Psyche on the Court

Now that LeBron has won his championship ring, he has ejected the monkey from his back and cut the noose around his neck. Or maybe he hung the monkey in a smooth two-fer. Language of redemption floweth:


"The best thing that happened to me last year was losing the finals," James said. "And me playing the way I played, it was the best thing to ever happen to me in my career because basically I got back to the basics. It humbled me"... "It was the hardest thing I've ever done," he said of the title trek, "since I picked up a basketball when I was 9 years old. It's the hardest thing I've ever done."

When I was in the middle of the seemingly never ending Dissertation, I had a dream that I was playing a game of basketball and every time I went to grab the ball, it floated away from my like a balloon. I remember Kobe being irritated with me. No one on the hardwood was experiencing the float ball. Just me. The harder I tried to grip it, the more elusive it became. The ball as balloon, ball and chain, and wrecking ball. Psychological realities playing out in the court of my dreams. Jungian for certain.

Like Atlas shouldering the world, the weight of the basketball was heavy despite being light. Go figure the paradox there. Maybe I should see a Sports Psychologist? I always wondered what Atlas stood on, who buttressed him? Folks, this is basketball. Not world hunger.   

I have an extreme love and hate for basketball. It defined me for years. Always being the arbiter of self-worth scoreboard. At my measly level of achievement, I understand LeBron's battle for legitimacy. Had he not won a championship ever, Cleveland would cheer his humiliation  like a spurned former paramour who take glee in her Exe's new relationhip dysfunctions down the road. But now he has a ring. But me, all I have is could and should have beens. I helped coach a championship basketball team so I found the full-orbed circle come around on the mentoring side. I finally hung up the high-tops as a player a few years ago when the team I was playing for in a competitive rec league went 1-19. It put out the playing fire for good.        

It was very healthy to quit. Basketball was too important in my mind to be a healthy pastime. Dreams of stardom die hard, I had to be on the wrong side of forty to come to that realization and get it beaten out of me through successive defeats. I wanted to be the champ of some Central Pa. adult league. Take that former high school coach who was a snake of a man. Take that former malevolent teammates Take that Cleveland. Look at me, a champ! 

So, I limped off the court, bum knee and all. The best thing I ever did. No more finding my purpose in the capricious bouncing of an orange ball but in Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.