I’m not proud of myself. I was shooting hoops with my friend and some kids challenged us to a game. While we were shooting my friend said jokingly, “ Hey go ask those guys if they want to play”. but they came up to us first. Being nice we said, “Yes.” they ran us three to zero before I even blinked. They were at most 12. Shame. Humiliation. Masculinity...lost.

The smaller kid, maybe four-eight had a leg brace. Damn. I am a crappy b-baller, no lie. When I went up for shots they yelled “blahhh!” and I missed about 89%. Like I said I’m no good. We came back though, I even had two or three shots that made me look like Jordan. Still I knew I sucked.

The best thing about the game though was that we (two guys much older than 15) connected with these kids (yes...they were both at least ten to twenty pounds over-weight). I didn’t feel "sorry" for them, I felt like I had the chance to build them up, to make them feel like they were someone. I remember what it felt like to be their age. I didn’t go easy on them, I played fair. When they made a good shot I let them know it. We (my friend and I) ended up getting the “points”, but I think that we were both the winners. That was a good feeling.