Sidetracked

Now that I’m getting older, I often find myself calculating when I will deteriorate physically. In fact, I have an informal aging checklist that tells me how it will go down:

* Wrinkles begin to appear: in 4 years

* Noticeable hair loss: 7 years

* Complain about younger generation’s musical tastes and knowledge of world events: now

I like basketball, but I’m not sure how long my aging body will allow me to play it. Right now, I still have pretty good speed and stamina — and a few pretty good moves, if I must say — but I figure I’ll start slowing down in a couple of years. And then at some point, I’ll injure myself, requiring some sort of knee surgery, thus requiring me to come to terms with my age by retiring from hoops and all other things requiring mobility.

But there’s hope.

In this morning’s Tribune, reporter Nick Wilson relates his basketball challenge against 78-year-old Don Morris. (That’s him above, shooting with his eyes closed.) Granted, Morris isn’t exactly spry enough to play Wilson 1-on-1 (one of Nick’s favorite tactics on the court is to run around a lot.). But he’s still got game.

As this video I made shows, Morris is a solid free-throw shooter (He recently made 23-of-25 in senior competition), and he can nail the three. He also gets around pretty well for a guy who graduated from college in 1952.

So there you go. If I can stay fit like Morris, I’ll have nearly 40 more years of hoops. Which means 40 more years to fix my shooting form.

Doesn’t look like Morris can help me keep my hair, though. Maybe I’ll be one of those cool old bald guys.

Photo: Dave Middlecamp

Posted on December 3rd, 2008 by Pat
Filed under: The World According to Pat