for help just before we get to that point, our emotional health, our physical health, the health of our relationships, will all work better.

Think of it like this. You’re lifting a heavy load. It’s more than you can lift. But getting someone to help you means you can lift it. Maybe it’s still not easy—it still requires some effort—but you can do it. With help.

If you need help, ask for it. If your burdens just seem too much to carry, ask for help. Give someone the privilege of helping you.

Bent Nails

 

When I was 11, I decided that I wanted to build a treehouse. I was fascinated by them (still am). We had a tree that would sort of work so I started a project that would end up being a lesson.

My Dad was forced into early retirement because of health issues.  Back then, medical care for heart patients consisted of Coumadin and do nothing. He was not even supposed to lift his hands over his head.

We dried clothes on a clothesline (ask an old person). My Mom worked and since my Dad couldn’t reach up, it fell to me.   I started doing that at an age when I couldn’t even reach the clothesline.  I built a wooden step to be able to reach it. 

Buying building supplies for the treehouse was out of the question so the first order of business was to find materials for it.  A neighbor had replaced their front porch so I was able to salvage a bunch of boards from that.

A nearby business had replaced their shelves and had piled what they replaced out back.  I asked for it and they were glad to get it hauled off.

And nails.  My Dad didn’t believe in throwing away anything, so, he had a big bucket of bent nails.  More on that in a minute.

He made the first motorized ice cream maker anyone had ever seen out of salvaged parts.  When I was 8, he built me a go-kart out of odds and ends that he had collected. Somebody had given him a small engine that didn’t work when he got it and although it was hard to start, he got it to work. Brakes were putting your foot out.

But this treehouse wasn’t my Dad’s project—this was mine. And his medical restrictions wouldn’t let him help anyway. He would sit at the bottom of the tree in one of those old webbed lawn chairs, teaching and coaching me all along the way.

He insisted that it be done right. No shortcuts were allowed. 

Before I could start, I had to straighten a bucket of bent nails. The thought of buying new nails for this project was preposterous.  My Dad had a small anvil and with hammer in hand, I pounded out the nails for my treehouse.

If you’ve ever built anything, you know that it can be a difficult task to hammer all the nails in straight. And once a nail starts to bend, it is going to keep bending. You can either pound it in half way and bent, or you can pull it out, straighten it, and try again.

Guess which way my Dad insisted that I do it?  Yep, pull it out. Do it right.

He always insisted that I pay attention to the small things. Don’t half-way do anything. One of his favorite sayings was “if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.”

Same thing in sports. Same thing in life. If you do all the little things right, the big things get somehow easier.

Build that (tree)house well, doing it right from the first nail. That gives you a much better foundation on which to build the rest of your structure. Or your life.

If you don’t do the little things well, then everything else will be done poorly. It’s all in the small things. Straighten those nails.

Sleep better

 

My wife tells me I have already written this column before.  Maybe more than once.  After 40 years of writing in this space, I hope I can be forgiven for repeating myself.  But if the message is still important, then it surely bears repeating.

Let me explain. One night last week, I lay in bed reading. That’s my regular routine. Like many folks, I used to finish my night by checking my phone for the latest messages/weather update/game scores before setting my alarm, signing off, and calling it a night.

But not long ago I had heard that the quality of our sleep was enhanced if we stayed off of our electronic devices at bedtime. Phones, computers, television…anything like that.

I’ve always been a reader (still am). Beside my recliner you will find several books and on a stand just an arm’s reach away, several more. I love books. I’ve tried to read on my Kindle (I do have one) but that’s just not for me.

Just like a real printed newspaper, I want to hold words in my hands, whether it is newsprint or a book. Not long ago, I gathered up all the John Grisham novels I have. Being a huge fan, I had collected hardback copies of his books. I believe I have most of them.

It was amazing not only how many I had, but also how prolific John Grisham is as a writer. I tend to collect those. I find an author and want to read everything they’ve published. James Lee Burke. Ken Follett. 

On this particular night, as I lay reading, I realized something—I have been sleeping under an old-fashioned, pieced quilt my entire life. As in, since I was a baby. Hand-stitched in somebody’s home.

For many years, it was made by my grandmother. I still have quilts she made. 

Anyway, it’s time to get around to the point of all this.  One of the most under-appreciated components of sports performance is sleep. You don’t have to take my word for it—the body of knowledge about sleep quality is huge and conclusive.

A good night’s sleep is absolutely essential to consistently high performance in our athletic endeavors.  It is a foregone conclusion that quality practice is necessary. Most athletes also know of the importance of regular strength training.

A few understand how important flexibility is and a few even realize how important the nutritional component of physical performance can be. Rare is the person that understands the value of sleep. 

There isn’t a formula for how much sleep is enough. Everyone is different.  It’s just sort of safe to say that you probably aren’t getting enough. There is a lot of evidence that you should go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time. That’s hard to do.

My advice is to shoot for 8 hours a night, don’t watch television (or any kind of electronic device) in bed, and avoid things like caffeine that can interfere with the quality of your sleep.

If you’re tired in the afternoon, it is likely either sleep or nutrition. Take care of the nutrition side and if you’re still sluggish in the afternoon, turn your attention to what you can do to have a better night’s sleep.