-- By Tom Phillips
What do you miss most in this Viral Spring? I asked that question at a recent social-distance gathering with three other people, and got four different answers. Working, partying, going to church were three. Mine was: Sports.
April is the coolest month, for both players and fans -- winter sports climaxing just as baseball returns. Pro basketball and hockey teams scramble for playoff spots. The outdoors warms, the boys of summer fly north, and the buzz of spring training becomes the roar of Opening Day.
Not this year. Baseball, basketball, hockey are all stilled. Tennis courts stretch empty in the parks. Playgrounds are closed. Here on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the only sound of sporting life seems to emanate from a backyard on 111th street, where the thump of a basketball on concrete is followed by the clang of a shot off the rim.
It's me, playing Hoop Solitaire.
I've been shooting balls through hoops for 70 years, starting in a suburban driveway on Long Island. I hoped to be a star, but I had limited value to my high school and college teams, because the only skill I worked at was shooting.
My game is Hoop Solitaire. And suddenly, it's the only game in town.
I warm up in the back yard by shooting around -- layups and hooks, jumpers without the jump, just a little lift of the heels. But the main event is foul shooting -- the art of the free throw. I shoot 50 a day, and keep score.
Fifteen feet from the hoop, with no pesky defenders in the way, it's just you, the ball and the basket.
You begin by centering -- feet planted, eyes on the front rim, ball straight up, fingers spread lightly on the seams. The push comes up from the feet, through ankles, knees, hips, elbows, wrists, fingers. The ball floats up, down, and through the net. Repeat.
Unlike other aspects of the game, foul shooting can improve with age. In high school I shot 75-80 percent from the foul line. The other day in the back yard I made 45 out of 50 -- 90 percent. I thought I was on the way to becoming a grandmaster. Then I looked up the records.
In 1993, a 71-year-old retired podiatrist, Tom Amberry, made 2750 foul shots in a row. He only stopped because the janitors kicked him out of a gym in California. "I could have made a bunch more,"said Amberry. "I was in the zone."
The current record is 5,221, set by a 55-year-old dairy farmer, Ted St. Martin. He practiced incessantly with a hoop on the side of his barn. Somebody else made 88 in a row blindfolded.
There's a whole subculture of master foul-shooters -- not retired stars, but ordinary high school and college players who want to recapture a feeling of mastery. What sets basketball apart from other back-and forth sports is the intense pleasure of scoring -- the sight and sound and feel of a perfect arc that ends with a ching!-- or the thrill of watching an imperfect shot roll around the rim and bounce off the backboard before dropping in. Luck!
Just imagine making five thousand in a row. With little else to do, I'm working at it.
-- Copyright 2020 by Tom Phillips
Photo of Tom Amberry, LA Times
What do you miss most in this Viral Spring? I asked that question at a recent social-distance gathering with three other people, and got four different answers. Working, partying, going to church were three. Mine was: Sports.
April is the coolest month, for both players and fans -- winter sports climaxing just as baseball returns. Pro basketball and hockey teams scramble for playoff spots. The outdoors warms, the boys of summer fly north, and the buzz of spring training becomes the roar of Opening Day.
Not this year. Baseball, basketball, hockey are all stilled. Tennis courts stretch empty in the parks. Playgrounds are closed. Here on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the only sound of sporting life seems to emanate from a backyard on 111th street, where the thump of a basketball on concrete is followed by the clang of a shot off the rim.
I've been shooting balls through hoops for 70 years, starting in a suburban driveway on Long Island. I hoped to be a star, but I had limited value to my high school and college teams, because the only skill I worked at was shooting.
My game is Hoop Solitaire. And suddenly, it's the only game in town.
I warm up in the back yard by shooting around -- layups and hooks, jumpers without the jump, just a little lift of the heels. But the main event is foul shooting -- the art of the free throw. I shoot 50 a day, and keep score.
Fifteen feet from the hoop, with no pesky defenders in the way, it's just you, the ball and the basket.
You begin by centering -- feet planted, eyes on the front rim, ball straight up, fingers spread lightly on the seams. The push comes up from the feet, through ankles, knees, hips, elbows, wrists, fingers. The ball floats up, down, and through the net. Repeat.
Unlike other aspects of the game, foul shooting can improve with age. In high school I shot 75-80 percent from the foul line. The other day in the back yard I made 45 out of 50 -- 90 percent. I thought I was on the way to becoming a grandmaster. Then I looked up the records.
In 1993, a 71-year-old retired podiatrist, Tom Amberry, made 2750 foul shots in a row. He only stopped because the janitors kicked him out of a gym in California. "I could have made a bunch more,"said Amberry. "I was in the zone."
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| Tom Amberry: in the zone |
The current record is 5,221, set by a 55-year-old dairy farmer, Ted St. Martin. He practiced incessantly with a hoop on the side of his barn. Somebody else made 88 in a row blindfolded.
There's a whole subculture of master foul-shooters -- not retired stars, but ordinary high school and college players who want to recapture a feeling of mastery. What sets basketball apart from other back-and forth sports is the intense pleasure of scoring -- the sight and sound and feel of a perfect arc that ends with a ching!-- or the thrill of watching an imperfect shot roll around the rim and bounce off the backboard before dropping in. Luck!
Just imagine making five thousand in a row. With little else to do, I'm working at it.
-- Copyright 2020 by Tom Phillips
Photo of Tom Amberry, LA Times
Not to sound too new-age, Tom, but really very Zen. I bet I'd get in the "zone" just watching you, especially since I can't shoot at all...
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