After 4.5 Long Years

Growing up, pretty much all I did was play basketball. Andrew Hill and I played dunkball on my driveway for hours on end. We played in the rain, the snow, before school, after school, etc. In addition to dunkball, Ty and I played ball up at the Roosevelt building. We routinely woke up at 6 am on Saturday mornings (even during the sleep-in years of highschool) to go play ball. For whatever reason, basketball never got old for me.

Then, in some strange twist of fate, during my senior year of highschool I dislocated my right shoulder. While dislocating a shoulder hurts like hades, the most painful part for me was that it kept me from playing basketball. The dislocations continued and eventually, 4 months before I left on my mission, I had rotator cuff surgery (plus a little more) on my right shoulder. I stayed away from the game for the first year of my mission. With time, however, I allowed my cravings to get the best of me and played on New Year's Day of 2003. Shortly after that I dislocated my left shoulder and continued to do so until finally in the fall of 2005 I had shoulder surgery on my left shoulder.

Considering that Kristin and I have been poor starving college students our entire 4 years of marriage (and the fact one surgery runs $6,000), I have stayed conservative and not played basketball. At all.

Until, that is, Christmas Eve of this year. The past few months I've lifted weights to strengthen my shoulders and on the 22nd of December Scott Jacobsen invited me to play basketball on Xmas Eve. I jokingly told him I'd come - to which he replied with a version of "stop getting my hopes up" (Scott has endured 4.5 long years of asking me to play and always receiving a negative response).

Kris and I got talking about the offer and came to the conclusion that the weight lifting combined with some reserved play on my part might make me basketball eligible. I mean, you can't allow a shoulder injury to hold you down forever, right? So, I played. And it was a blast. Sure, there's a bunch of rust from the 4.5 year layoff - but it was still a blast. Scott was so surprised by my appearance that he snapped an Iphone photo for proof:


Let's hope the shoulders hold together. Kristin gave me the best Xmas present of the year by pushing me out the door on Xmas Eve. If it weren't for her, I'd still be waiting to step out on the court. Thanks, Kris.