My Basketball Background

Posted by Phil Partington May 17, 2007

I consider myself very knowledgeable about basketball. This isn't a boast. In fact, sometimes it can be a negative thing if tagged with a certain tone.

I got into basketball pretty heavily when I was nine years old. That's also when I started collecting basketball cards (I stopped in 1995, when they came out with 693.7 "sets" instead of just three or four, thereby successfully flooding the basketball card market and emptying my 15-year old newspaper delivery savings). I started playing organized ball in my early elementary school years. My first season highlights (second or third grade) were scoring 16 points in one game, which I was able to accomplish because the player guarding me was extremely fat and couldn't make it down the court as fast as me, and making a shot from the foul line on my knees. My nickname that year was "Silk" after the former LA Laker, Jamaal Wilkes. They gave me that nickname, because out of all my teammates, I got hit in the face with the basketball the least amount of times. I was a real star.

Once we reached the age where we could catch the ball consistently and make shots past three and a half feet, I began to play more basketball. My daily routine was to go to school (walking uphill both ways in six feet of snow), come home, lace up my cool Chuck T's Converse All Star shoes and go outside to shoot until my mom yelled at me for the fifth time to come inside and do my homework. It was usually very dark by then and I couldn't see the hoop (which probably worked in my favor. It's easy to assume that you made every shot when you can't see the hoop).

By junior high school I was playing some select ball and partaking in more summer camps, including the John Stockton camp at Gonzaga University. My uncle worked at the camp and knew Stockton personally, so after the camp I got to talk to Stockton with my uncle. Those were kind of intense camps. We'd get up at the crack of earlier-than-I-wanted to and ran drills of various sorts until late in the evening. But, they were also lots of fun.

I was never anything that special, but I was a pretty good player. I even had some high school coaches pursue me a little (after coming to some random games or seeing me at summer camps).

I played a little high school ball in Seattle, but hated the experience. I didn't really have much in common with most of my teammates and I really didn't get along with my JV coach. In fact, nobody did. 8-9 people quit after that season and he was inevitably fired the next season. I was told I could've been on the varsity team the next year, though I did need to gain muscle and weight, but I quit. I played in a joke pick-up league with some friends right after then didn't pick up a ball for nearly two years. It's amazing what you lose in that time. I couldn't dunk anymore and was frustrated by my limitations.

While in high school and early college, I was a certified referee for about 5-6 years. I had several evaluators tell me if I continued with it I could be a varsity ref in no time, but I didn't really put enough time into it. I enjoyed it, but it's a lot of work and parents are difficult to deal with. So, respect your referees. It really is a tough job.

Now, I'm just a basketball nutcase. I've always been one, but not I consider it official. I might consider coaching kids at some point. I have assisted coaches, including my dad who has coached several teams (young kids up to high school) for many years. But, for now, I'm content as a basketball junky.

Hope that gives you a better understanding of me and my basketball roots.