But more than viewing, I still love playing the game. I've discovered, much to my glee, that my little town of Bowdoin has pick up games on Thursday evenings in the world's tiniest gym. I've become a regular.
We play about 3 games of full court, 3-on-3 or at times 4-on-4. It is generally all guys and me; sometimes another woman or 2 appear. It doesn't matter, as long as we can get the game on. There is no other feeling like hitting an outside jumper, giving a clean stuff, or slapping high-5s or low-5s after a sweet hook up. It doesn't matter that most of the guys are a decade or more younger than me, or that I avoid the paint and rebounding to retain the use of all of my digits (2 of my fingers no longer function to full capacity after 35 years of hooping it up with the boys). It doesn't matter that they have 50 t0 100 pounds on me or 3 foot vertical jumping capacity. It doesn't even matter that we always revert to playing with the men's sized basketball even though in college I played using the smaller women's ball, making it lighter to shoot and easier to dribble. It doesn't matter that we ignore the out of bounds lines and play to the concrete wall instead.
What does matter is this: I bring my game and am certain the boys are happy to see me lacing up my hightops. More often than not my team comes out winners, which I also enjoy. But even more importantly than that, we are all laughing, sweating and giving it our all for that precious hour or so when we take the court each Thursday night and live for the sensation of the swish.
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