Grounded by a Goal
Baked into the once translucent backboard in index finger printing, “GEORGE WAS HERE” lives loud and proud. The lonely hoop in the driveway is faded orange and rusting out. A raggedy net, two-toned by grime, hangs half attached, the whole thing looking tired and worn, but happy. Like it did what it came to do.
And oh, what it has done.
The basketball goal was one of the first additions made to our home when we bought it thirty plus years ago. You can tell a lot about a place by what sits—or stands—outside the backdoor. We wanted to outfit a dwelling that we could live toward.
When our kids were small, the adjustable pole, that came with a hand crank for (supposedly easy) raising and lowering, was a tool for grooving perfect shooting form. We (Dane) would muscle the hoop down to about six feet so our kindergartener wouldn’t have to hoist the regulation-size ball up from the hip. Our little guy would rinse and repeat: “toe in-step relationship, swing your purse, cock-and-lock.” Then, with the ball in the wrinkles-in-wrist ready pocket, he’d reach up into the cookie jar sending the pebbled leather spinning off his fingers toward the rim. Despite a life in the bowels of the game, I (the designated rebounder) was always amazed at how strange the cylinder looked up-close. Foreign almost. Hard and unforgiving. But when viewed at near eye level, it seemed oddly like a thing almost impossible to miss.
As the children grew taller, so did the hoop. From early elementary to about sixth or seventh grade, it served as an after-school neighborhood magnet. Kids from down the street, around the corner, and some from miles away would end up in the driveway ready for a game. On the cement court anchored by a now eight-foot goal, boys and girls who loved to play chose sides and checked the ball between possessions. They called their own fouls, kept their own scores and seldom finished a game without a fight. Through bloodied knees and elbows, busted lips and occasional black eyes, they figured out a way to get along—at least along enough to keep on playing. Sunset would send some slumping down the driveway dragging dinged-up egos. Dusk would escort others home to dinner on the wings of bragging rights. Then they’d all come back—no matter what shape they were in when they left—for more on the following day. The outdoor hoop stood stoic as a predictable prop they could fashion their becoming against.
When high school rolled around, the goal in the driveway morphed into a hub for historic games of Twenty-one. Friends would battle, siblings would fight, sometimes the trash cans would be used as screens. The court also housed epic H-O-R-S-E competitions complete with trick shots—from behind the truck, left-handed . . . out of the flower bed, eyes closed. Then the kids, now strong enough to crank it, would lower the goal from ten to eight and become Michael in their minds. A tomahawk dunk from the free throw line . . .a 360 from a full sprint . . . a lofty alley-oop along the baseline. On an eight-foot hoop a not-quite six-foot kid could do it all. The backdoor was rarely darkened until a buzzer beater was nailed in the glow of a lantern light.
Through the years, the adjustable goal doubled as a space for flirting and a prop for holding on to as adults-in-the-making worked their post-adolescent problems out. It was a trusted companion who listened without talking back.
Our outdoor hoop was where the kids got to mix and match who they once had been with who they dreamed they’d be.
George WAS there. For a bit.
So was Cassie. And Tommy. And Sammy and Marco and Chloe and Matt and Will.
A glance out the window is all it takes to see them coming of age. That weathered hoop continues to do what it was meant to do.