Colm O'Regan: hoop dreams and crashing realities at Deerpark CBS
Picture: Roger Kenny Photography
Ballincollig Regional Park, one sunny Saturday morning. As his children watch proudly from the playground, a father takes his first halting steps to make friends and walks over to where two men are playing basketball.
He asks nervously, “cAN I pLaY wITh tHe sPAre ball?” They say yes. Soon I am being shite at basketball for the first time in 27 years.
It all started 35 years ago when RTE 2 had a Monday night slot of Sport From Other Countries Other Than English Soccer.
American football came first. Lads barging around primary school pretending to be the Refrigerator.
Aussie Rules was the summer sport. We dreamt of soaring through the air, standing on a friend’s neck to take a mark while a commentator shouted said “DePierdomenico!”.
Italian Soccer arrived the year of Italia 90 with skill and dry pitches and slimmer, better-dressed hooligans in the stands. And basketball. With the theme tune ‘Oh Yeah (BillyBOMBOM)’, from ‘Ferris Beuller’s Day Off’.
The Irish finals had been on for years on a Sunday afternoon. But this was different -Jordan, Ewing, Barkley, Drexler, Malone at their peaks.
I started playing basketball at home. The top of a plastic bucket nailed to roof of the Old Stall (the outhouse where the cows were milked, not the name of a ‘neighbourhood eaterie’) and a light shite £2 Champions Cup ball from Spar.
Sometimes when I missed, the ball went in when it rolled down the semi-cylindrical roof of the Old Stall. One Christmas, a basketball arrived but it was too heavy for the top of a bucket and as one three pointer (my measurements) sailed in, the bucket snapped.
A replacement was welded from some scrap, stuck to the upright of The Shed and I moved to the haggard, dribbling around the sprayer the seed drill, and the roller (farm machinery, not nicknames).
It would have made a wonderful origin story before fame struck. Grainy super-8 footage of me with an early-days-of-hip-hop soundtrack as I dunked on bullocks.
Basketball came to Deerpark CBS. Coached by an actual proper coach who wanted us to learn The Basics. And not ‘How to do that Thing Off The Telly’. I made the squad because there were more spaces on the squad than those who turned up for training.
A few weeks later, we represented the school against much taller schools in a basketball blitz.
Blitz was a good word because we were traumatised after it and haven’t been able to talk about what happened. We lost every game. I touched the ball rarely. I had one shot which I sent sailing way over the backboard.
Our only good player was sent off for dissent. To add insult to injury, my nice basketball top was stolen. By someone from a richer taller school. Because that’s capitalism.
I don’t think I barely picked up a ball since, apart maybe from wistfully in Lifestyle sports. Until that Saturday morning in Ballincollig a few weeks ago. And now there’s one in the car in case we’re driving past a playground that has a hoop. Grabbing the chance to play like no one’s watching. But if they are, it’s ok.
Whereas soccer can look kind of sad when you’re alone and having to retrieve the ball every time, basketball is ideal. The ball mostly bounces back to you. You get to look like you’re just Working Out Some Personal Stuff Before Making The Choice That Has To Be Made.
The eldest wanders over from the sandpit. Don’t you want to play with us, Daddy?
I shake my head and smile no, and send a perfect shot arcing … over the whole apparatus and into the carpark next door. It’s time to get back to the Old Stall.
