Melissa Miller is a GPC student.

Basketball in the Old Days

My dad was raised in the country in the Deep South and always has stories of his childhood. One he recalls with laughter is his first basketball tournament that took place in the big city of Cairo, Georgia. Dad and his teammates only went to town once a week and did not know much about city life. He was about to find out.

Dad’s school was a small rectangular building with one hallway down the middle and rooms on each side where grades one through seven were taught. This was the only facility; that did not even have a gym. Their basketball court was outside next to a small playground. The court consisted of a hard-packed dirt floor, the basketball goals were wooden backboards, and the hoops were metal rings without nets. Their standard uniform was shorts, a T-shirt and Ked’s tennis shoes. Dad and his teammates thought everyone’s school was like theirs and that everyone played basketball outside on the dirt. That was, until the evening of the tournament.

On the way to the tournament, everyone was excited about going to town for their first tournament. As they drove up to the school, you could see how big the school was, at least five times larger than their small country school. They had never seen anything like this and got scared. The gym was a huge white building with doors stationed in the middle. As the team walked in, they looked around and saw lights in the ceiling that lit the gym like sunshine during the day. The entire gym was made of wood, even the floors, and the basketball goals had all the parts, including nets. The other team had fancy uniforms with numbers on them. My Dad thought the team was in trouble and maybe they should go back to the country. Of course they could not and it was now time to play.

The teams lined-up on the court and the referee shot the ball in air. Both sides jumped up to get the ball and dad’s teammate took control of the ball and dribbled his first dribble. To everyone’s amazement, the ball went over his head by several feet. The player was shocked and everyone in the audience and the players started laughing. According to dad, this was how the entire night went. Anytime his teammates got the ball; the ball spent more time in the air above their heads than below their hands. His team was so used to dribbling on hard-packed dirt, they did not have a clue on how to dribble on a wooden floor.

My dad’s team lost with a score around seventy-seven to three. Needless to say, the bus ride home was pretty subdued. This was the first and last tournament between the country and city teams.

From this basketball tournament, my Dad found out there were some differences between city life and country life. The buildings in the city were bigger and grander, basketball was played indoors on wooden floors, and if you dribble on dirt, change your strategy when you dribble on wood.