Over-40 Pickup Basketball

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OVER-40 PICKUP BASKETBALL

Saturday mornings, 8:00 sharp (8:20 in practice), the rec center gym
Home page of a bunch of middle-aged men who should know better.
Maintained by "Coach" Ed Brannon, who was not asked to.

[ HOUSE RULES ] [ THE REGULARS ] [ INJURY REPORT ] [ THE STRETCHING LECTURE ] [ FALL SCHEDULE ]

Welcome to the gym.

I'm Ed. I'm 52, I sell commercial insurance, I have a bad left knee and a jump shot that was last reliable during the Carter administration. Every Saturday morning for the last eleven years, about fifteen of us, all over 40 (it's the rule), show up at the rec center and play full-court basketball until somebody's wife calls the front desk or the youth league needs the gym at 10:30, whichever comes first.

Nobody elected me coach. I got called "Coach" in 1993 because I was the one who brought the ball, and I've been trying to live up to it since, mainly by yelling "BOX OUT" at men who have known how to box out since before I met them. Nobody elected me webmaster either, but the youth league has a page and my son said "Dad, you guys could have a page," and so here we are. I made it in a program that came with the computer. If it looks like it was made by a 52-year-old insurance man, that's because it was.

New guys are welcome. Show up at 8. Bring a light shirt and a dark shirt. If you're under 40, sorry, there's a noon game for you people and we'd rather not see what you can do.

House Rules

Posted on the gym wall since 1991 on a piece of poster board that has been taped back together more times than my knee. Typed up here for the record.

Over 40. No exceptions. We had a 38-year-old sneak in for a month in '96 and he ran everybody into the floor. If you look under 40, bring ID. Nobody has ever had to.
Games to 11, by ones, win by two. First game of the day to 15. Twos count one, threes count two. There is a three-point line. It is mostly decorative.
Call your own fouls. The man who got fouled calls it. Nobody argues a call. Nobody. If you think it's a bad call, you make a face, and then you check the ball in and play. The face is allowed.
Winners stay. Losers sit. If there are more than 10 of us, the next five are up, by order of arrival. Winners can stay three games and then they sit whether they like it or not, because at our age the third game is when things go wrong. See Injury Report.
No dunking. This rule has never been enforced because it has never been tested. Not once. Not in eleven years. It's on the wall in case.
No full-court press. Pressing is for people with functioning lungs. Pick them up at the top of the key like a gentleman.
Shirts and skins was abolished in 1994 by unanimous vote. Light shirt, dark shirt. Nobody needs to see that. Nobody.
Water breaks between games are mandatory, and if Doc says sit down, you sit down.
Whoever brings the ball picks the first teams. That's why I bring the ball.
Nobody talks about their game on Monday at work, at church, or to the wives. What happens at the rec center stays at the rec center, especially the score.
Injuries get reported to the webmaster by Tuesday so he can update the injury report. This is a new rule and I expect it to be ignored like the stretching.

The Regulars

Nicknames only, because a couple of these men have professional reputations and one is a deacon. Ages are approximate because nobody will tell me. Listed by seniority in the game.

