Mike Tharp: Basketball made me who I am

Our new president plays ball.

I don't mean across-the-aisle, Chris Matthews bluster ball. Or W-style throw-out-the-first-pitch ball. Or Slick Willie golf.

I mean real ball.

Mike Tharp

Basketball.

The game I played for 47 years. The game I hated to give up when my back went bad. The game that made me a lot of who and what I am.

Basketball.

Obama told Sports Illustrated a year ago that basketball taught him about "being part of something and finishing it up. And I learned a lot about discipline, about handling disappointments, about being more team-oriented and realizing that not everything is about you."

That's a lot of what I learned too. Guys liked to play with me because I got The Concept: to win. I played hard defense, liked to pass, worked to rebound and shot free throws over 80 percent. Even today, seven years after my last game, basketball influences the ways I edit this newspaper and Web site.

So let's talk ball.

First took a shot at age 10 on the Assumption Grade School asphalt playground. The rusted orange rim had no net. A seventh grader taught us a little about dribbling, passing and shooting -- but no jump shots. "You're not big enough to shoot a jump shot," he told us. So I started shooting jump shots.

Played CYO league the next four years. Papa put up a hoop on the back of our garage, then moved it to the mulberry tree in the big lot because the ball would bounce over the wood fence into the backyard of the neighborhood witch, Miss Davidson. I learned to dribble around tree roots and to shoot under branches.

My dad never played any sport in his life, but he was glad to help however he could. He'd read about a Pittsburgh star who practiced while wearing gloves, galoshes and a blindfold. For the next several months, I was in our basement, wearing the same gear, trying to avoid the cracks in the concrete and not run into the furnace.

My best friend then Vincent Dechand and I once rode our bikes up to St. Matthew's school, carrying snow shovels in one hand. We shoveled off enough of the parking lot to play one-on-one. Wasn't a big deal -- had to do it if we wanted to play.

Over the Christmas holidays in eighth grade, an event happened that changed my life forever. Roger, a 16-year-old, asked if I wanted to go up to Highland Park High and play. It was just above freezing in Kansas, so no problem. We shot around till two other guys showed up, both around his age. I was already 6 feet tall, weighed about 125 and was matched up against the guy my height who must've weighed 200.

As I drove down the lane, this dude gave me a forearm shiver right to the heart -- no attempt to go for the ball. I dropped to the blacktop, unable to breathe or see. But I did manage to gasp, "Foul!" So we got the ball back.

I had Roger take it out so I'd get it on the inbounds pass. Turned, saw the same guy defending the lane and drove right into him. He backed away at the last second, I went by and scored on the layup.

If I hadn't done that -- if I'd let that guy intimidate me -- I'd have never been worth a damn as a ballplayer. After that one incident, I was never afraid of anyone or anything on a basketball court.

In high school the pattern began that would last the rest of my playing days: I made friends for life and we won a lot of games.

I'm still in close touch with the four other starters on our team that went to the Kansas championship tournament our senior year -- Greg Bien, Ed Tucker, Don Gregg, Lonnie Hansard. Our coach, Ken Bueltel, influenced all of us in many ways; I still quote his favorite saying: the easiest thing in the world to do is to make an excuse.