Rounding the Bases (Part 1)

This is a series of three columns that took third place for Sports Column writing at the 2009 Wyoming Press Association awards.

By BRENDAN BURNETT-KURIE

It’s a few minutes after midnight and I’m sitting upright on the couch in my pitch-dark living room. My body is sapped off all strength, muscles screaming, and I can’t stand up. I don’t know whether this is comedy or tragedy.

I contemplate my situation for a few minutes. Where’s my LifeAlert when I need it? I am that little old lady feebly moaning “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” After a cacophony of grunts, grimaces and groans I maneuver myself into a standing position, but not without solid contributions from the arm rest and my coffee table.

As I stumble into my bedroom and belly flop onto my bed, I can’t believe I’ve gotten myself into this again.

Last year, in a misguided attempt at displaying my athletic prowess, I attended a girls basketball practice, and proceeded to be humiliated and humbled by the tenacity of the session. I found myself in the parking lot on a cold, bitter November morning reliving my previous night’s dinner.

So, of course, as any sane-minded individual would do, I decided to up the ante. In order to truly show off my soft-as-butter jumper and Tim Hardaway-esque cross-over, I needed to play with the boys.

In actuality, here was my thinking: The girls practice was part of two-a-days, and it was entirely conditioning, 30-something stations of sweat-inducing sacrifice to get in shape for a long season. The boys practice was an after-school practice, and was on Wednesday, making it shorter than a usual practice. So by having time to stand around and learn the offense and breaks while watching drills, plus a shortened time-span, this should be no sweat.

On Thursday, in 30 degree winds, I had to wear sandals because I was too sore to put socks on. I spent five good minutes rolling around on my back on my bed trying to let gravity bend my leg for me so I could slip a sock on. Needless to say, they kicked my butt again.

Now I’m sure I’m expected to make determination about which practice was harder. In actuality, they both almost killed me and made me question how I would make it through five of them a day back in high school. I can say this, I was certainly in much worse shape the day after the boys practice than the girls. But that has to be qualified. The girls practice was at six in the morning, while the boys was at 5 p.m. Plus, I cheated more at the girls practice, not properly doing exercises and slacking whenever possible.

Maybe it was some subconscious testosterone forcing me to look strong with the boys, but I can honestly say I tried harder to do everything up to par.

But even if I had tried to slack while lining up with the Bearcat ballers, it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.

First came the half hour that will make me hate trainer Darrel Dryden for the rest of my life. What he’s doing for these kids, as he did for the volleyball team, in indispensable. There is no doubt in my mind it will make for fitter, more prepared teams. But, I considered taking a dumbbell across his face 20 minutes into practice.

First, he had us take 20 pound weights (I ended up with 30, thanks guys) and do leg dips while holding one in each hand. Three sets of 12 dips. About 27 dips in I remember distinctly as Bill Cosby walked up, removed my legs, replaced them with Jell-O and asked one of the freshman to say a darnedest thing.

Then came the circus equipment. Dryden paraded out three black stands, the kind that elephants would cram four legs onto while hanging out with Barnham and Bailey. I don’t know how tall they actually were, but in my mind they were approximately 17 feet in height. First, I had to jump up onto each one. Oh, I forgot, the fourth one was taller. I kept waiting to catch the toes of my new Jordans on the lip of the final, metal, stand and then spend the next five minutes collecting bits of molar off the carpet.

After more sets of jumping every which way, we stretched. I’ve never enjoyed stretching more. It was cathartic, splendid. But soon we left the soothing world of stretching and met in the gym for shooting and dribbling drills. Other than not understanding most of the drills I was taking part in (and occasionally causing mass confusion) I thought I was doing all right.

A couple more drills, taking passes at the the three point line and shooting or shot-faking. I decided not to unveil those hot-buttered rolls I call jumpers, instead bringing only my erratic, two-handed heaver.

It was the weave that got me. Merely an hour into practice I had just finished running a three-man weave up and down the court twice with assistant coaches Brandon Gilbreath and Michael Felton. We were supposed to do one more. Not me. I bolted.

I ran out the door under the staircase at the back of the gym. I took two steps to my right, towards the bathroom near the desk. I quickly thought ‘I’ll have to aim.’ I quickly spun, probably my best ankle-breaking cut of the night, and bee-lined for the door.

All I can hear is Rob Colomb hollaring “We got a puker!”

I burst out the door a frantic mess. I have destroyed all photo proof. To the janitors: I am very sorry about your door and courtyard. I truly am.

Amazingly, I after some time spent freshening up in the lavatory (you don’t want me to be any more specific), I returned and made it through the remainder of practice unscathed. In fact, by the end I was feeling so good I decided to stick around play several full-court games of pickup ball.

I finally got home around 8:30, scarfed down most of a frozen pizza in a pathetic attempt to return strength to my ailing body. I fell asleep on the coach. Just after midnight I awake and 48 hours of tottering around like a pigeon commence.