The Bad News Bears of Basketball

Baseball has always been my game. I have been playing some variation of it ever since I can remember. Being of Italian decent means that I do not have the requisite height to play the sport of basketball. Sure I could hit an outside shot from time to time but, I am the first to admit my skills in the game are limited.

My senior year at Argo I lucked out in that I had a number of friends in the class with me. So, everytime we picked teams for sports we would make sure one of us was the captain and while all the other teams were picking the best jocks we picked all of our friends. We didn’t win a whole lot of games in any sport really (other then floor hockey in which I believe we won the class championship) but I would have to say basketball was by far our worst collective sport.

Our team to the best of my memory always included the same group of people. Myself, Zar, Chuck, Scott Palmer, Russell Gibson, (who always begged to picked on our team for some unknown reason) Dave Pankow (who would bitch when we picked him but then would goof around with the rest of us two minutes after the teams were picked) and Jim Edwards (who was a nice guy who no other team wanted because he was not athletic and didn’t give a shit. Meaning he fit into our team perfectly.)

At the time Argo was a basketball juggernaut. Our varsity team just did not lose. We had a couple of guys from the team in our gym class. Mr. Rutkowski was our gym teacher and he knew what was up. But, he was a pretty easy going guy so he just let us do our thing and give us all B’s as long as we dressed. As you could have predicted as soon as the gym class games in basketball started we got our asses handed to us on a regular basis.

So, when we up against the team with Andy Summers (not the guy in the Police) and Steve Nelson (who were both jocks) they pretty much figured they were going to have an easy win. (I wish to God I could remember who else we played that fateful day but this was over twenty years ago.) But the stars were with us on this winter morning in 1987. And we pulled off an upset that was on par with 1980 US Hockey team.

I was the point guard of the team, and I could do no wrong that day. Everyone I passed the ball to was hitting their shots. Chuck had his patented hook shot that he was on fire with. We had Pankow crashing the boards. Scott Palmer was hitting jumpers like he was Dr. J. Zar, God love him was about the worst basketball player alive. He was great at hockey but he just never played the game growing up. But we needed five guys on the floor, so while the rest us played the whole game, Zar, Edwards and Gibson all substituted in and out.

Like I mentioned we were playing the game of our lives. We were holding our own against the jocks. It was back and forth the whole way. When Mr. Rutkowski blew the whistle the game would be over. Well, when the whistle sounded Chuck had just hit another hook shot and had tied the game. So, Mr. Rukowski let us play overtime meaning the next basket wins. I remember what happened next like it was yesterday. To this day Chuck and I still talk about it like we are from the cast of that Championship Season.

The jocks had the ball and one of them took a shot and missed. Pankow rebounded the ball and threw it back to me. It was a half court game and the rule is you have to take it back before you can proceed with your offense which is what I did. The jocks were playing monster defense. They knew I was trying to get it into Dave, Scott or Chuck. So, they basically left Zar who was in the game, unguarded. I had no choice so I threw the ball into Zar.

I was hoping he would just pass it back to me. But instead Zar, dribbled once to his left and threw up the ugliest, hardest running shot you will ever see, that by some miracle went right into the hoop. We celebrated like we had just won the NBA finals. My favorite memory was Andy, (who despite being a jock was actually a pretty cool guy) after the game was over telling me, “I can’t believe we lost to you guys and that shot went in.”

It is one of those memories that will be with me forever as Chuck and I still reminisce about that game like it was yesterday. We still marvel at the sight of that shot going in and the joy it brought our seventeen year old asses. We didn’t win another game the rest of the year in gym class while we had basketball. It didn’t matter we had already won a game that we would remember for the rest of our lives.