I must have watched this VHS tape (Michael Jordans Airtime) a thousand times. I can still remember every word.
I dreamed I was Michael Jordan everyday from 13 to 16. People called me Jordan in school. Mainly because I was the only guy playing basketball in my class. When I was 13 I played basketball 2 hours a day. In between classes at school. When I got home I shot the ball to the basket at my parents house. I shot untill it started to rain or when it was too dark to see. At that time I only lasted 2 months with a pair of sneakers. On sunday when the cool older guys came to play I started looking out of the window at 11 AM hoping that it was not going to rain at 1.30 PM. I went to the court at 1 and met with my friend Harry who’s house was next to the court. We started shooting. All the older guys came later because they were still hungover from the night before. And we played hard. We ran fastbreaks when the others were chilling in the grass. We just played outside not on a team. We were streetball legends. When we finally joined a club we were placed on the second team, but played in the same competition as the first team. We won by 80.
Playing with the older guys gave me supreme convidence playing in competition. It was misplaced because a lot of the guys were stronger, taller, faster or more skilled. Confidence and competitiveness makes up for a lot.
A couple of years later Jeroen M. joined my team. He is the ultimate competitor and it fueled me to go even harder. We started trashtalking to each other and opponents. I remember one time when we doubleteamed a good young pointguard and got the steal. And we told him about it the whole game. He didn’t want to look at us and lost the ball almost every posession. At practice Jeroen got in people’s face at least twice a year. Even though they were all nice guys and didn’t want any trouble. He just started messing with them. Staring them down, pushing them, calling names. They usely backed down, walked away and cursed a little bit, sometimes they even apoligized. It was Jeroen’s way to know who was tough and who was pussy. We almost never lost a game in practice unless we were on different teams.
This clip made me realize I’m not that competitive anymore. I think I lost every one-on-one shootaround with Jeroen N. this year and since about year or two I can’t really get bothered about losing a game in practice. This will end now. Wednesday I will win every game.
