November 12, 2008 - Flip-flops and bikinis…the basketball essentials

Everyday for three months I played basketball. It wasn't in a gym or in the park or even on a court for that matter. It was in my backyard.

It was the summer after everyone had got their drivers licenses. I'd already totaled my car, so I always had to call up my best friend Megan to come over and hang out.

We'd grown up together; first grade school, then middle school and finally high school. In the summers we played on the same club basketball team.

She'd pull up in her mom's purple minivan with Nelly blasting from the open windows. I had a pool in my backyard, so the first thing we'd do is get in our bikinis and hop in. We'd get cool and do all those dumb water games like Marco polo and handstand contests.

After awhile we'd get out, slip on our flip-flops and head for my cul-de-sac. My dad had put a basketball hoop at one end of it just barely touching the grass. The only line we used was stick we'd taped down to the ground about where the free-throw line should be.

Meg and I would play for hours. One-on-one. Horse. Round the world. When we'd get hot we'd jump in the pool for a few minutes, get back out and play again. It was a blast. We did it everyday.

She plays in college now at a small D-3 school in Wisconsin. When I called her up to ask her what her favorite memory of the sport was, her answer surprised me. It wasn’t winning the only conference championship ever in our high school's history. It wasn’t becoming a captain as a junior. It wasn’t even getting a scholarship to play ball. Her best memory was our summer one-on-one's. Our flip-flops and bikinis.