In three on three pick up games, I was a gunner. If I got the ball in my hands, there was about a 75% chance I would shot it. That’s because when I shot I made a lot. Remember, I am talking 3 on 3 pickup games here; not the real varsity games where I tensed up. And anyway my job on the varsity team was to garner rebounds, as best I could at my skinny six feet, cover my area on the press, and make outlet passes to our guards.
The varsity game was made around the game of our two guards. One of these was regularly all league and the other was 2nd team all league, and they could run the hell out of the court with our fast break. I’d grab the rebond and fling the ball down court towards one of our guards who would cherry-pick at the drop of a hat. Once the coach came in at halftime and said Tingle had got 13 rebounds. That’s quite a few rebounds for a 16 minute high school half. I had no idea that I had got 13 rebounds and knowing me I probably didn’t get a single one in the second half.
I got a rather comical picture of myself getting a rebound in the Daily Nixon, as I continue to call the rag that passes for a newspaper in San Diego:
That’s me getting a rebound by sticking my leg up in the air. Sometimes, I don’t know why, getting a rebound one of my legs would go up a lot higher than the other. And kicking out like that was a pretty effective way of keeping people at a distance. For some reason, as you will note, while the other team, Helix High, had cool uniforms that look like uniforms, our coach for some reason ordered uniforms with short sleeves. I don’t know what the fuck he was thinking about.
Maybe somebody at the Daily Nixon had it in for me because they put another picture of me in the paper doing something comical again:
This time I am apparently attempting to take the rebound away from my own center, though honestly, I think he is the one acting stupidly by jumping on my back like that.
