Remember The Mane

by ed riley copyright 2002

Ever had one of those days when you have more time than sense? So what do you do? I personally sit around and think about all the crazy things that I've seen. If you've played enough, or coached enough, then I'm sure there are lots of things you have seen on the court. Here's an example:

Ever played one of those teams whose players think they are all that? The thing is, most of the time they aren't that skilled, or that good. What they lack in skill they more than make up for in nasty attitudes and corrupt physical play. Know the type of team I am talking about?

It's the team that spits on their hands as they do the lineup at the end of the game and high five's your team.

It's the team that hammers you when the ref's not looking, but wins the Academy Award for Best Actor when you even bump them and the ref is looking.

It's the team that grabs your uniform top so you can't move. When you complain to the ref, they have that angelic face like they have no clue what you are talking about.

It's the team that curses you out every chance they get. Now, do you know the type of team I am talking about? Well, there is a team here in town that my team absolutely hates. The last time we played them, one of their players played Mike Tyson and bit one of my girls when the ref wasn't looking. We knew we had them in an upcoming league game and my girls wanted to do something special for them but couldn't come up with an idea. So .........

After a game, my wife and I were taking my daughter and 2 other players home when the conversation in the back of the van turned to boys. Like duh, what else are 15 year old girls going to talk about?

We all know about chain reactions, and how one thing leads to another, and then another, right? Wait till you get a load of this sequence of thoughts.

Anyway, they all knew this one friend of my daughters. It turns out that he must have really hairy armpits, I mean really hairy. All the girls agreed that this was pretty gross. So one girl chirps in with, "Well, I'm going to make my man shave his pits." That got my wife going, and there's no stopping that freight train when she gets tickled.

My wife suggested braiding their future husbands armpit hair when they were asleep. Then it was trimming the hair when they were asleep. Then it turned to back to how gross that was.

So how does this relate to basketball? The conversation came around to what girls would look like if they didn't shave their pits. Then my wife tried to get them to imagine how a basketball team of hairy pitted young ladies would affect the opposing team.

Next, they all started in on lots of fun scenarios, then the mental light bulb must have come on! In my rear view mirror I could see the 3 girls huddled in a hushed secret meeting.

2 days later we had to play this nasty team. Understand, I am not the most observant individual in the world. So I didn't think anything of it when my team warmed up before the game wearing lightweight long sleeved jerseys. Even though it was 90 degrees in the gym, they were still wearing long sleeved jerseys.

The horn blew and I called them all in and gave them the starting lineup. Off came the jerseys and into the game they went.

As the jumpball was being tossed into the air, the opposing player backed out of the mid-court circle holding her mouth, which gave us the tap. My girls were off and running. The girl defending our player who took the first shot, backed away as my player shot = 2 to nothing.

For the next 3 minutes or so, we got every rebound, the other team didn't even try. Finally the other coach called a time out. My girls came running to the bench all of them laughing so hard they were almost crying. Then they told me the story.

They had bought several very cheap ugly wigs, all different colors. They had cut them into large patches of hair, and had safety pinned them to the top and bottom of their uniform arm openings. You could tell they had worked on this a while, because the hair was safety pinned in place, and every girl on the team had 3" to 4" of lifelike armpit hair hanging down covering their pits.

The other coach went to the refs and complained, but the refs just told him to worry about his team and blew the whistle for the teams to take the floor. Needless to say, we won the game by a bunch.

Oh yeah, one last thing. I have one girl on the team who is fearless and has a very bizarre sense of humor. She is also the player who was bit in the previous game. You know the wormies, or squigglies, or whatever that very colorful soft candy is, that is nothing but sugar? Well, she had somehow attached some of these to her fake pit hair. In the heat of the game they were mostly melted into the pithair and it looked gross.

This player made sure she was guarding the "Biter." There was a loose ball on the floor and both the "Biter" and my player dove for the ball. My player made sure she stuck those ole pits all over the "Biter." In fact, the "Biter" ended up with a face covered in smooshed, warm, melted wormies, with my player standing over her pointing to her pits telling her, "Want some more? Bite This!" "Biter" got so grossed out, that she jumped up and bolted to the bathroom.

I'd say the moral of the story is, don't bite off more than you can chew, but that's too wet a sense of humor for me. Let's just say that what goes around, comes around?????? Or, "Remember The Mane!"

And there is a lesson for the younger boys, maybe? It appears that there are at least 3 young ladies that I know of that hate long armpit hair on a guy. Just a thought for you guys out there!