Retiring Air Jordan's
Day after day things are going bye-bye. Today I’m retiring my Air Jordan’s.
2018 is a year of lessening the weight I carry; indeed we
as a family carry, though life.
I have resolved to get rid of things every day for the
full length of the year. Some things are
big, some are small. Some are worn and
some are barely used. Some have been
useful and some have proved useless.
Some have been around for mere months, while some have been around for
decades…
Like these:
This is a pair of Air Jordan basketball shoes from 1986-87. I bought them in 1996 when Nike re-released
the early models amidst the flurry of one
of Michael Jordan’s retirements.
I was a basketball player from 3rd grade
on. Never was a standout per se. But I loved the game and I loved to
compete.
As years went by, without my even noticing, my love for
competing overshadowed my love for the game.
Whenever I set foot on the court, particularly after high school, I
became someone I never knew I could be.
For better or worse at the time, I became fierce and frenzied.
One year I accepted an invitation to play on a church
league team. I learned early on there
wasn’t much about this league that would resemble church, save a prayer for
safety before we started each half. My
sharpened competitive edge would play to my favor.
Halfway through my third season with that team something
tipped over in me. My faith in Jesus was
merely months old and I’d been trying to reckon my “faith like a child” with
what was increasingly becoming a hardened competitive spirit.
One game… Two
games… Three games… I didn’t like who I was on the court. It didn’t make sense with who I was in every
other sphere of life; with who I was at the deepest part of me. So after the fourth game of the season I told
the guys I was done…with basketball, with competing. The love for the game remained. The lust for competition, God crucified.
I went home that evening, unlaced these very Air Jordan’s
and set them on a shelf: nostalgic
memorabilia now.
That was in 1997.
Sixteen years later, in 2013, I utterly surprised
myself. We were renting a shop house and
our landlord lived next door. He and I
got to be good friends over the course of the few months we’d been there. Often enough we’d stand around on sunshiny
evenings and chat about this and that.
Well one night, out of nowhere – I’m going to say it was
around the middle of March because I think we were talking about the NCAA
basketball tournament – out of nowhere he asks me if I’d be up for playing
basketball with him and some other guys in the morning at the local high
school. He’d pick me up.
Sixteen years later folks!
I could count on one hand; possibly even one finger, the
number of times I’d played “competitive” basketball within that sixteen year
period. I had watched it plenty and even
shot around a good bit with my son. But
really played…
“Sure!”
That was my response.
And I think my enthusiasm matched that exclamation point.
Moments later, after he’d gone home and I’d gone inside
to tell Amy, I began to think about what I just did:
SURE?
I’ll embarrass myself and dribble off my foot.
I’ll totally miss the hoop; air ball after
air ball.
I’ll be the last one picked, just watch.
What’ll these other guys think of me?
What’ll they think of my neighbor for inviting me?
What’ll I wear? I don’t have
athletic shorts. I don’t have good
socks. And shoes…I don’t even have
shoes!
And worse yet:
Who would I become on the court?
This one really bothered me
throughout the evening. I remembered
well enough who I used to be on the court.
But that was sixteen years ago. I
was further on in my faith. Surely I was mature enough to control myself?
My Grandpa always said, “We got over the dog, we’ll get
over the tail.” With no real
understanding of what that meant, it had pulled me through some tense moments
before, so I settled into its cryptic wisdom, pulled a pair of older Docker
style shorts out of my drawer, fished around for my two best pairs of socks,
and for shoes…? You guessed it:
1986-87 Air Jordan’s
If I was going to play like a rookie and dress like a
dork, at least my feet were going to stud out.
Morning arrived.
God was kind. I remember a simple
secure peace. The morning would be
sixteen years in the making; God’s making.
This time I wouldn’t worry about score or fouls or winning. How could I possibly with what I looked like
and how I’d surely play. Rather, I would
play to know His pleasure in me, in the game, in finding friends.
And play I did.
And play I still do. Just played
this morning even. Same guys. Same gym.
And while the in’s and out’s of that first time back on
the court are blurry (though I can guess much of how it went), one detail
stands out and stands yet as a joke that comes up among us from time to time to
keep me humble.
As we played that morning, though one of the guys had
swept the floor already, we all noticed these little black rubber pieces kicking
around our feet that would smudge and streak as we ran the court.
One game… Two
games… Three games… And we were done for the morning, but still
in a quandary as to the nature of those little rubber bits and streaks. That’s when I took off my shoes; the ones
that hadn’t been worn for sixteen years.
Turning them over I noticed the rubber outsoles had all
but disintegrated. Either I had run the
court with such blazing speed and potent play that I burned up my shoes, or I
had left the shoes on the shelf for too long and the chemical compounds in the
rubber broke down into particles. I’ll
let you decide which is more likely.
I went home that morning, gathered up my Air Jordan's and set
them on a shelf: nostalgic memorabilia again. And there they have stood for the last five
years. Well, it’s time to take a picture
of them and get rid of them...
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