Did I say dunk?
Ha ha. Funny for a minute there I thought I said I would dunk by our next March Madness.
Funk. Yeah that’s what I meant. I would add more funk to my listening list and this blog.
Ha ha. Dunk.
Well it’s the morning (or two) after and you can see my state of mind about my vow to dunk. AL.com colleague John Archibald said if I do it — dunk, that is, — he will donate $1,000 to Lewy body disease research. I have unofficially heard three other colleagues say they would do the same thing.
Before I get too many pledges let me continue with more research. It’s not encouraging so far.
The $1,000 checks seem pretty safe. The more research I do, the more questions and doubts I have. I’m 58 and losing brain cells and muscle tone as we speak.
Then I read a long story in Sports Illustrated about a guy at 42 who never dunked but embarked at a rigorous training expedition to dunk. And he did, eventually. His method? Four or five workouts per week — and it took him nearly a year. Not what I want to hear. A well-meaning commenter said that Spud Webb at 5-feet-7 inches can still dunk at 47.
Great.
Webb, who WON FIRST PLACE WITH A 360 DEGREE DUNK IN AN NBA DUNK CONTEST, can still dunk.
The closest model I have so far is this 42 year-old Sports Illustrated guy who at 6-feet-2 dunked for the first time. Did, did I mention, it took him a year of excruciating exercises?
I started today on my training nonetheless. I went to hot yoga with colleague John Archibald. It was great and I’m going to do it again — if they let me.
As I was preparing to go I realized I lost my glasses. I went back in the yoga room where it was now wall-to-wall people.
Excuse me I lost my glasses I said as I stepped over people in twisted poses and contorted faces. Their eyes expressed disapproval. All that and we ended up finding my glasses elsewhere — in the locker.
I have learned something in my research. I need to have ‘swag.’
I think that’s short for ‘swagger.’ That’s a place of supreme confidence that my YouTube watching has taught me that dunkers have swag. Mac McClung, a viral video sensation in High School, has swag. The phenomenon of McClung is at least partly a racial thing. He’s white and ‘White Men Can’t Dunk,” as the Wesley Snipes-Woody Harrelson movie pointed out to America.
To make it all the more interesting McClung, who played for a small high school called Gate City in Virginia, is going to Georgetown where white basketball players over the past few decades have been more rare than a yellow cardinals.
But that’s a whole different topic and suffice it to say I am white and I can’t jump. I’m also 58. I also have Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disease that will likely end my life earlier than I was planning on. So, besides counting down my vinyl records on this website, I will now train to dunk.
I figure I have a good two years before I finish my records. I credit my blog with being therapeutic, keeping my mind active. The dunk training will be a way to keep my body active.
I’d be lying if I said the disease hasn’t affected my memory and my muscle strength and stamina.
So here am searching for my swag and my glasses.
And I’ve always got the ‘out’ when I show up at Mike’s Madness next year and people start calling my name and asking me when I’m going to show the dunk.
Dunk? I don’t remember anything about a dunk.
Really?