Buck Tough, Body Not

Buck loved his new job coding Java web services, except for the part where he was hunched over his computer keyboard more than ever before. He didn't know which was worse:

(A) Enduring chronic back pain caused by muscle tension stemming from work-related stress associated with dealing with back-stabbing office politicos, a schedule packed with meetings designed to limit the time one had to actually accomplish any work, and other miscellaneous bureaucratic nonsense; or

(B) Enduring even worse chronic back pain caused by muscle tension resulting from bad posture associated with being hunched over a computer keyboard all day doing work he enjoyed.

With option (B), the day seem to pass much more quickly and there were actual moments of contentment, but the after-effects were nasty.

So Buck decided to double his efforts to stay in shape, hoping it would keep his body lean, mean, and most of all, flexible. To this end he played 5-on-5 basketball on Monday and Wednesday evenings with a bunch of guys from around the neighborhood.

To date the net effect of playing basketball has been negative bordering on catastrophic. Eight weeks ago he ran into one dude's shoulder and bloodied his nose, a collision described by one onlooker as "spectacular" ("Your glasses spun off like a whirly-bird," said one guy), and although the nose wasn't broken he did manage to bruise the soft palate between the roof of his mouth and his nasal cavity. This rendered him unable to brush his teeth or blow his nose for the next month, at least not without uttering loud obscenities within earshot of his children. He stopped the bleeding and got up to play some more that game but found that most of the guys had fled the scene and the game was over. Buck was just glad he still had all his teeth, because that was his first thought after the collision: he was certain some teeth were gone or broken.

Buck resisted returning to the courts for about two weeks after that in a vain attempt to recover from a freshly aggravated case of plantar fasciitis that was making him limp. Finally he hit the courts again, only to be bombarded by a series of meetings, family events, birthdays, and assorted reptile situations that kept him off the courts for a few more weeks. Then, before he made his triumphant return, he hit the weights and did some cardio work with an emphasis on muscular endurance in his calf and shoulder muscles to help his hoops performance. He also took to the courts to practice shooting, and he added some wind-sprint lay-up drills. It all paid off.

Buck hit the courts with a vengeance, and for once he actually played well. Please understand that Buck isn't terribly tall or stout, and as he approaches middle age he is losing a step. Basketball is not exactly his game, and improvement is not likely. He grew up playing tennis, but that makes his back feel terrible (because he has trouble adjusting his game to the realities of aging), whereas for some reason basketball does not. But Buck digresses: for the first time in his life on the basketball court, excluding all the times he played against kids half his size, Buck 99 was The Man.

Buck's performance started with a steal and a quick lay-up. Then one of his teammates found him streaking through the lane, fed him a quick bounce pass, and Buck scored the lay-up in heavy traffic. Buck returned the favor with an offensive board and an overhand outlet pass that the same teammate caught over the back in stride for a lay-up of his own. Three more times the teammate fed the ball to Buck in the paint, and although Buck was surrounded by trees he kept penetrating through to the light. Another steal convinced the opponents that dribbling the ball in his vicinity was a bad idea. As the games progressed and teams were switched up, he found himself opposite the one former teammate with whom he was connecting so well, and who had a good 6" height advantage on Buck. Buck got another steal and ran down the court, but the guy was athletic and got back in plenty of time to defend against him. It was 1-on-1 with no hope for Buck. His new teammates called for him to hold it up, and for a moment he acted as though he might, but instead he went into a dazzling array of moves including but not limited to behind-the-back and under-the-leg dribbling, a stop, a fake shot or two, a few pivots, and a fake pass, when suddenly he realized that his stunts had miraculously worked and the hoop was wide open at point-blank range. A few minutes later he concluded his heroics with an outside, turnaround fadeaway jumper to his weak side under heavy defensive pressure that somehow went in. It was magic. It was also pure garbage, but magic garbage nonetheless.

As the evening ended the guys complimented Buck, saying that he was the clear MVP for the day. Four games and he'd been on the winning team each time. He went home that night proud of his accomplishments and eager for more. There was only one thing wrong:

He had broken his finger halfway through the first game.

That was three weeks ago. The finger did not feel well, and it has become clear that the finger will never fully recover (if anything, it has gotten worse). He played again for the first time on Monday, taping the fingers on his left hand to avoid making the injury worse. This worked, but it affected all aspects of his game. He went 1 for about 20 from the field (making only a lay-up that a teammate had missed on a 2-on-1 situation), missed a bunch of easy lay-ups, threw up air balls from outside, and turned the ball over to opponents with ill-conceived and poorly executed passes. Whenever he touched the ball his opponents pretended to be his teammates and encouraged him to shoot.

Buck doesn't want to talk about basketball anymore.