A few Mondays ago, I drove with my friend Jay to the basketball game we play every Monday night.  Our team, Barnes Building, had been undefeated, and would be playing a very tough team indeed.  We loosened up as we always do, and I started the game strong, scoring 2 three pointers and a layup in the first 3 minutes.  The problem was, the other team scored about 20 points as we were significantly over matched.  Our team was frustrated and I was among the frustrated.  During one foul called on me, I turned around and mentioned to the referee that he was “clearly wrong about calling that foul.”  He ignored me.  This was not our first altercation.

More frustration set in, and 5 minutes into the game, the ref called a foul on one of my teammates, and I was really upset.  I felt my blood boiling with an intensity probably not seen since the clash between alpha male marine and alpha male car salesman (who I’ve since found out is a trash man).  So the ball had been shot by the opposing team, the foul was called and the ball bounced to me as I headed towards my bench.  In realizing how frustrated I was, I motioned for someone to come onto the court in my stead.  Now I was walking toward the bench with the ball, and I flipped the ball to the opposite ref.

I suppose the referee who called the foul thought in some way I was being disrespectful, because instantly he called a technical foul on me, and stated that, “By rule, the ball must go to the closest ref.”  (this, I believe, is a bunch of crud)  Naturally my frustration got the best of me and I told him he was full of himself and that he must be living in a “horrible call world tonight.”

Then he says to me, “Are you finished?”  To which I replied, “I guess I am.”  At this point, Jay yells at me, “Marty, get out of here and go into the hall.  We need you.  Calm down.”  I knew my control issues were rising, so I took his advice, and walked towards the door.  Three steps away from the door, with my head straight down and my hands on my hips, I chuckle to myself, thinking that I really need to calm down.  Apparently, the provoking ref heard my chuckle, (no one else seemed to though) and called a double technical on me.  I was kicked out of the game.

Furious I left the room ( he wouldn’t talk to me after I made a few comments about his refing abilities) and walked in the hallways for about 15 minutes.  I had become “Angry Marty”.  I was angry.  Then I walked back into the gym, didn’t say a word, and watched as our team played well, but lost.

I guess this post was more about my shortcomings than anything.  I like competition (not a shortcoming), I like to win, and I hate to lose.  I also would (in the flesh, not the spirit) like to give the provoking referee a wedgie, but alas, he will one day be our provoking referee again, and I will need him to not try to provoke me out to the proverbial (or literal) hallway.  One lesson I learned through this however…

Angry Marty is never more productive than Level-headed Marty

I guess I’ve finally figured it out, but it took me long enough.  I’ll describe the two scenarios.

Late last evening I found myself in a Greek pizzeria in the middle of nowhere U.S.A. (otherwise known as Rutland, MA).  I was sitting with a group of families that I have come to love being around in the last few years.  We talked about football, medicine, Spanish (yes, my wife was involved), and community.  I shared about me, and listened about them, and in the end, I had this incredible sense of fulfillment that I did not have even 2 hours before.

Earlier in the evening I played basketball with about 20% of the group in the pizzeria (our wives and children joined us for the festivities).  We played hard and we had fun, but in the end we came up short.  I was sick.  Not in the ‘my stomachs a bit too queasy and I think I have the swine’ sense, but more like the ‘I want to kick these bleachers across nowhere U.S.A’ sense.  I couldn’t believe we lost, and in the end – like most guys in the competitive world – I blamed myself.  “I could have done more,” assumed my internal thoughts battling for justification.

Then Carie and I drove to the pizzeria and enjoyed the company of most of the team.

And it was then, after only 34 years of living on this earth that it finally hit me.  I mean, I knew this intellectually, but not actually.  We could have won the game, and our smiles would have been a bit bigger and our conversation a bit more animated, but it didn’t really matter.  What mattered was the time I was spending with these friends, and the vehicle by which I met up with these friends happened to be basketball.  It could have been bridge or rummy or the 2nd episode of “House” on Fox, but it was basketball, and yet I finally realized (for real) that it wasn’t about the basketball at all.  That was just the vehicle, that one day when I get too old, I’ll trade in for the vehicle of golf.  I realized driving home from the pizzeria that evening that the reason I played in the first place was the friendships that are developing.  And I went home much more satisfied than even if we had won the game.

But I still hope the Steelers don’t learn this principle this year.