CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO PASSIONS

My Hoop Dreams and Writing Dreams Went One-on-One

I couldn’t decide which aspiration I wanted to pursue

It was an otherwise ordinary day.

I went to my co-ed basketball class at Cal State Northridge on a Wednesday morning.

Ran up and down the court in a full-court scrimmage. Made some nice passes to my teammates on fast breaks. Swished high-arching jump shots and broke a sweat before heading off to my American Literature class.

I was happy to be hooping.

It had always been my dream to play college basketball since I began playing as a kid. I was good enough to be voted all-league in high school, but not good enough to be recruited by universities.

There is a big difference.

But my instructor—also the assistant women’s basketball coach at CSUN — surprised me with a question at the end of class.

“Have you ever considered trying out for the men’s team?”

I held onto the question for a moment.

“You’re good enough to make the team.”

I was content with my place in the basketball universe when she asked the question. A junior in college, I played pick-up games at the gym a few nights a week and was on an intramural team.

Just a Bunch of Guys.

That was our name.

If I hadn’t forgotten my student ID in the shorts I wore the previous week, our team might have won the intramural championship game.

But I think I was more focused on passing the ball to a cute girl I liked in my basketball class than reviving my dream to play college basketball.

I was done with my basketball dreams.

Until my hoop skills caught the attention of the women’s coach.

“You have excellent court vision,” she told me. “I like how you dribble to create a better passing angle to get the ball to teammates.”

She said the men’s team lacked such a player.

I vividly remember my last high school game.

The other team hit a last-second shot from half-court at the buzzer, making us winless in ten league games with a dreary overall record of 5 -15.

No college coaches came to any of our games.

After my last game in high school, I did a donut in my mom’s car in the parking lot that was wet from light rain, and no one noticed that either.

The donut seemed to symbolize our zero league wins.

So, I was flattered a coach complimented me on my basketball ability, and thought I was talented enough to play collegiately at a Division I school.

I felt seen by her. It was the first time a college coach had told me I had what it takes to play at the college level.

That meant a lot.

But now… my dream had shifted to be a writer like Tom Wolfe, riding with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, LSD-spiked Kool-Aid in tow to write his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

And I could write well.

I had been an intern in the Los Angeles Times sports department and published Jack Kerouac-styled poems in the campus literary journal.

I shed my identity as a basketball player.

Now I had a new one as a writer. I studied the craft of writing in stories to see what made them memorable.

I wanted to be Jack Kerouac, not Jack Sikma.

Basketball was no longer my most important aspiration — as it had always been throughout my childhood and teenage years.

I could take it or leave it, so I was unsure how to respond when the women’s coach told me she believed I could make the men’s Matador basketball team.

I told the women’s coach I had always wanted to play Division I basketball — but it felt like that “ship had sailed” in my life to use a cliche.

Walking to my next class, I wondered if I should give my hoop dream a final chance. But I told myself I had a new dream.

I was a writer.

I had a conversation between my basketball-loving self and my desire to be like Jack Kerouac, and my writing dream was winning by a narrow margin.

Until my next class.

In my American Literature course, we were reading Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” whose theme talks about the divergence of paths.

The first stanza related to my dilemma.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could see To where it bent in the undergrowth”

As we discussed the poem in class, I realized the poem was saying that we have to choose between going down one path or another in life.

A choice to go down one meant not going down the other.

I had to choose. My basketball dream or my writing dream.

I had just finished my internship and felt like I needed to have a single-minded focus on one or the other dream to achieve that dream.

Philosophically, I agreed with Robert Frost.

I had to choose a path. I couldn’t go down both.

But I wasn’t sure which road to take.

I gave my basketball dream a final chance to speak to me.

Should I fan the flames of my dream’s embers and breathe new oxygen into it?

And then, my writing dream spoke to me, at 3 a.m.

A fly on the wall. Tom Wolfe riding with the Merry Pranksters. Up late at night. Reading newspapers. Looking for drama. Love. Conflict. News.

Talking to the all-night newsstand guy.

Is anything going on? Pull out my notebook.

Writing poetic newspaper stories about the beautiful ugliness, teeter-tottering sororities, drug babies pounding computers, holding pink umbrellas like Mary Poppins, at 3 a.m. the day before Spring Break.

Slowing down only for a moment …

Because I learned from poetry …

That beauty is in THE MOMENT.

I was ready to give up my basketball dream.

I had my dream as a writer to pursue.

Then, a week later, the Northridge men’s head basketball coach walked into the gym near the end of our class with a guard my size that I recognized from the men’s team.

I had forgotten about my conversation with the women’s coach.

She suggested I play one-on-one with this college player.

This was my chance. Even though I didn’t know if I wanted to try out for the team, the competitive spirit flamed up within me…knowing a Division I college basketball coach with 20 years of experience would be watching.

Evaluating my every move. My shot. My handle.

I wanted to impress.

Passing had always been my strength in basketball. And I couldn’t pass in a one-on-one game. It was all jukes, drives, and jumpers.

I ended up winning by a score of 5-4.

Had I been discovered in a gym class?

Alongside some stiffs and co-eds.

Rescued from basketball obscurity.

The coach didn’t say anything to me. He just stood beside a wall. We made eye contact. I thought that he’d motion me over to talk with me.

Maybe, invite me to try out for the team.

But he left without saying a single word.

Not even a “good game.”

Maybe, I was good enough.

Maybe, I wasn’t.

I’ll never know because I didn’t try out.

Thanks for reading.