...team waits for no man...
“It's not so much what one person does. It's what we do as a team.”
-Ken Griffey Jr.-
My senior year of high school the varsity basketball coach came to me as he was ready to make the final pick of player #9 of 9 for the team. “Why”, he asked, “Why do you want to do this? Isn’t there anything better you can do with your time?”.
I knew right then and there I had made the team.
I wasn’t chosen for my athletic abilities or my inherent sense for the game. I had no pedigree on which to lace my sneakers, but I had a skill that he knew the team might be lacking.
I didn’t care.
I didn’t care if I made this team. I didn’t care if I played one minute of real varsity basketball. I didn’t care if you dunked on me. I didn’t care that I wasn’t good enough.
Because I knew I was the best.
I was the best that ever played the game. Some would say I was riding pine, but the way I saw I was riding redwood. I was riding gold chains and leather lightning. I was playing a one on five game of sweat soaked shaggy street ball shaking Shaq with my degree in ballonomics.
I wasn’t a benchwarmer, I was bench lava.
I made the team. There wasn’t going to be a team without me. “There is no I in team” they say. Wrong. Starting now, we spell team T-I-M-E. They said “that is how you spell time” and I shook my head yes.
This is my TIME (team).
I passed out in my first practice. A summer spent playing video games, pretending to build model rockets, and yelling at my sisters prepared me for this moment. I ran a series of sprints, turned to the coach and the color BLACK ate my eyeballs before setting me to sleep mode on the oily rubber stained hardwood floor. I woke up to the practice session having been completed. Day one was a total success. No one expected me to perform the way I did but here I was on the court while everyone else had gone home.
You can’t stop what doesn’t start.
I didn’t start one game that season because I didn’t need to. The coach knew that just by having me watch the game we had the ultimate advantage. I was an expert watcher. I watched TV. I watched birds in my backyard. I watched my weight, my words and time going by.
I watched my time go by.
I watched my team go back and forth and up and down. They ran the court offensively in full disrespect of cultural standards, then hustled back defensively attempting to justify their behavior. When the outcome was near complete the coach would look long down the bench and whistle for me to enter. He celebrated our success by letting me encore our team’s performance.
It was my time.
I’d knock twice on my head and twice on the court to ensure the flowing of apotropaic magic, and also to be certain I still had hands and a head. The fans were so certain of my success they often celebrated my entrance into the game with a ritualistic popcorn and cheer stained walk to the exit. I ran up and down the court for the remaining minute in a spasmodic hunched fever, jumping for every loose ball and attacking like a Honey Island Swamp Monster.
The game clock started to click down to the final seconds….3…2…1…but I was a team player so I decided to beat the clock and killed time knowing that the team was on my side. I clocked that clock until I had too much time on my hands and then I let time heal my wounds and wrapped my bleeding palms in dollar store Casios until the ref signaled the game ended with a whistle and a wave of both hands in the air.
But the game wasn’t over.
I stole the ball from the referee and dribbled sweat and gatorade down my chin. I faked a pass in his direction before running as fast as I could out of the gym. I ran the halls of the school. I ran out the emergency exit. I ran back in the exit. I ran back out again. I ran around the school and into the hallway and into the gym and I gave the ref back his ball and apologized profusely for my mistake.
I tossed my uniform into the team hamper and avoided the group shower because I wasn’t ready for such a clean commitment. Instead I took a big sniff and stank it all in. I stunk.
I stunk like a winner.
I knocked on the glass door of my coach’s office and he let me in. “Why?”, I asked. “Why did you want me to do this? What else could I have done with my time?” He said “Are we talking about time or team? Because I’m really confused by how you use those two words interchangeably.” I nodded my head no because I was also confused by that. I needed to shower and do math homework. I left the office and tucked my sneakers into a blue aluminum combo lock cubby.
The game was definitely over.
The word TEAM means a group of persons working together for some purpose (and also a set of draft animals yoked together). You can’t passively join a team. You or the team need to find each other. Then you or the team need to commit to each other. It is a team commitment and also a time commitment. 9 people tried out for that high school basketball team. And when it came time to choose player #9, the coach chose me. He could have chosen anyone.
But he chose me.
He chose me because he had to. He had to because Minnesota high school basketball rules said you had to have at least 9 players on your team. He knew I would make the team complete. He knew that team could not exist without me.
You are a part of a team as much as it is a part of you. You may be given a role, or told that it is totally ok if you skip the games and practices and do something else with your time.
But what is most important is that you know when it is your team (time).
And your time (team).
Bench lava hahaha. That describes my one year of college basketball perfectly.
Awesome post Cansafis. Very true that when you’re a part of a team, it’s best to fully own it :)