Name	Since	Game	Scouting report
Doc	1988	Set shot from the elbow	Is actually a doctor (a podiatrist, which he says counts and we say counts). Diagnoses everything as "you're fine, walk it off," except for himself. Oldest man in the game and he's never told us how old. We think 61.
Coach (me)	1988	Yelling	Brings the ball. Brings the tape. Gives the stretching lecture. Has a hook shot he attempts once per Saturday. Made it in March.
The Deacon	1989	Rebounds. Elbows.	Kindest man you'll ever meet, six days a week. Under the basket he is Old Testament. Never called a foul on himself in ten years. Has never needed to, he says.
Lefty	1990	Goes left. Only left.	Everybody knows he's going left. He knows we know. He still goes left. It still works about half the time, which is a better percentage than the rest of us going anywhere.
The Professor	1991	The bank shot	Teaches at the community college. Uses the backboard on every shot including layups and free throws. Explains angles during water breaks. Has been asked to stop.
Big Country	1992	Standing there	Six-foot-five, farms, does not jump, does not need to. Sets a screen like a grain silo. The reason there's a no-dunking rule is that if anyone could, it'd be him, and he says he could in 1975.
Sarge	1993	Defense	Retired Army. Guards you like you owe him money. Runs the water breaks. Once did push-ups after a loss and nobody has mentioned it because we are afraid of him.
Hollywood	1994	The three	Shoots from the parking lot. Hits one in five. Celebrates all five. Wears a headband from 1979 and the matching wristbands. Owns a car dealership, which explains a lot.
Tiny	1995	Point guard	Five-foot-six. Fastest man in the gym, which at our speed is like being the fastest tortoise. Dribbles between his legs on the way to the water fountain.
Wheels	1996	Formerly running	Named for how fast he was when he showed up. Named ironically now. See Injury Report, every single week.
The Mayor	1996	Talking	Not the actual mayor. Knows everyone, greets everyone, shakes hands with the other team during the game. Plays about four minutes out of every ten. Buys the coffee after, which is why he's still invited.
Goggles	1997	Fundamentals	Wears the sports goggles. Played in college, a small one, a long time ago, and it shows: he's the only one of us who can still do a proper layup with the correct hand. We resent him a little.
Junior	1998	Energy	Turned 40 last October and showed up the next Saturday with a birth certificate. Youngest man in the game. Runs like a deer for one game and then discovers he is 40.
The Rookie	1999	Unknown	Started in June. Every new man is "the Rookie" until the next one shows up, however long that takes. The last Rookie was the Rookie for 14 months. He's now Junior.
Occasionals	-	-	Three or four more who come when the wife lets them, the back allows it, or the kids don't have soccer. We love them. We do not count on them.

Injury Report

Updated weekly, or whenever somebody calls me. Status categories are borrowed from the pros: Probable (will play, will complain), Questionable (will show up and "see how it feels," then play), Doubtful (wife has been consulted), and Out (doctor, an actual one, has been consulted).

Week of September 25, 1999:

Player	Injury	Status
Wheels	Hamstring (right). Same one. Third time since March. Pulled it reaching for a loose ball he had no business reaching for.	Questionable. Will show up. Will play. Will pull it.
Coach	Left knee. Chronic. Swells up like a grapefruit Saturday afternoon, fine by Monday. Ice, elevation, ibuprofen, a beer.	Probable. As always.
Big Country	Back. Threw it out lifting a feed sack, not basketball, which he'd like noted. Has played through worse. Has played through a broken finger (1997), a cracked rib (1995) and a tractor.	Probable. Will stand under the basket and not move, which is his game anyway.
The Professor	Achilles tendon, tight. Explained the biomechanics to us at length last week. Doc told him to stretch it. He explained why that was scientifically sound. Did not stretch it.	Questionable.
Hollywood	Jammed finger (shooting hand), Sept. 18, on a rebound he was not going to get. Taped it to the next finger and kept shooting. Went 0 for 7. Claims the tape.	Probable. His shooting percentage is unaffected because it cannot go lower.
The Mayor	"Tweaked something." Unspecified. Unverifiable. Comes up at about the 9-8 mark of every close game.	Probable for the first game and coffee.
Sarge	None. Never. He does not get injured. We have theories.	Probable. Since 1993.
Goggles	Broke the goggles (not the face) Sept. 11, elbow from the Deacon, who did not call it, because he doesn't. New goggles ordered.	Doubtful until the goggles arrive. Says he can't see the rim without them. We say that's never stopped Hollywood.
Junior	Sore everything. Discovered on turning 40 that you don't recover by Sunday anymore. Welcome, son.	Probable.

Season injury log: 3 hamstrings (all Wheels), 2 backs, 2 jammed fingers, 1 rolled ankle (Tiny, on the stairs to the gym, not in the gym), 1 pair of goggles, 1 pulled calf (the Deacon, who called it "a cramp" and played two more games on it), zero dunks attempted.

