Bottom Of The Fourth Quarter And It Counts

My basketball career is over:
One lay-up and one tip-in. The two most typical shots for a center/forward, but the two last shots I made in unorganized and organized ball. Before that, I was able to be an unofficial top twenty individual in many categories in noon-ball and an unofficial top-fifteen in points in Special Olympics basketball, and in the top-five unofficially in fouls, rebounds, and blocks. If there were enshrinement in career Hall of Fame's for those particular basketball places I would be in them. And I was a winner: my pick-up ball teams won 40% of the time at last count, and I won 5 gold medals, 4 silver medals, and 1 bronze medal in basketball alone in Special Olympics, not counting my school-ball days were the teams were 5-3, 11-2, and 9-2 in three years of sporadic time on the court. I have won numerous one-on-one games and some two-on-two games, but despite all the teammates that I have touched, all the camaraderie of it, all the great memories I've had, all the friendships I've made, I'm done. I don't like it, but my body's happier, I'm at peace with how my body feels, and I'm at peace with what I had accomplished in my close to twenty years on the court. I have seen plenty of nicks and bruises and sprains in my time and my sense is due to doctor's telling me to quit, I can do that and be happy with it. I want my body to be able to walk and hike and dance when I'm my Mom's age, and I can't do that if I sprain my ankle every month. I may be able to produce, but at what type of cost? I just want to believe that I have done enough to count and give it my all.
Have I made mistakes?:
Sure I have. I haven't been the kindest player on the court, I have been hyper-competitive to the point where people don't want to guard me, and I have played too hard when it doesn't matter score-wise. I have looked selfishly and tried to argue my way into playing time when we were ahead by a lot and I was a star. I can say that there have been a litany of mistakes that I've made and I've gotten pulled for some of them, but it is safe to say that even last year when I sat out parts of the second half as an injury precaution and still got injured, players sometimes have to sit when they have done nothing wrong. No player is perfect, not me, not Kevin Durant, not Michael Jordan even. It gets to the point where when they are mistakes such as my disqualification, my extended exuberance on the game we won last year, or my intentional foul (OK, the only one that was called, I'm sure that the refs in games I've been in were just a lean bit lenient) were choices and the mistakes that I've made with my behavior off-the-court, especially in high school, it seems to me that I have become the person I have today and wouldn't be any less of a person or a ball-player on the team without them.
Basketball players lead interesting lives, even if it's just on the recreational level:
I have been able to share stories with friends years down the road, and it becomes like legend. There are people who still talk about "the shot" versus my arch-rival in Freshman ball half a lifetime ago. Some of my friends talk about moments from way-back-when I did some stuff that I legitimately regret. One story that is still brought up is when I tried to shave my head "for the team" when I was 17. I was too young to do stuff that was that out-there but I didn't know it then. People still to this day talk about Christian Boise State Rec Ball and my prowess there and my memory for details with scores. I think these days though I'm able to be at peace with semi-forced retirement. I don't think that there is anything else I can accomplish that I have yet to besides an unbeaten season which is almost impossible to do. Most of all, I have done the best I could do when I could do it and I have almost a whole book of interesting stories to tell. I truly have, even though some people due to my over-aggressive demeanor don't want to hear it, have given my all to it.

Strong

Strong
By I. Jimmy Bott
The weakness of my lack of strength
Not physically but emotionally and trying to get through life
How I would want to academically
A planner and perfectionist with a heart of gold
My life is a vortex yet with a strong mold
Hope works through eternal proportion
With a strength that cannot win
And a will within
I will be strong
I will be strong
Passion that is unequivocal
Autism and seeing others
Lives change because of what I am
Doing in the strong community
And loving all of the individuals
That have become like family
Everything I had and others had for me were to be changed
Depression, entanglement, and detachment have been rearranged
I am strong
I am strong
Strengthen me Lord from each continued vantage point
And strengthen others to continue to see what I did,
I did for others not me
And please generously Lord continue me to be strong- IJB