Despite barely being able to walk and over my parents' protests, I decided to attend school on Monday. If I stayed home, people might think me too injured to ever play again. Instead, stubborn, rock-headed teenage me hobbled around Streetsboro High's halls all day, showing everyone not only how badly the ribs hurt, but my almost infinite capacity for complete idiocy too (see, little changes over the course of one's life). Student and teacher reactions to the accident varied widely. As a junior, I'd led the team in scoring and rebounding, earned most improved player and second team all-league honors. People expected a lot from me, but no one expected more from me than myself. Many commiserated my misfortune, but others thought I got what I deserved and needed to be taken down several pegs. Some even remarked that the accident was God's punishment for believing I was better than everyone else.
No matter one's position on the wreck, the season continued. At the next game against Berlin Center, I found myself in a position I'd never imagined during my entire summer of basketball dreams: on the bench in street clothes, physically unable to play. The team, in a testament to its grit, heart and determination, pulled together to win. But, instead of the victory being our final tune-up before league games began, it started the beginning of our new season. After the game, Berlin Center's head coach spoke with me.
"You know," he said. "We prepared all week to defend you. I couldn't believe it when I saw you sitting on the bench. Sure, it was good for us that you didn't play, but I hope you get better. I know how hard you've worked and I'd hate for you to lose your senior season."
That Friday, I sat the bench again -- the doctor estimated a full recovery would take until January (more than half the season) -- as we played Garfield. In the pre-season team preview/showcase games which lasted one quarter, we drilled them. But tonight, we played like a completely different team. You can't remove a 6'3", all-league player, averaging twenty points and twelve rebounds from your line up and believe you'll be the same. Despite a valiant effort from John, who tossed in 28 points, we lost. As Garfield players drove to the hoop and scored, something that would never have happened with me patrolling the paint, Brabson slapped my thigh in frustration.
"Got $#@!%, Bado," he yelled. "I need you in there."
That weekend, Brabson and I traveled to Kent State, where KSU's trainer outfit me with a flak jacket. While bulky, uncomfortable and constraining, it protected the ribs, enabling me to return to the court. The doctor said it would be better for me to sit out, but, if I could stand the pain, playing wouldn't damage the ribs any further. The person inside me who practiced all summer didn't need to hear anything else. On Monday, I yanked on the flak jacket and gasped, winced and wheezed, struggling through the worst practice of my entire life. Nothing went right; nothing felt right. The team chemistry we possessed ten days ago disappeared. Recording my worst on-court performance since the sophomore tournament debacle, we lost the next game against Mogadore; another one we should have won. The reason for that failure, just like with the Garfield loss, looked at me every morning in the mirror.
The man in the mirror needed time to recover, but the season continued and I kept pulling on the flak jacket. The cracked ribs made it difficult to twist, bend and pivot, altering everything about how I played: how I shot, jumped, ran and defended the opposition. An injury can change you physically, but not mentally, unless you let it. After a while, the pain didn't matter, only pushing through it did. At the end of practices and games, I felt terrible, but during them, the more time I spent on the court, the more the pain diminished and the better I felt.
Struggling through the second quarter of a contest the next week against Woodridge -- the third one since returning from the injury -- I dove onto the floor for a loose ball. Even with cracked ribs, I often played more like a football player than a basketball one. A Woodridge guy went for the ball too, landing beside me as it bounced out of bounds. As I pushed off the court, he rolled toward me, slamming an elbow into the hardwood. That elbow, of course, had been no accident: it missed my ribs by a couple inches. Considering the incident, I stared at someone, who, in his drive to win, would resort to almost anything and something inside me snapped. Striding to our bench, I yanked off my jersey, unbuckled the flak jacket and tossed it on a chair. If you want to come after me, I thought, bring it on.
I scored the next ten points; we won the game by one.
Unlike a Hollywood movie, there's no magic ending to this story. Because, despite our best efforts, we never recaptured that first game magic. Struggling to gel for the remainder of the 1981-82 campaign, we won some and lost some, never building any real momentum and finishing the season one game under .500. Thanks to me, we failed to become the first winning team at Streetsboro since the league championship squad and also missed our goal of at least fifteen wins by five games. Those five defeats and several others, could be laid at my size fourteen feet.
Finally back to full strength/mobility by the season's last month, I finished third in the league in scoring and first in rebounding, too little, too late. For, in addition to missing our team goals, I missed my personal ones too: averaging eighteen and a half points instead of more than twenty and twelve rebounds, not fifteen. Once again, I would have met both those targets easily if not for my woeful driving and poor choices. My actions also cost John well-deserved, all-league, first-team honors; he got selected for the league's second team instead.
Almost thirty years after my private lesson, my mom dropped off a box of sundry stuff she'd saved from my high school "glory" days. It contained this letter to my parents from Streetsboro's Principal, Dick Clapp, a note I'd never seen before.
"Knowing how hard Jim worked to polish his abilities and, of course, the adversity that he had to overcome after his accident, his recognition as first team all PCL is truly an outstanding accomplishment. He could have used his bad ribs as an excuse not to perform, but instead he worked harder and earned, I believe, the respect of the league's other coaches."
Thanks to the power of pure, stupid determination and the support of countless people who helped and believed in me -- like my parents, teammates, friends and coaches -- I never once considered giving up: excuses were for losers.
****
Finishing my short story, I looked at our pony-tailed 6th grade players sitting on Trinity Lutheran's hardwood. I wanted all of them to realize that adversity, sometime, somewhere, somehow, would challenge them, maybe many times.
"So, girls," I said, "no matter what happens in the game, just play through it. Back when I faced adversity, my coach believed in me and I want you to always remember that we, all the coaches, believe in you."
"You're going to face adversity on the court," added JR, "and you're also going to face it in your life. If you can learn how to manage yourself on the court, that's going to help you deal with adversity in your life. And that's what this is really all about."
"Coach is right," Mark added. "We've never yelled at you, not once, for missing a shot. Or pulled you out of a game for making a mistake, have we? But what have we yelled at you for?"
"Not shooting," the girls replied, laughing.
"That's right," Mark grinned. "Take the shot when you're open, make the pass, try to make a play. Don't worry about making a mistake. Believe in yourself, keep trying, fight through the adversity and you'll get better. And, if you can learn that lesson in basketball, you'll be able to apply it to your life."
JR and Mark's sage comments rang especially true for me.
While I'd never wish it on anyone, the "private lesson" I received from that car crash almost three decades ago made me stronger. In many ways, the crash ruined everything about my senior season, destroying what we'd worked so hard to achieve, but, like adversity often does, it revealed character. It may sound stupid, but I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. Facing the adversity of three cracked ribs forced me decide whether I would give up or keep fighting.
And when you're faced with those two options, there's really no choice at all is there?
