By Jim Palmer
In 1985, Bruce Springsteen released the song “Glory Days,” a somewhat autobiographical glimpse at Springsteen’s high school years. He apparently wrote the song after a night of drinking with an old high school buddy. For Springsteen, the sport was baseball...
I had a friend was a big baseball player
Back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool, boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside, sat down, had a few
drinks
But all he kept talking about was...
Glory Days... Well they’ll pass you by,
glory days; In the wink of a young girls’ eye,
glory days. Glory days.
Just about the only time the phrase “glory days” is used is when a couple high school guys get together and talk about sports. Sometimes there are school shenanigans and girls mixed into that conversation, but it usually centers around high school athletics. The last time I talked with anyone about my glory days was probably at our last high school reunion.
In recent years, I have thought a little more about these years in my life. Not because I made a real impact as a high school athlete, but because my three sons have been going through that phase in their lives.
My oldest, Noah, played soccer, basketball and tennis in high school. He graduated a couple of years ago and now plays intramural basketball in college. My middle son, Zach, is currently playing basketball and also runs in both cross country and track. My youngest son, Easton, plays soccer and tennis.
In the early days of our boys playing sports, it was fun to watch the boys learn and try to get better. We watched a lot of strikeouts, fumbles, trips, drops, and a fair amount of tears mixed in with some big scores and memorable wins. Along the way, we got to see the good in sports (self motivation, discipline, mentorship from coaches and older players, striving for a goal, etc). And once they become polished and started playing at the varsity level, memories of my days in high school sports started to return.
What did my glory days look like? My favorite sport was definitely basketball. I was good enough to compete as a varsity player for a couple of years and had some decent games along the way (and some real duds). Looking back, I would probably consider myself an average athlete who competed hard... but wasn’t all that consistent or great. I was quick but scrawny, and I was a much better shooter in practice than I was in the game. Our team lost more than we won each year. I was also on the golf team and played a little football, but was lousy at both. However, I have some good memories from each.
Since it is basketball season right now, and basketball was my favorite, I jotted down some of my favorite basketball memories:
I remember... running “killers” until I couldn’t breath in the first week of practice, listening to a mixtape on my Sony Walkman on the bus ride to the school of our biggest rival (Brownton), the strong smell of sweat, body odor and deodorant in the locker room, the itchy feeling of the 30+ year old jersey we had to wear (with way-to-short shorts), the smell of popcorn when we jogged from the locker room to the gym on game day, the sound of the pepband playing “Championship” when I ran on the court with my team, the halftime speeches in the locker room, the voices of the cheerleaders shouting “We got spirit, yes we do...” during timeouts, watching the parents in the wooden bleachers cheering us on, my mom smiling and clapping whenever I glanced up in the stands (and now she is doing the same at some of Zach’s games), the roar of the crowd as I made a basket or got a steal, the high fives of your teammates after a big play, the banter with the officials after a questionable call, the rivalries that formed with opponents (and some trash talk), the parent who loudly complained about each and every call (every fan base has one.... ours was named Bob), that deflated feeling after a missed layup or close loss, and the thrill of a big victory. These were all great memories, but my favorites really took place when I was just hanging out with the fellas before and after games and practices.
My oldest son has graduated and my youngest son is no longer playing basketball, which means when the buzzer sounds on Zach’s last game (playoffs start Feb. 28), it will be the last basketball game my wife and I will attend in which one of our boys is playing. That chapter will be closed. And it was a long chapter, with each of the boys starting around third grade. After some quick math, I would estimate that my wife and I have attended around 300 basketball games since 2011. That is a lot of games! But as sad as it will be to not have any more basketball games on the schedule, we won’t have to wait very long to watch the boys in action. Tennis and track practices start in a few weeks. That means more cheering for us, and for them... more “glory day” memories to be made.
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