What If I Had Made That Game-Winning Shot?

It was December 1997, I was in 11th grade, and it was basketball season. We were in the Niskayuna invitational tournament, and it was the third place game. I don't even remember who we were playing, other than that we took a big lead, and for the first 31 minutes and 57 seconds of the game, I had played about 2 minutes total. But, this was nothing new. My PT normally ranged from 1 to 10 minutes. I was about the 7th or 8th man. I don't remember why, but I was put in with 3 seconds left. We had blown the lead and were down by 1, with the ball under our own basket. The ball is passed in, I head for an open spot at the top of the key, about a foot inside the 3 point line, I get the pass. After I released the shot, the buzzer sounded. This was do or die. The ball swirled around the inside of the hoop, then popped out, swirled around again, before finally...popping out for good.

Last week, I visited a psychic. She looked sort of like Whoopi Goldberg's character from Ghost. And, no, she was not busy talking to Patrick Swayze's disembodied spirit. She got down with the task at hand. For my $20, she revealed to me how my life would have been different if I had made that game winning shot.

...The ball is passed in, I head for an open spot at the top of the key, about a foot inside the 3 point line, I get the pass. After I released the shot, the buzzer sounded. This was do or die. The ball swirled around the inside ofthe hoop, then popped out, swirled around again, before finally...falling through the hoop! We win! All the Rensselaer High people, my teammates, the cheerleaders, parents and friends in the stands, mob the court. A cute cheerleader even grabbed my ass.

The next day in school, I am the damn man. The girl I had a lil crush on who never gave me the time of day, meets me at my locker. "Hey Sean. We should go out sometime. Are you busy Friday night?" I get to work with the first team a little bit in practice. I don't start the next game, but I am first man off the bench. I score 15 points, helping us to beat Catskill. Next game, I am in the starting line up for good, and I average 13 points the rest of the way, as we win sectionals, before falling to Hammond in the regionals. I have my first girlfriend (remember, I am only 16 at the time), popularity, everything is going so well.

There are subtle changes, however. I may not have been "popular" before The Shot, but I did have a lot of friends, people liked being around me, I was the funny guy, and was nice to everybody. Now, I didn't have time for not so cool kids. I only associated with the top of the Caste system. I even dumped my girlfriend so I could play the field. Unlike in my real life story, I never do get picked for prom court, because, I may be popular, but in Rachel McAdam's in Mean Girls sort of way. But who needed to be nice, I was popular now, and cocky, to the point where I made sure to focus solely on sports and being a playa. I got that baseball scholarship to Stanford, went to the West Coast, and was drafted in the 1st round of the 2002 baseball draft, leaving early my junior year. I made it to the bigs in 2004, and will be heading to Spring Training for the start of my third season next month. People may think I am an ass back home in Rensselaer, but who gives a shit. I have money out the wazoo, a pimpin mansion, and girls in every city...

I thanked Miss Whoopie for her time. Wow, if I had made that shot, I would have lost all my friends in high school, I would have never have went to St. Michael's and met the awesome people I know there, never would have worked at Camp Guggenheim, went to grad school at Catholic U, and I wouldn't be working at St. Gregory's now. And to think, when I originally missed that shot, the only thing going through my mind was "big deal, instead of being the 3rd place team out of a 4 team holiday tournament, we are the 4th place team."

**In case you did not figure this out already, this story is fictional. Well, what happened in that basketball game is true. But, I never did visit some psychic to see how my life would have been different if I had made that shot. I think we all go through "what if's" in our minds now and then. And, that is fine. It is natural to wonder "what if." But the important thing is to recognize the gifts we actually do have in life. And, I would not change the experiences I have had or the friends I have made for the world.