I may have heard this sentence more times than anybody in the history of the LDS Faith.
“Relax man, It’s only church basketball!”
Not that I am a hot head, quite the opposite. I am very level headed even after a couple uncalled fouls or an intenional cheapshot.
I get the relax comment because I have no offense and only one speed on defense, full speed. It’s not intenional. I just can’t turn it down. It doesn’t matter what the score is, or the fact that I have never even played a basketball game that mattered to anyone but myself, when I play defense, I only run a full court press, usually by myself. The worst part is, the more it bothers my opponent, the more I enjoy it.
I think it all stems from my personal belief that when you have short comings in anything, the quickest fix is to turn up the intensity. The second quickest fix is to put on your mean face. No doubt these are personal beliefs fueled by a lifetime of wrestling.
As a wrestler, I never felt bad about giving up one point for unnecessary roughness as long as I had at least a two point lead. In the video below I get a particular bargain on a unnecessary roughness call, leading 10-2 with less than a minute to wrestle and only being punished one point for a hum-dinger. I'll take that deal every time.
Recently I decided I needed to start doing what I could to pass the mean faces and intensity on to my offspring. Not that I would let any of my girls wrestle, but heck, life is just more fun if you have a good mean face in your arsenal. So I decided to get Jilli Bean started by working on her mean face and it seems to come pretty natural for her. Judge for yourself.
