The Shot, Retold

by Steve Caronia

The Shot.  Game 5, round 1, 1989 Eastern Conference Playoffs. Michael Jordan nails a jumper from just inside the top of the key over a helpless Craig Ehlo with no time remaining. The 6 seed Chicago Bulls take down the heavily favored 3 seed Cleveland Cavaliers.  Who could forget that lasting images of Jordan floating at the peak of his jump followed by his intense air-punching celebration? This was the first of dozens of late game playoff heroics performed by Jordan over the years and one of his most memorable. It was like his inaugural address in his tenure as greatest basketball player of all time.

I myself had a very similar experience.  I too announced my presence to the basketball world with a jumper from the top of the key. I sent a team packing with it as well. I was even playing with a major underdog at the time.  This shot was a pivotal moment in my life. In fact, I actually have a different definition of “The Shot” as the rest of the world.

I was a major late bloomer in the world of athletics.  I have struck out playing tee ball (not a joke, that’s a report).  After playing catch with me in the Meadowlands parking lot and realizing I couldn’t catch a pass, my dad had to brag to the hot dog guy about how high I scored on the citywide math test to soothe himself.  My exploits in little league baseball are so singular and well documented that they will be provided their own space later.  I was all brains and no brawn.

By sixth grade, I was a fat kid. My hobbies were Super Nintendo, the TGIF lineup, and fried chicken wings. For a kid like me, as many of you may already understand, the most horrifying spectacle on earth was junior high gym class.  While other kids were starting to blossom and shed any remaining awkwardness of boyhood,  I was trying to figure out how to run without looking like a cross between a colt walking for the first time and Rosie O’Donnell.  I had plummeted to the nadir of my athletic ineptitude. I was 40 pounds overweight, couldn’t hit a baseball, catch a football, or dribble a basketball with one hand.  A jog down the hallway made me break a sweat and smell like Chinese food.  It was a real shit show.

Artist’s rendition.

In his infinite merciful wisdom, my gym teacher allowed me to keep score during basketball scrimmages.  Ironically, it was during this time that I became obsessed with the NBA.  I was collecting cards, watching every game on TNT, and wore a replica jersey of some player or another everywhere I went (even though given my height and weight it looked like a moo moo).  I LOVED basketball. I desperately wanted to be good at it, but it didn’t seem like it was in the cards.  As an added bonus, basketball was THE sport in my school. Before class, kids would play pickup games in the schoolyard that were very intense.  If you were good, you became a minor celebrity (Ted Price was the best kid in our school, and could dunk handily at age 12; he was treated like Jesus on Palm Sunday when he walked down the hall).  Basketball was a major part of our adolescent collective conscious.

Fast forward to seventh grade.  I had lost a little bit of baby fat and grew a couple of inches, looking like 6th grade me in a fun house mirror.  I still had almost no athletic prowess whatsoever, but I was trying to learn.  I started playing basketball religiously with my best friend Rob in front of his house.  With razor sharp focus, I could dribble with one hand.  I started to develop a halfway decent “jumper” inside of 6 feet.  In gym class, I actually started to play rather than plant my plump little ass on the sideline.  I wasn’t good, but I wasn’t a total embarrassment as I was previously.

When basketball came around during gym, I was ready to take my place on the court.  We played three on three, winner stays, loser leaves, first to score wins.  I assembled my crew: Tony Choi aka the “Italian Scallion” and “Nasty” Nasimullah Khan. Not exactly the Hick From French Lick and Doctor Dunkenstein but, shit, we had a team. We started slow but were spirited. It wasn’t until losing our 20th game that we started to get discouraged. In reality, I was the only one with any hope of scoring and that hope was flickering.  We were known throughout gym class as an easy out, and it was starting to piss me off. I didn’t like having a place among the inept.

Then, one fateful day, the cosmos tilted.  We stepped onto the court to the giggles of our opponents.  They were three kids who, while not at the top of the basketball food chain, were way higher than us.  They were unabashedly abusing us verbally. Even the kids waiting on line were getting involved. Kids were literally laughing and pointing. In slow motion.  It was like something out of an after school special.

Assholes.

We had the ball first, and I can’t say that I felt the same as Michael Jordan must have felt that night against the Cavaliers, but I imagine it was similar.  It was a combination of fury, desire, and having to puke.  I stood at the top of the key and they checked it in.  I passed to Tony, who was being only mildly paid attention to.  I beckoned for the ball back, and my defender was standing about 10 feet away just waiting to grab the rebound from my inevitably errant shot. I stared him down, took one dribble, and launched an 15 footer.

Net.

Pandemonium.

I remember one kid yelling “What!?!?” while the other two stood there dumbfounded. They shambled, devastated, back on line to the cacophony of  taunting  onlookers.

Tony, Nasimullah, and I reacted something like this:

It was glorious.

What was most amazing about that moment is how it instantly resulted in a seismic shift in our collective confidence.  We didn’t instantly become ballers, but we weren’t total doormats anymore, that’s for sure.  We were being held back mainly by our timidity and lack of self esteem.  What a shame. Self-defeatism is no philosophy for young boys to adhere to.

I can say without hyperbole that moment dramatically shaped my life from that point forward.  I started to play with a new sense of determination.  It’s incredible what actually believing you have a chance of succeeding can do for a you.  It speaks to one of the best things about playing sports – it provides a pathway to greater self-worth that may otherwise be very difficult to attain.  And without hitting that shot, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to participate and reap all of the benefits playing sports has to offer. I may have stayed mired in the muck of uncertainty.

Michael Jordan didn’t have that problem.  Maybe my Shot was more important than his shot after all.

Or maybe not.

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