The Channeling of Allen Iverson

We sittin’ here, I’m supposed to be the franchise player, and we in here talkin’ about practice.

Now that I’m all grown up, not too many days end with the lacing up of the cleats and the running out onto the field for a little twilight work on the old skills. Sure, I play softball and football, and playing said sports often result in playing competitive games against competitive teams, but going out just to hone your grasp of the game is something that gets left on your Microsoft Outlook cutting room floor.

I mean, listen, we talkin’ about practice.

Tonight, I will be hitting the dirt and grass in Annandale to participate in our William and Mary Alumni softball team’s annual practice. That’s right; it’s annual. We decide it’s so important to improve and to stay sharp a maximum one time per year. It always falls within a week of the biggest double elimination softball tournament that ever was, and after dispatching of Georgia Tech in our first round game, we have a long road to hoe from here on out. So tonight, we’ll be exploring what it means to hit he cut-off man, how to aggressively run the bases, and if we have time, maybe a short-sided scrimmage. Who’s excited?

Not a game, not a game, not a game, we talkin’ about practice.

I have to confess, though, I’m a bit of a gameday-type athlete. I do my best work in the heat of competition, and that should be expected. However, I have a history of turning the intensity dial way down when I’m not sporting our team’s official colors, winning points for my side, or when I don’t have Chariots of Fire running through my head. Track practice was the perfect example. Not only did I have little interest in winning the warm-up laps (Kyle Williams?), I was please to just finish the work outs. Much to Lou Jester’s dismay, my game face was far different from my hurdle face. Wait a minute. That makes little sense. What’s a hurdle face?

Not a game, not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it’s my last. Not the game. We’re talking about practice.

Team sports were really no different. The one way to kill the morale of a bunch of kids playing a team sport that they desperately love is to make them run. Running will destroy all the fun being had. Coaches, you’ve got to keep the running to a minimum, or make it a part of practice out of fun or out of necessity. If you need to make it fun, have your team do Indian runs while dribbling a soccer ball. If you need necessity, unleash a wolf to chase ‘em. Preferably a hungry one.

How silly is that? We’re talking about practice.

The lack of intensity is a bit of a problem, because my body really wants to go out; it’s my brain that says calm the heck down. When I see a sharp liner five feet to my left, my body instinctively gets into “time to fly through the air with reckless abandon” mode. In fact, pulling such a stunt would be good practice in case a similar situation occurs during the match, but in practice? You just get mocked.

What are we talking about?

But the real nice thing about practices these days? You don’t have to wait in the dark for your mom or dad to come pick you up, and you don’t have homework to do when you get home. (Unless, of course, you have a daughter who needs to feed and a bath…)

We’re talking about practice.