Sibling Assignment #190: Heads Up!

Carol gave us this assignment:

Share a memory from one of your time performing on stage at Kellogg High School. 

Here is Carol's post and Christy's is here. 

My most memorable time performing on stage at KHS happened accidentally. It wasn't on a theater stage, but on the polished gym floor of Andrews Gymnasium. It may have been the best comic performance of my life. In fact, it was farcical physical comedy worthy of The Three Stooges.

First, some background. It was my senior year at Kellogg High School. It was my third year on the varsity basketball team. I hardly played my sophomore year and I was a starter for the early part of the season of my junior year, but played myself off of the starting five and managed, through ineptitude, to play myself deeper and deeper on the bench. I became a team clown by the end of the season, translating my frustration with my situation into antics like wearing a mismatching albino warm up for a game late in the year at Bonners Ferry and then, when the starters were introduced under a spotlight, I jumped off the bench, imitated Wallace star Bob Blum as I ran under the spotlight, joined the starters gathered in the light, and raised my fist and said, "Let's go!" in an act of mockery, acting like I was inspiring my teammates, when, in fact, I was making fun of the idea of team inspiration.

I probably figured when my senior year started that I wasn't going to be much of a factor on the 1971-72 Wildcat basketball team. We'd lost Bushnell and Burkhart from the previous year's team, but we had plenty of guards to cover for Burkhart and John Hinkemeyer was going to definitely start at forward along with Lars. I don't know what I thought my role on this team might be and, to be honest, our coach never told me how I might contribute to the team off the bench or in any other way. And, I never asked.

So, when the Post Falls Trojans traveled to Kellogg in December of 1971, we had already lost to them in Post Falls. That had been a brutal weekend. We lost on the road to both Post Falls and Bonners Ferry and one of the college placement exams, either the ACT or the SAT had been given on early Saturday morning of that weekend in CdA.

But, in Kellogg, our starters, possibly with some help from a couple players off the bench, spanked Post Falls. Late in the fourth quarter, our Kellogg squad had enough of a lead that our coach decided he could take the risk of putting me in the game.

I look back at myself and I can see that I was a very limited basketball player. I was a pretty good outside shooter, but not nearly as good as I thought I was. I was also slow-footed and easy to beat on defense, a lousy ball handler, and an erratic passer. My greatest handicap was my mental state on the basketball floor. I was not a cool player. I was insecure, nervous, afraid of making mistakes, and very excitable. Sometimes at home, Dad would tell me that I needed to learn how to relax on the court, but I think I thought that all my nervousness and physical activity showed that I cared.

Often when I came into a game, because I was so nervous, I didn't see the whole court. I often had tunnel vision and so I didn't make basketball decisions based on much more than what lay right before me.

So, soon after I came into the game, Post Falls missed a shot, we rebounded it and a fast break began to develop. Roger Pearson had the ball in the middle of the floor and as he fired a pass cross court to a teammate, I darted, out of control, in front of him and his pass hit me squarely in the side of the face.  Humiliation set in, but we had a good lead and the worst thing I'd done was wreck a good fast break. It wasn't going to cost us this game.

Not long after that, Post Falls missed another shot and Scott Stuart rebounded it and I ran, out of control, as fast as I could straight to the opposite end of the court, ahead of any Post Falls players. Stu spotted me and launched a Sonny Jurgenson-like pass high into the air, forming a perfect parabola, but, I think, a little behind me. I clumsily tried to recover and come back to Stu's pass, and came back to it all right, but couldn't catch it. It struck me on top of the head.

I had now been hit in the head twice within a very short time frame. The gym erupted in laughter. Then, in what might have been my only moment of court awareness the whole season, I began to stagger, as if the two blows had dizzied me, left me unable to walk a straight line. Our coach then seized this farcical moment and produced smelling salts and I reeled and swayed and teetered over toward him and in a grand theatrical gesture inhaled the smelling salts and acted as they had cleared my head and revived me.

The crowd loved it. Since we were in no danger of losing this game, our coach loved it. Maybe, maybe even the Post Falls players thought my performance was funny. What I do know is that this was my most memorable time performing on a stage at KHS and it further laid the groundwork for me to become even more of a team clown on the end of the bench by the end of the season.