On Saturday I went to Archbold Gymnasium with four friends to play some pickup basketball. Soon after we found our court, we were joined by five guys who were clearly new to the game.

Now, let me clear some things up before I go on. I am short, slow and grossly un-athletic. I have the agility of a crippled panda, and the leaping ability of, well, a crippled panda. That being said, I have some skill with a basketball. I might not be an all-star, but my ball-handling abilities did win me a girlfriend in the fourth grade (take that, Wilt Chamberlain).

So, when I say that these five newcomers looked like drunken circus midgets on the basketball court, it’s not to toot my own horn by comparison. They really sucked.

With their tallest player standing at a lanky 5 feet 6 inches and their shortest one already going bald, they dribbled with Shrek’s grace and shot with Dick Cheney’s precision.

Amused, my buddies and I looked at each other with glee. A five-on-five with these guys would boost our confidence without even breaking a sweat.

If only.

As it turns out, we shot for teams, leaving me with four new teammates while my four friends got a new balding point guard. What followed was the most humiliating experience of my life that didn’t involve women, livestock or bar mitzvahs.

Yet, when the ‘Archbold massacre,’ as my friends called it, was over, I didn’t take the easy way out and merely sob silently in the fetal position for hours on end.

Ok, I did. But after that I came up with some rules for pickup basketball to make sure everyone leaves with their ego intact. Take heed:

Rule #1: Make fair teams. Yea, yea, I’m whining. But isn’t competition more important than winning in the end? After all, wrestling’s no fun with someone half your size, and dodgeball’s no fun when you’re pegging defenseless little kids with a rubber ball. Wait, no. Bad examples. Those both sound awesome. But you get the point: fair teams are better for basketball.

Rule #2: Don’t talk trash. Especially when the guy guarding you could pass for a 12-year-old. Then it’s just sad.

Rule #3: Pass the ball. Is there anyone less fun to play with in any sport than the ball-hog in pickup basketball? Forget sports – a ball-hog more thoroughly ruins an activity than the slow-rush-hour-driver, the movie-cell-phone-talker, and the bathroom-masturbator combined. It’s always a shame when people can’t let go of their balls…

Rule #4: Remember, it’s only pickup. It’s not like a hard foul’s gonna cost you the NBA title, so don’t act like it’s the end of the world. Just get up, dust off your headband and take a hit off someone’s inhaler. Everything’s gonna be fine.

Rule #5: No shirts n’ skins. It’s all fun and games until you end up guarding a cross-breed between Austin Powers and Sasquatch.

Sure, it’s a stretch, but if we band together we can revolutionize pickup basketball forever! That’s right – no more blowouts, ball-hogs or shirtless manbearpigs. Instead we can get back to what makes Archbold great – a bunch of fat guys who think they’re Jonny Flynn.

Speaking of which, he’s my new point guard.

Danny Fersh is a freshman broadcast journalism major and the humor columnist. His columns appear every Wednesday but one and he drops trays like it’s his job. He can be reached at dafersh@syr.edu.

Published on February 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm