During the regular season, the Inn Crowd played on Thursdays at 10pm. Since I only have one class on Thursdays, that left me all day to come up with my own pregame ritual. After deep deliberation, I came up with a pretty intricate and at times taxing ritual to prepare for a game that would, most of the time, be less taxing the ritual that preceded it. Here's an average game-day diary:
8am: Wake up. Regret not having done laundry. Find underwear that doesn't make my eyes water. Get dressed.
8:15am: Drive to the Ann Arbor YMCA for a pregame shootaround. Unfortunately, the IM building doesn't open until 9, which is categorically ridiculous. It's a gym. It should be open at 5, 6 at the very latest. But the maddening IM building hours is for another post. And since I avoid the CCRB and NCRB like the plague for reasons that should be obvious, that leaves me with the YMCA. I've been going to this gym since it opened when I was a sophomore in high school. It's decent, with one full-length court and three smaller courts running across it. But mostly, it's nice and familiar, nobody bothers me, and I'm almost always alone. It's just a nice way to start a game day.
Now, shootarounds, at least those of the NBA variety, are in place mostly to make sure everyone on the team is awake and moving at 10am or so for a 7 or 8pm game. Pretty reasonable, especially given the average nightlife of an NBA player (Stephen Jackson, anyone?). The shootaround I chose to subject myself to this season was a full 14 hours before game time, but still it meant that I was sufficiently recovered from a hard night of studying and watching "Chuck" reruns online. Hey, it's the life of an IM star -- I make no apologies.
10am: Drive back to my apartment
10:30am: Shower (if the girl who sits beside me in my Greek class is lucky).
11am: Go to class (Greek 202). Of course, as I usually am, I'm only there physically. My daydreaming gets especially bad on game days, when I spend most of class picturing myself throwing down alley-oops, making LeBron James-esque blocks, and generally playing a lot better than I ever have or will. Of course this means that when I'm called on to say something in Greek, I usually just mutter something like, "Den Xero (I don't know)," or "Oxi (No)." These have become my two favorite phrases in the entire Greek language.
12pm: Get out of class
12:15pm: Get something to eat. This is important. Usually, I like to treat myself to something nice on game day, probably something from Noodles and Co. or Mr. Greek's (if I'm feeling breakfasty). This is probably going to be the only thing I eat all day, besides maybe a banana or something right before the game.
1:30pm: Haircut at Coach and Four. I don't really know why, but haircuts just relax me. Unfortunately, I don't have much hair to cut, so I usually just have them do something wacky to it, like shave in a mohawk, which is what I have currently. Shout out to Jordan, my barber and the highest-flying white dude I've been around in a long while.
3pm: Sleep. This is also really important. I do this taking into account the probability that I didn't get much sleep the night before (the 8am shootaround may have something to do with that). God willing, I'll have nothing to do the rest of the day and I can sleep peacefully until...
8:30pm: Wake up. Probably eat a banana, maybe with peanut butter. I don't like to eat too much on game days because I always want to play hungry.
9pm: walk to the IM building. This is one of the most important parts of the day. I listen to the same song (Testosterone Manifesto by my boy Zan Deparry. Check out his myspace page.) every time. It's 12:54, which is almost exactly the time it takes me to walk from my apartment to the IM. It's nice and jazzy, with dope rhymes and some definite funk. Perfect.
10pm: Gametime. And the rout is on.
Unfortunately, with playoffs being on an entirely different schedule, it's hard for me to maintain the routine that I have become so comfortable with. I was unable to wake up for the early-morning shootaround because I was up super late writing our first blog post and a story that was due in my English 323 class the next day. Our first playoff game was Tuesday at 6pm, which threw a serious wrench into my plans to attend my English class that doesn't get out until 6. This would leave me with insufficient warmup time, which I simply do not tolerate. I was prepared to do unspeakable things in order to get out of class early, but all it took was an email. My professor agreed to let me out a half-hour early, saying she didn't want to be the reason we lost. Pretty cool.
So, after all of this, I finally get to the gym at around 5:40 (not a lot of time to warm up, but I'll take it). Zesty J and Champlin are already in the building. So I start shooting.
Around 5:50, no one from the other team has showed up, and we have nearly the entire crew in the house (all except for Matty Ice, who sat this one out with an ankle. He fell on the ice, which I thought was kind of funny and ironic).
By 6pm (gametime), the other team still hasn't showed. We elect to take wait the 10 minutes to allow them more time, but we all know it's probably a lost cause.
Then, James mentioned he found something on our bench when he got to the gym that may explain why the other team didn't show. It was a letter from the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, who we were scheduled to play that night in the first round of playoffs. It read:
To the Esteemed Members of the Inn Crowd,
I regret to inform you that our basketball team will not be making it to the game tonight on account of pure, unadulterated fear. We were able to peruse your blog this morning and we saw the grizzly footage from your previous game. We saw the looks of terror, helplessness and regret plastered on the opposing players' faces. We recognized them as the faces many young men leave our parties with. We do not want to end up like them. Please accept this letter as documentation of our unconditional surrender.
Sincerely,
Your micro-balled, pencil-penised friends at Alpha Epsilon Pi
In the wake of their surrender, the Inn Crowd went home that night with a win by forfeit. We are already looking forward to our next game, which is (technically) TODAY at 10pm. Luckily, the similar day and time to the regular season games will allow me to return to my game day routine. More posts with details on the opposing team tomorrow, as well as a full playoff schedule.
But to conclude this particular post, I will say only this. Alpha Epsilon Pi: grow a pair.
No comments:
Post a Comment