Forever Young

There is one seemingly beneficial part to being a professional athlete and it’s not the free shoes, or the money or the glory, or even getting to exercise for a living. The real benefit is getting ridiculous amounts of credit for doing normal everyday things, like taking two seconds to be nice to a little kid, or donating some money to charity, or being able to read as well as write. The bar is set pretty low. Being cordial to people or speaking in complete sentences, or staying out of jail is enough to get crowned a true role model. They’ll practically organize a parade in your honor.

‘It is really nice and sensitive of me to sign an autograph for a kid in a wheelchair,’ I could think to myself and someone would probably agree. Yet it is kind of insulting to get praise for really basic things. It’s like high fiving a kid with Down syndrome when they bounce a ball successfully; the kid doesn’t realize that the applause isn’t because they are good at dribbling; the applause is because they are disabled. That’s kind of how I feel about athletes getting credit for not being assholes.

The funny thing is, though I know people appreciate that I can talk about something other than shooting percentages and zone defense, all they really want to talk about is just that. Men especially. I should probably write a book about this: if they really want attention from men, women should spend less time on their hair and makeup and more time understanding sports. I can count on one hand the times I’ve told men what I do and didn’t get challenged to a game of one on one. If we are watching a game, they’ll want to talk about why the team is switching the ball screens, and mismatches and ball rotation. I mean its fine with me, its just amusing that they’ll want to talk incessantly about my job; details about the European leagues, and how agents and contracts and players work within the system is endlessly fascinating to them. Then they want to tell me how good they were at (enter sport) until they hurt their knee or had a bad coach or stopped growing. I resist telling them barriers aren’t unique to them.

They also really enjoy discussing how terrible Shaq is at free throws, making themselves feel superior to him in one arena. ‘If I someone was paying me that much money, I’d be good at it,” as if getting money for something ever made someone better at it. I try not to bring up the fact that there is probably one part of their job that they suck at too, some things are just too obvious to point out.

And I won’t bring up the fact that Shaq graduated from college either. Because, well graduating is what you are supposed to do, especially when someone is paying for your education. Shock and awe went through the sports world because an athlete actually valued education enough to study. I mean I get it; he’s a billionaire and doesn’t need the degree; it is kind of cool. But honestly, let’s not throw him a parade.

But I digress. Sometimes I feel like playing sports is just an excuse to live a life of extended adolescence. It’s this odd dichotomy of expectations; we want athletes to perform heroically on the court, but off the court, God forbid they get any real responsibilities. This of course isn’t a phenomenon limited to sports: after all we send young men and women to fight our wars, to defend our country, to bear the responsibility of keeping us all safe. These same people we might be reluctant to let baby sit our children or balance our checkbook. I guess if you really get down to it though, I doubt my ophthalmologist would make a good backcourt mate; I probably wouldn’t draft my dentist first in a game of dodge ball. Maybe singular focus really is better.

In college, they really did want us to be singularly focused. That’s why they did most everything for us: for four years I didn’t do laundry or cook, I didn’t set up doctor’s appointments or even drive to them, I didn’t buy my books or wait in line to get my books. I did do my own homework though, which is probably more than some athletes can say. It was really nice to have the help, since juggling school and basketball felt like two full time jobs. Now? I juggle basketball with going for coffee, shopping for food, meditating, reading and playing poker with other athletes.

Most basketball players living abroad have very few real responsibilities off the court. This is partly because of the language barriers, partly because we can move teams every year, every half year, or even more regularly that that, and partly because we are entitled little shits who have had everything done for us for so long, we forget that its not normal. If my electricity goes out, I call someone to call an electrician, if I get a bill for utilities, I pass it on to my manager, if I need a bank account, I have someone come to hold my hand, if I break out in hives, its someone else’s responsibility to find me a specialist.

I’m wondering if at some point, the real world is going to be a shock.

Sometimes I finish practice and I think to myself never in my life would I have thought that at 28 years old, my workday would consist of 2 hours of playing basketball; then I go take a nap.

