backyard ball.

cw and i spent our afternoons last week playing ball out front. while we played, i told him stories about gpa dave and i shooting hoops in our backyard on 500 east. in the rain and snow. i learned to put english on the ball on that backyard court. i learned to keep the ball high when shooting on that court. and it's where i learned to lift my right leg when shooting a layup on the right side. and it's where i learned to aim for the corner of the square. i remember telling my dad that he looked ridiculous holding the ball above his head to shoot. and he would tell me that if it was good enough for larry bird, it was good enough for him. he also told me that no one would block my shots if i held the ball high. it's funny, cw reminds me so much of me at that age. he asked me the other day why i shoot and throw like a boy if i'm a girl. and i told him that my dad taught me to do it that way. he thought that was pretty cool. cw is like me in other ways too. i remember feeling like i was all legs. and he looks like he's all legs when he plays ball. once he grows into them though, he's going to be a force to be reckoned with. and he's smart enough to apply the things that he's taught, even if he doesn't totally understand why he's doing it. his basketball coach is pretty old school. they run the three man weave and shoot 50 layups at practice as a warm up. they run suicides at the end of practice. and he times them. he gives them homework every night: ten minutes of continuous dribbling with each hand and twenty layups from each side. i swear, if they start running the west virginia drill, i'm jumping in. volleyball consumed so much of my life for so long that i forgot that basketball was my first true love. but cw is helping me remember.