Slam Dunk

Believe It or not, but I used to dream as a little kid. I used to have an active imagination that was constantly thinking outside the sphere of reality. Can you believe that? The man who writes all of these blogs you all love so dearly used to have a wild imagination as a child.

Here’s the deal; I used to dream about basketball. My basketball aspirations began to heat up during my junior high years. At the time I was 5’2”, 125 pound, four eyed monster with a calling for basketball. I didn’t question if I would make it to the NBA when I fanaticized, the only question in my fantasy was how awesome would I be? My parents and teachers would tell all of the boys who played basketball there was a very high chance that we would not play in the NBA when we got older.

“What the hell do they know,” I smugly thought to myself.

Well it turns out a lot but at the time I could not see any alternative career path. I was off in la-la land nailing a three pointer, at the buzzer over Michael Jordan, in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. I read a Sports Illustrated article about Kevin Garnett who was primed to make the jump from high school to the NBA. Kevin Garnett was the trend setter for high school athletes and I thought, “If he can do it, so can I.”

The biggest problem with my fantasy becoming a reality was my inability to slam dunk a basketball. I assumed it would just be a matter of time before I rose above the rim. I kept playing and working on my vertical jump with the belief that one day all the years of hard work would collectively come together. Yeah, that day never came.

Even in high school when my vertical jump was amazing, I was never able to dunk. I could touch the rim and that was about it. In high school, my basketball dream began to fade with NFL dream taking on a life of its own, but that is a whole other story. With my NBA career put on the back burner my Sportscenter highlight of winning the slam dunk competition didn’t seem as appealing.

Years began to pass and during those years I never picked up a basketball, and when I did it did not involve fierce competition. The other day while I was in the gym I caught ESPN and for no explainable reason I thought about how I never, in my life, slam dunked a basketball. Furthermore, to add more salt to the wound, this morning I had to play basketball against other members from the Battalion.

It was this morning I realized just how far I had fallen. The NBA is not in my future, ever. Never slam dunking a basketball is about as sure of a bet there is; it’s not 100%, but I’d bet the farm. I’m still in relatively good shape for my age, better than average, but I am not even close to touching the rim now. If anybody knows of a surefire workout regime, to GUARANTEE the ability to slam dunk a basketball, I’d give it shot.

That folks is my shattered dream.



I also want to bring it to everybody’s attention that the frequency of my blogs will begin to dip a bit. I’ve decided I’m not a great writer but by no means am I a bad writer. However, I really enjoy writing and want to attempt to make some money doing it. I’m in the process of reading the writer’s guidelines for multiple magazines to see what it takes to get published. Hopefully, if all goes well, I can make some sort of future out of writing. I’m looking for feedback, positive or negative, what do you think?