His name is Silas.

He introduced himself to me before Team Dyniewski, our Legacy basketball team, tipped off against his “Dynasty” in our Monday city rec league game in North Richland Hills. Silas is 7′ 3″, 315 pounds. His arms are eight feet long. His chest ripples with muscles that bulge out in places I don’t think muscles are supposed to grow. His legs are like tree trunks. He’s got a seven foot verticle leap and runs the 40 in 3.7 seconds. He only has one eye in the middle of his forehead. And when he came out onto the floor at the start of the game, my first thought was to throw some raw meat at him. Maybe that’ll stop him.

Of course, I was not assigned to cover Silas. Josh took that responsibility upon himself. In our loose 2-3 zone, my job is to patrol the guards up top. To keep them honest. To contest 20-foot jumpers. I’ll rush the paint and crash the boards once a shot’s up. But never before.

I still don’t know what happened on this particular play about midway through the first half. I remember following my guard to a point just outside the free throw line and then getting caught up in some thick traffic. Somehow, someway, I’ll never know how, I wound up at the baseline, almost directly under the basket. I think I thought my guard had put up a shot. I think I turned to face the basket and track the rebound. Only my guard had definitely not taken a shot. He had skillfully lobbed a nice, high, arcing pass down in the low post to his man, Silas.

I guess Josh and Aaron were both screened. I suppose they both tried to sag down to help but couldn’t make it. I believe with all my heart that they did not contemplate what was about to happen and then consciously make the choice to duck and run for the sidelines. They are my brothers. They would not abandon a teammate to face this certain doom alone.

Silas has the ball. And the only thing standing between him and the basket is me.

I knew I needed to contest this dunk, but I had no earthly idea how. Since my vertical leap is around four inches and most of my muscle is in my head, my only option was to stand where I was and raise my arms as high as they could go. I figured I couldn’t go at him. He would kill me. And I’ve gotta preach Sunday. I would just stand my ground and then jump straight up as high as I could when he went up for the shot.

I should have also closed my eyes.

Silas went up. I bent my legs to prepare to propel myself upward and meet him in the sky. But when I looked and saw his knees rise up above my chest, I crumbled. Mentally. Emotionally. Physically. I crumbled.

Posterized!

Silas dunked the ball over me. Right on top of me. I can’t describe to you how thunderous it was. He was up to his elbows in net and just about had my neck in a scissors-lock with his legs. It was loud. It was humiliating. It was…

…funny.

The defenders in this picture and in this picture are actually contesting the dunks. They’re trying. That’s not what this was at all. I’d like to think what happened to me is what happened to Steve Nash in this picture. He’s actually in there getting mowed down in an effort to take a charge. No. I’m afraid what happened to me is what happened to Shawn Bradley in this picture. The same turning my back and ducking my head. The same pained wincing. The same fear. This is what it looked like. This is what it felt like. Not pretty. Ugly. Complete mismatch. Comical.

Aaron chased the dead ball down in the far corner of the gym and I noticed that he was laughing as he inbounded it to me. I looked at him and started laughing, too. He said, “Dude, are you OK?” I said, “Man, I just got posterized.” And he replied, “Yeah, no kidding!” And then he asked me again, “Are you allright?” And we just kept laughing.

We got killed last night. I don’t even know what the final score was. I distinctly remember Taylor Parrish screaming from the stands during the closing seconds that all we needed was a 17-point shot. So we lost by at least 17. Josh, of course, was ranting and raving all during the second half and immediately afterward. I think he actually foamed up at the mouth there at the end. In our post-game huddle, he vowed that we were not going to be doing things the same way anymore. He swore things were going to be different. He promised he was going to be making some changes. I looked up and asked him, “Are we going to get some of their players?”

He doesn’t see the humor.

Rough night. We lost Aaron with a knee late in the first half. Russ was in Philly on business. Trey’s still not recovered from his back injury. Jared refuses to quit school.

Team Dyniewski is 1-3. We’re bruised. Battered. Beaten up.

I was sitting with Aaron on the bench after the game. He was holding an icepack to his red and swollen knee, unsure if he’d be able to play again this season, hoping he wouldn’t be needing major surgery. And he looked at me and said, “I’ll never forget you getting dunked on like that. I’ve never seen anything like that. No matter what else happened tonight, that was funny.” And we laughed again.

The Silas poster hits stores this weekend. Proceeds will benefit Josh Dyniewski in helping defray some of his counseling costs.

Peace,

Allan

Our Legacy basketball team, Team Dyniewski, took to the hardwoods last night to battle “Countrywide,” the defending three-time North Richland Hills recreation league champions. This is the team that destroyed the Wildcats 96-32, the Wildcats squad that beat us last week by nine. We went into the game with much fear and trepidation. Our main goal was to not allow this team to hang a hundred on us. Josh had told us earlier in the day that if they got to 75 points, we would just pull out and run a four-corners-type offense and slow it down as much as possible to run out the clock. Hold them under a hundred. That was the plan.

Seven minutes into the game, we were leading 21-15. We were tied at the half, 29-29. We were tied 56-56 with two-minutes to play. They were frustrated. They were bickering among themselves, pointing fingers of accusation after every missed shot or turnover. Yelling at the refs. We were energized. We were playing as a team. We were actually running with these guys and had a real shot at winning this thing! Coker, nursing his torn calf in street clothes, was cheering us on from the sidelines. The crowd of seven could sense something special was happening.

We missed a bucket and committed a foul at the other end, leading to free throws and a two-point deficit with 13-seconds to play. Our missed layup on our ensuing possession forced us to foul after the rebound, putting them at the free-throw line with 4.1-seconds remaining. To our great delight, their man made only one of the shots, giving us a glimmer of hope. All we needed was a three-pointer at the buzzer to tie and send the game to overtime! We were still alive!

Alas, (Kipi, that word is for you) Jared’s try at the horn came up short and the clock expired on what would have been the greatest upset in North Richland Hills rec league basketball history.

We lost 59-56.

Now…..are you ready for this?

Wait for it.

Wait for it.

Are you ready?

OK. Here it is:

They only had four players.

Yes, they only had four players. That’s it. Four.

We brought ten. We had five on the floor and five on the bench at all times. It was ten on four.

Their point guard fouled out at the end. We played the final 14 seconds with a five-on-three power play.

And they still beat us.

At tip-off time they only had three guys in the gym. They had to call one of their teammates at home and get him to come up just so they wouldn’t have to forfeit. And they still beat us. They were full-court pressing us off made shots. They only had four players and they were forcing turnovers on the press!

It would have been a whole lot worse if Jared Jones hadn’t shown up. Jared scored about 48 of our 56 points on three-pointers. He was raining them in from all over. 25-footers. With men in his face. Over double-teams. He was deadly. I don’t think he missed one. Jared missed our first two games and will miss several more because he’s taking Monday night classes to improve his life or something. I’m going to call UTA this afternoon and tell them my name’s Jared Jones and I’m dropping my Monday night class. If they say, “But, Jared, you’ve got a 98-average in that class,” I’m going to say, “Don’t worry about it. Drop it.”

We still have to play “Countrywide” one more time. I’m scared to death they’re going to bring five.

Peace,

Allan