The all-time list (1988-present) is longer and includes Doc's shoulder, my other knee, a broken nose (Lefty, 1992, going left into Big Country), and the day in 1996 the Mayor got a cramp so bad we had to carry him to the water fountain and he shook hands with everybody on the way. Nobody has ever been seriously hurt, knock wood, and Doc keeps his bag in the car.

The Stretching Lecture

Delivered by me, every Saturday at 8:05, to a group of men who are already shooting around and not listening. I am putting it here so that it will at least have been read once.

Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Put the ball down. You are over forty. Some of you are well over forty. Your hamstrings are the consistency of beef jerky. The reason Wheels is called Wheels is a cautionary tale, not a compliment. Every week one of you pulls something in the first game, and every week it's because you walked in out of the cold and started running. So: five minutes. Jog two laps. Touch your toes, or your knees, or wherever you can currently reach. Calf stretch on the wall. Quads, hold on to Big Country. Arm circles. Then you may shoot. It's five minutes. It will add ten years to your basketball life. Doc, back me up. Doc. DOC.

Doc's response, every week: "He's right." Doc's action, every week: shooting free throws.

Compliance rate over eleven years: Sarge (100%), Goggles (100%, he was coached), the Rookie (100%, for now), everyone else (a few arm circles while looking at me). I do the whole thing myself. My knee still swells. The Deacon says that's God's sense of humor.

Fall 1999 Schedule

Every Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., the main gym at the rec center, unless listed. The rec center gives us the gym on the condition that we're out before the youth league at 10:30 and that we don't leave tape on the floor. Yes, that was us. Once.

Date	Notes
Oct. 2	Regular. Goggles out pending goggles.
Oct. 9	Regular. Hollywood's 50th birthday. He denies it. His wife is bringing a cake to the gym at 10.
Oct. 16	Regular.
Oct. 23	Gym closed (rec center floor refinishing). Outdoor court at the park behind the fire station, weather permitting. If it rains, coffee only. Coffee is also a sport.
Oct. 30	Regular. Costumes not permitted (Hollywood, 1997).
Nov. 6	Regular. First Saturday of deer season, so expect Big Country and Lefty to be absent and everybody else to be shorter.
Nov. 13	Regular.
Nov. 20	Regular. Annual "last game before Thanksgiving" where everyone plays like it's the last game before Thanksgiving. Injury report will be long.
Nov. 27	Thanksgiving weekend. Gym open, game on for whoever's in town and can still move. Traditionally about six of us, one of whom is asleep. Half court.
Dec. 4, 11, 18	Regular. Dec. 18 is the Christmas game: wives and kids invited to watch at 10, followed by the annual breakfast at the diner on Main, which the Mayor pays for and has for four years and we have stopped pretending to argue.
Dec. 25 & Jan. 1	No game. Sarge will be there anyway. He always is. Nobody has told him.

The Y2K thing: Junior asked if the game is on January 8, 2000, given that the computers might all stop. I told him the rec center's door has a key, the ball doesn't have a chip in it, and if the lights go out we'll play by the windows like it's 1955. Game's on.

Other people who should be resting

Oakdale Tigers Little League - Coach Mike is a real coach. I've told him I'm available to yell at his kids about boxing out.

Marathon Training Log: Chicago 1999 - a man voluntarily running 26 miles. Wheels wants to know if he needs a hamstring.

Walking the Dog, Losing the Weight - a 51-year-old with a sensible plan. We are not sensible. We are over here.

Masters Swimming After 50 - Doc says swimming is easier on the knees. Doc says a lot of things.

Rainbow Softball League - Fall 1999 - another league with a schedule page nicer than mine.

Back to the Colosseum neighborhood

Fans in the stands:

(mostly Hollywood checking whether his birthday is still on here. It is.)

Injuries, excuses, and new guys over 40: [email protected]

Last updated: September 25, 1999, Saturday afternoon, knee elevated.