Pushing too hard

      I was a senior at the State University of New York at Fredonia during the 2004-2005 school year when I decided to "try-out" for the basketball team. There were several reasons why I wanted to play on this team. First of all, it was my last year in school, and I didn't want to live with the regret of not trying, or wondering "what if". Also, my brother lived in town, and I wanted him to be able to come watch my college games like I got to go watch his. Finally, I was 100% certain I was one of the best players at the university. I had played "pick-up" games with the team, and competed in intermural, so I was very familiar with the skill level we had at Fredonia State. During out every day pick-up games, I was usually one of the first few players selected when picking teams for these games, and I usually dominated. It is very reassuring when you play with the team, they pick you first, and for a reason. It wasn't always like that of course. But, when you play with a group of guys for a year or so, you get a feel of their individual skill set, and they get a feel for yours. This is mostly irrelevant to my story however. The only relevant point is this; I was certainly good enough to play on this team, and all of the other players knew it. Now, in a perfect world that information alone would be plenty to make the team, let alone playing time. But, at a small university like this, it doesn't work like that. Every coaching staff tends to make promises to players in order to get them to attend the university, and that it would pose a challenge to me. The university is division 3, therefore they cannot hand out scholarships, which is what attracts the best players to division 1 schools. So, a lot of times the coaches who recruit players promise them a place on the team, and a considerable amount of playing time. This is an understanding between the two parties, and I was aware of it. I was not one of these players, I was a "walk on", as they are considered. I didn't come to this university to play basketball, as is the case with most of the team. I had come to this school because me brother lived here for his job, and I wanted to be close to him. It is because of this, that is can be much more difficult for a walk on to earn a spot on the team and gain playing time. However, I was absolutely determined. It was my final chance to play, and I knew exactly what I was up against. Or, so I thought...

      Five weeks before tryouts were to begin, anybody who planned to attend was required to attend "conditioning". I learned this right before it began, and at first I was excited about it. I figured the coach would watch us run some suicide drills, and then we would play pick up games for the rest of each session. This seemed like an excellent opportunity to show the coach who I was and what I could do. However, I quickly found out that this was far from the case, very far from it.

      Conditioning was pure and utter hell. First of all, the coach was never there, not once. And secondly, there would be no basketball. It wasn't because we weren't allowed to play, it was because nobody wanted to play after conditioning. There might be 2 or 3 guys who still had the energy/ambition to play after a conditioning session, out of the 35 in the program. But, that wasn't enough for a game. Certain guys would try to get a game going after the running drills, but it was always a losing effort. Everybody was simply too tired to play. We all just wanted to go home to shower and relax. One day we would run suicide drills for an hour straight in the gym, and another day we would run sprints on the track and field course. Other days we would just run hills for an hour and a half, without stopping once for water. Then on other days we would mix it up and do "stations". The stations conditioning days were probably the worst. It is extremely difficult to say because it was all so extremely demanding. A day of stations was like a circular obstacle course with no ending. It really didn't matter what we were doing on a particular day, it was all terrible. I would never show up thinking; "I hope we do this or that today". That would be like picking between the electric chair or hanging.

     Every day we all had purple faces, their were guys vomiting and just screaming from sheer pain and exhaustion. I remember thinking that somebody is going to die from this. Many times we were in the blazing sun, pouring sweat, praying for it to end, and all I would hear is; "on the line. Go"! It always felt like it would never end. The team captains from the previous season were "in charge" of the conditioning, and they took attendance. Everybody was competing against each other for the spots on the team, so they wanted guys to quit. This would just make the tasks more and more grueling. I was a really good student, but playing "basketball" made things very challenging. Because I was a senior, I had a difficult course load. I was only taking upper level courses, which are the most difficult. There was no "partying", it was rest, school, and running. It felt like we were trying out for a track and field team, preparing to become long distance runners. We were told that on the final day of the conditioning, everybody had to complete a mile run on the track in under 5:35. Nobody was looking forward to this. In fact, it was clear that nobody was looking forward to the next day. It always seemed like however much we ran the day before was a joke. The sprints usually lasted for about an hour, but there was no time limit, there was no clock watching. We never knew when it was going to end, and we just pushed on. I feel like I learned a lot about myself during the first 4 weeks of conditioning. I realized that I could push myself far beyond any limit that I thought I had. But, I absolutely did not like learning this. I thought about quitting every second of every day, but then I would think about how much work I had already put in. I thought about the people who had stopped showing up. I realized that this was how they would "weed out" the weak, and the guys who didn't really want it.

    

       Then, one day I showed up for condition and there was nobody there. There was just a sign on the door that said it was cancelled. This was extremely odd. I ran into somebody else from the team a few minutes later and asked them why, and they had no idea. I was so happy that I didn't have to run, but I was confused. I figured that people would actually be in the gym and feel like playing today, but it was a ghost town. The next day it was the same thing, with a side note: "Team meeting in room so and so at 5pm", or something to that affect.

      Once I arrived, everybody from the team was outside this room waiting and gossiping. It was extremely bizarre. When we were finally let into the classroom, everybody took a seat except the coach and one of the players. The coach told us that a tragedy had struck the team, but he didn’t really elaborate. He left the floor to the player to tell us a story. This particular player was a tall, slender, Italian-looking kid. I remember he was a center, but not very good. He wasn’t very physical and he couldn’t really finish plays. I cant remember his name for a lot of reasons, but mainly because I didn’t really know many guys on the team. Many of them had played together and lived together for a few years. I didn’t really know many people at all; I lived off campus, which had its pros and cons. One of the biggest cons was of course, meeting people.

