A Mental Re-Birth of My Basketball Career

A Mental Re-Birth of My Basketball Career

It was warming up in Medford as spring approached.  I lifted weights outside and soaked up the sun’s rays.  Gil and Jamie were still on my mind but I knew I couldn’t let them overwhelm me.  I trusted that God had a plan for me, and I was going to fulfill it.  Being a regular student at Maine for a while, I realized that life wasn’t for me.  It was too boring and it seemed like all anybody did was party and drink.   

Outside one day, I picked up a basketball and started dribbling.  I was immediately transported back to my freshman year of high school, shooting in the cold, trying to get as many minutes as I could on the JV team.  I thought about how life took some weird turns, but at that moment the smell and feeling of the ball in my hands felt so good.

I kept dribbling, eventually walking out to the street in front of the house.  For over an hour, I did the same dribbling drills I performed years earlier, mixing in different moves like there was someone playing defense on me.  My handle was horrible, but after every dribble I felt myself getting it back ever so slightly.  When I finished dribbling, I shot for a few minutes in the driveway.  It felt amazing, and I wondered why I had given this up in the first place. 

Following the psychiatrist’s advice, I tried to exercise as much as possible.  It gave me a sense of power after every session, also providing me with clarity of what I wanted to do in the future.    

An interesting thing about my life was that when I played basketball, I’d typically eat very well that day.  Even when I was nearly broke, it was like I gave myself permission to eat.  When I didn’t play, I was very frugal and worried about every dime I had.  From this realization, I thought, Things are good when I play basketball.  

This turned out to be a mental re-birth of my basketball career.