When I was in 5th or 6th grade, one of the local dads decided that my elementary school needed a feeder team for its official Catholic league basketball squad, which was generally dominated by 7th and 8th graders. He rounded up players -- including yours truly -- and booked some practice time at a nearby public school's gymnasium. (My school didn't have a gym.) He botched one important thing, though: Our entry paperwork for the B-level league. Oops. We were left out.
This came as a tremendous relief to me, however. First off, I couldn't even make a layup. (Despite coming of age in the Dr. J/Larry Bird/Magic Johnson era, I didn't live in a basketball-oriented house.) But more importantly, I was very pale and somewhat pudgy. (I would only get fatter until about age 13, when things kinda evened-out for good.) The idea of practicing layups -- though humiliating -- was at least a familiar process; I'd already learned to hit a baseball, swim fearlessly and throw a football, so it was just another sports drill. But the pasty-and-round thing was a source of true anxiety. I was mortified by the thought of standing in front of hundreds of people in only a tank top and short-shorts. (The shirt-under-the-uniform thing, if I remember correctly, was made acceptable by Patrick Ewing a few years later.) Even Kurt Rambis, perhaps the dorkiest dude ever to play in the NBA, was kinda cut, y'know? I didn't even have armpit hair yet.
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