Doc

The other night after Korean class I walked to Lotte Mart, which is kind of like the Korean Fred Meyer’s and bought a basketball. It is made of rubber, needs additional air and features three atypical basketball colors- red, black and yellow. Yes it is cheap, but with the money I saved I was able to buy a softserve ice cream cone for the walk home.


I love basketball and when I lived in Portland three years ago I was playing four to five times a week. I was a member at an athletic club close to where I worked and there was a steady game Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and another Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. I was also in a Monday night league with a group of college buddies. The morning games were my favorite. I was the youngest player in the group by about 20 years, but the old fellas really knew how to move the ball around and a couple of them could flat out shoot.

There was a sports psychologist whom everyone called “Doc” since there were about three or four Mikes. He was 5-9 in both age and height and walked with a little hunch. He was lights out from all spots, but his favorite was a good three feet behind the arc straight on. He had an unorthodox shot and would stand there with the ball at the top dribbling nonchalantly pretending to look for an open man, but the truth was he never passed. He would lean and step in with his right foot, ball at the hip and flick his wrist faster than even I, with my young whippersnapper legs, could close out. If you took away his jumper he would drive, jumpstop, leave you caught in the air with a ball fake, and gently toss it in from unconceivable angles. The pinky on Doc’s right hand was bent outward at a 45 degree angle so that if he held it outstretched with the back of the hand facing in, the digit would point east rather than north. He joked and said that it was from so many times catching his hand on the rim during a dunk. Sometimes when Doc would get on a hot streak, the other players would joke, “Sure those shots are easy to make when you’ve got a finger that goes like that!” which was always pretty funny to me even at 6 in the morning.

One morning when I wasn’t there the guys finished up their game and Doc complained of shoulder pain. He had a heart attack and dropped to the floor sweaty in his shorts and Nikes. He died that day in the hospital. I went to his funeral in a Jewish synagogue and during the service the rabbi asked for everyone in attendance who had ever played basketball with Mike (they didn’t know him as Doc like our small group did) to stand. Damn near every male in that crowd aged ten and upward rose. It was a powerful scene and really proved that the kind smiling guy I knew for a few fleeting hours every other morning died doing what he loved most. Later, a man told a story about a charity auction where at one point they were auctioning off sponsorships to a camp of some kind for underprivileged children. As Doc raised his mangled right hand in an act of generosity, the auctioneer called out, “Put Mike down for four and a half.”

A few months after Mike died I was promoted from within my company and moved to Eugene. I was never able to find a consistent game even though I joined the YMCA and bought a nice new pair of shoes. Sure there would be a group of kids playing every now and then but it wasn’t the same as when you have a group that knows how to play together and trusts each teammate to make a smart decision. I played less and less, but always figured that I would pick it up again. By the time I gave it a shot I was in Arizona visiting my brother. A college friend from Phoenix let me run in his bi-weekly game and I was appalled by my severely deteriorated skills and physique. That was the last time I touched a basketball until the ghastly rubber thing I purchased along with an ice cream the other day.

It is going to take baby steps to shake off the rust, but we don’t have any big weekend plans from now until our vacation starts January 17th. Yes, it will be cold outside, but so far it has been milder here than last year. As long as there is no snow I should be ok. Being as hoops is not looked upon as a major sport in this country, I doubt I will be able to find a game. Even if Koreans did take a liking to it, ninety five percent of the people I know here are in 3rd or 5th grade. Still, I will be able to practice my set shot from way behind the arc and my jumpstop and lay-ins from impossible angles. I’ll just have to remember to be careful and avoid catching my fingers on the rim.