Athletics is all or nothing I guess. Because my job is intense, you can’t do it all day. So, we have a lot of down time. Way more than adults are really supposed to have. Once again, it’s adolescence all over again. When we are on the court, we are fully there, we aren’t procrastinating with online shopping, or sneaking looks at facebook, text messaging during meetings or any of the things I imagine make up an 8-hour workday. Our job might be only 4 hours on the court, but it gets every part of us. And yet when practice is over, we fall back into this life that most of us are really too old to be living.

Let me put it like this: if I had American television, I could literally sit around half the day and watch ‘Days of our Lives’, then ‘Jerry Springer’, then ‘Oprah’. Then I’d go to ‘work again’ and come home in time to watch prime time. Its not that I do this, or would do this, its that I have enough time to do this. Sometimes I find it difficult to believe that I have a schedule that would allow me to be engrossed daily with ‘As the World Turns.’

It should be noted, however that I am writing all this after two wins. The same entry written after two losses might read a little different. The title would probably be something along the lines of ‘why would anyone willingly chose athletics as a profession?’ Then I’d go on to explain how torturous it is to have free time when all you have to think about is a loss, or I’d elaborate on how I either have a screw loose or masochist tendencies to continue with this lifestyle. But today is a good day, so I’m writing from a happy place.

I make fun of the ridiculous side of this life and yet professional athletes have developed some extraordinary skills. The discipline required to play a sport is pretty difficult to match. Some people think we have a limited amount of discipline available to us; if we use it up in one area of our lives, it often runs out in other parts. I don’t know if I believe this totally but looking at athletes, it sure would explain a lot. Athletes deal with a tremendous amount of pressure. The discipline just to stay in shape, to push your body, to rest your body, to fuel your body, to ice and stretch and get through days when even muscle in your body is screaming at you to stop. The stress is acute at times: when its game day and all your psychic energy is focused on 40 minutes. Or the stress is more underlying when you have two practices and weight lifting and to get through the day you do nothing else but eat, drink and sleep. Its probably why most athletes have a juvenile side to them; they play video games or go to the clubs or spend more time downloading music than any grown person should admit to.

This is not to mention the extreme adaptability and flexibility that is required to make this job into a career. All players are one mercurial team owner away, or one injury away, or one loss away from not having a job. There is also the annual summer unemployment waiting game, the hope that some team in some part of the world will want to pay you to throw a ball around a court. Its not like we can really go down to the state unemployment office if it doesn’t work out. We gave up that right the moment we signed our first contract.

But assuming these things are taken care of: you have a job, you are healthy, your team is paying, the life of a professional athlete isn’t that different from that of a teenager. It’s just a team in charge instead of your parents. In exchange for housing, transportation, money, and a group of people that are supposed to help me navigate my way through a foreign culture I am required to show up for practice, do what my coach wants, and win basketball games. I’m not kidding when I say my team could give me a curfew, put me on restriction, ground me on the bench, or take away my allowance. I’m at the mercy of my team; I don’t have the freedom of a set schedule, practice times change on a whim, We aren’t given warning for interviews or photo shoots or doctor’s appointments, days off are few and far between and never set in stone. It’s difficult to feel like an adult sometimes.

These are the things I think about in between practices and naps. Living this life as an adult athlete has developed some characteristics in me that I am grateful for. I’ve learned more about myself and life in general the past few years than any formal education could ever teach me. I’m thankful that I’ve been able to play the sport I love and make a living and I really truly believe athletics has the capacity to develop wonderful things in a person. But then there is this other side of sports I hate: the atrophied expectations for behavior and responsibility. Most athletes are caught up in a world of black and white. On the court, we have more responsibility and pressure than most people might think is healthy. Off the court, society allows us the privilege of low expectations that we all too often accept. I mean really, let’s not get all excited when athletes act like productive members of society.

PS.Here are some pics of me being a productive member of society :) or maybe just playing poker and hanging with my teammates at a taverna.