Lofty Goals

As I continue my journey of recovering from an ankle sprained twice within two months (January and February), I have worked my way back onto the basketball court at the campus rec center. Rest assured, I am only shooting free throws and practicing my 180-degree turnaround fall-away jumper, and I am consistently turning down all requests to even out odd-numbered groups of Chinese graduate students who want to get a pickup game going.

Tonight I had to resist the extra special incentive for trying to get in a pickup game when I saw various members of the Iowa State men's basketball team taking on all challengers. While standing on the sideline I got this picture of Calvin Godfrey putting up a jumper while fellow freshmen Jordan Railey and a partially-obscured Melvin Ejim look on.

There is something oddly intriguing about wanting to get in a game like this just so I could someday tell my future children, "Hey, see that guy with the name Godfrey playing professional basketball on TV? He dunked on me once at the Rec! Awesome, right!?!?"

The sky's the limit, baby. The sky's the limit.

Biking on the Rebound

With the Iowa temperatures creeping up into the seasonably Spwingter zone of the mid-forties, we got the bicycles prepped and took a short ride out to the mall and back. Of course a bike ride to the mall is not complete without a stop at Cookies, Etc, followed by a stroll up and down the hallway to browse a little at GameStop and count the depressing number of vacant storefronts.

Fortunately I am in a healthy enough state to ride the bicycle. While the ankle band in this picture is intended to keep my pant leg from rubbing on the chain, I would probably be well-advised to also wear such a band with reflective warning tape next time I attempt to play basketball at the rec. The last time I tried a few weeks ago (without a warning band) I managed to sprain my right ankle for the second time in two months. Perhaps the reflective tape would have caused the other players to think "That ankle looks like trouble" and they would give it plenty of room for the foot to land and perhaps even lend a hand to help guide it squarely to the ground.

For some reason (like, oh, maybe the first time I rolled the same ankle just before New Year's), my brain failed to tell my right foot to straighten out for landing when I jumped for a rebound, and I came down on the side of it. Though I felt like I had rehabbed my ankle plenty since the first sprain, in hindsight I probably didn't spend enough time retraining my reflexes to react properly. As my physician told me, "you're not 19 anymore."

Perhaps it's time to put the basketball shoes away for awhile and focus on bicycle season.

Or in a few weeks when I feel like I'm ready to go again, I just need to remember that I'm an outside shooter, and let the 19 year old college kids deal with rebounding.