I played in a basketball game in fourth grade once. I don't remember if it was some required thing, but I think it must have been because I would never have voluntarily entered into such a game then. I was not very good at most sports, and I was even more worried about appearing not good at them. The game was not some kind of variation with fewer team members or a half court. It was the real deal. I don't even remember who all was on my team except for some kid named Eddie (I think) who was very tall and blonde.

Then again, most kids my age were taller than I was in 1984.

My team won, and I scored the final basket for us before the game was over. Mind you, we were up by more than two points when I got lucky and threw one that wasn't a brick. I could have missed that final shot, and we'd still have won, and I knew that even then.

When I took that last shot and managed to send the ball right through the hoop as the final second ticked off the clock, the other kids on my team got super-excited, converged and lifted me off of the court cheering. Probably it was everybody on the team lifting me up, but at the time it just seemed like four hundred kids gathering around and the giant Eddie raising me up above his head like I was a stuffed animal.

I was embarrassed, certain that most of the people who had seen the game must have known that my final basket, while perhaps spectacularly under the wire, didn't change the outcome of the game.

I actually very much enjoy the spotlight, and when I was younger I did more than I do now. I know for a fact that I'd take the spotlight as credit for something I didn't really do in a heartbeat at any point in my life before, say, the age of 21. Hell, I suspect I still do it under the right circumstances. I've probably just become better at fooling myself with justifications now.

I don't know why the memory of being erroneously treated like the team savior sticks out. It's up there with many of my finer, more classically embarrassing childhood moments, but it makes less sense than any of them.

Though I'm sure that the words may not be accurate, I remember looking down at Eddie as he said "You won the game for us, Martin!" and replying "We would have won anyway! My basket didn't matter!"

I'm certain he yelled back "Who cares?! Just cheer!"

what's on:
"Half Harvest" (Michael Penn - March)