      Anyways, he told us that he had went out drinking with his friend/roommate/teammate “Mark”, a few days prior. Mark was another tall, uncoordinated, center with red hair. He was sort of different looking, shy, but seemed like a nice guy to me. I remember seeing him help push a girls car out of the snow once when she was stuck.

He said that he didn’t know how much Mark had to drink, but that when they got home he was in the bathroom vomiting. Then he said he went to sleep and was awoken by Mark being very loud and falling down in the bathroom. He said he opened the door and that Mark had fallen down and broke some things in the bathroom, and that he looked like he had vomited blood and was unconscious but having a type of seizure maybe. Then, he said that he called 911 and that they came and took him to the hospital. His voice was very shaky from the start, but not it began to break. “I was just sitting in the waiting room and the doctor came out and told me the my friend had expired. I told him that I didn’t know what that meant. The doctor told me that he had passed away. I was shocked and the thought of death had never even crossed my mind”. He continued to tell us that they were not using any drugs, and that he did not have any indication that he might have done anything to harm himself. It was very, very sad and uncomfortable. A lot of guys who were close to Mark were a mess, I felt like I didn’t belong there. I didn’t even really know him, I had only seen him in the crowd and ran with him for 4 weeks. Then the coach told us something that I will never forget. He said that we should all take this time to call the people who we care about and let them know how we feel, because you never know. Life is a very precious thing, and we should be grateful for what we have, and the people who care about us.

     Conditioning resumed a few days later, and at the end of the 5 weeks I came down with a cold. It was the day of the mile run at 5am, it was also the first official day of try-outs. I walked 2 miles to campus sick as a dog, and I ran the race of my life. I finished in 5:50, 4^th place out of 30 people. I couldn’t believe how well I had done. But, only 2 people made the 5:35 that coach had required us to make. He went crazy, threw his clipboard and began screaming at all of us. It was bizarre, considering how hard everybody had worked and everything we had been through.

     I wanted to holler back at him so bad, worse than I have ever wanted to curse out anybody. And If I could go back in time I would scream at him on the top of my lungs;

 "You stupid idiot, how dare you? Do you have ANY idea how hard we have worked? For 5 weeks straight while you have been sitting on your ass, we have been sprinting like we were training to run in the Olympics! We have ran until we thought we were going to fucking die! In fact, somebody did die! He probably died because of you! And you have the audacity to scream at us!? For what? For not working hard enough to fucking die? I have never seen a group of guys work this hard before, and its not good enough for you? We are basketball players, not marathon runners, you stupid fucker!"

......But, of course, I didn't. I couldn't. Physically I didn't have the energy. And, I was at the finish line, so I wasn't going to jeopardize my chance to play now.

That afternoon when official try outs began, we ran 3-4 drills for only about 20 minutes when he took half of us to the side and told us we had to try out for JV. I was so fucking pissed off, I could feel fire coming out of my ears. What was the point of all the running if it didn't earn us an opportunity to showcase our basketball ability? It felt like I had broken my back for this guy, a lot of us had, and that he didn't give one tiny shit about it. Five straight weeks of pure hell, just for this asshole to do that. I wanted to pick up a basketball and throw it at his face as hard as I could, I could feel it. And just when I was about to explode and scream all of those horrible things at him, I felt a sense of relief run over me. As it started to sink in, I realized that I didn't have to run anymore. And I must admit, that felt pretty good. I had given it my all and I wouldn’t have to live with the regret of not trying, that was my main concern anyways.

 I knew there was no way in the world I was going to continue to break my back to play JV, especially after everything I had put myself through already, only to be brushed off so quickly. Plus, when he told us that anybody who didn’t make the 5:35 had to be in the work out room at 5am the next day, I laughed. What a sham, I thought to myself. What a joke it all was, how senseless? You push us so hard for 5 straight weeks and then don’t even give us the opportunity we earned to show you what we could do? "Fuck that guy", I thought to myself. He doesn't deserve to have me on his team. I wasn't the only one, there were 2 or 3 other "top" players in that group. They stayed and listened, I just couldn't. So with the only dignity I had left, I got up and walked out of my college basketball career before it began.

      After basketball ended, the school work was a breeze. In hindsight I began to think about all of the things I had learned from the experience.  I realized that I was capable of pushing myself much further that I had ever conceived possible. There were so many times throughout that process that I wanted to give up but I didn't. I ran like a lightning bolt. And when our intermural team "scrimmaged" the varsity team, it wasn't a scrimmage. We beat them by 34 points, in front of their coach. I suppose it offered me some comfort.

       My mother never once came to visit me during the 2 and a half years I lived in Fredonia, and she only called twice. She said that she didn’t have long distance, or a calling card. I was upset about it deep down, deep down it really hurt. She wasn't the typical mother like my roommate had, who would call just to see how he was and send him money. My brother moved to Lakewood before my final semester, it sucked not having him there anymore. I know he would've stayed if I was playing on the team. My best friend moved out that last semester too, and I barely ever seen him. I felt like it was me against the world. I was all alone. I made it though that entire final semester with only $36.

Then, I took the coaches advice and called my mother and told her that I loved her. It did provide some healing. I even wrote him an email and thanked him for the advice. She did come to Fredonia for the first time on the day of my graduation. She even brought my dad, who I hadn't seen in forever. It was one of the only times I had ever seen him sober. And when I left Fredonia later that day for good, I cried. I cried because I knew I was going to miss it there, because I had learned so much about myself there. I learned how to be resilient and self-sufficient. I learned that I was capable of pushing myself beyond any preconceived limits. But I also learned not to push too hard, some things are just not worth it.