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Learning to play basketball in the wind
By Jim Kilpatrick, jkilpatrick@acnpapers.com
When I was in junior high school I attended the Wake Island School. All 140 of us from kindergarten to eighth grade in five buildings, until the Federal Aviation Administration built a two-story school the year before I left to go back to the mainland for high school.
We had all the usual classes from English to math. We had recess in the morning and the afternoon. During the lunch period you either had a sack lunch from home or you went home for lunch. Most everyone ate on the school grounds. When I say school grounds you have to understand it was all sand and gravel -- no dirt or grass.
That brings us to playing sports on Wake. Sports were limited to a few arenas: including fishing, swimming, skin diving and playing basketball.
I guess this was one of the major reasons the principal we needed an activity to keep us from the beach. He came up with creating a basketball league. He decided that the leagues would encompass boys and girls from the sixth to the eighth grade.
There were approximately 16 boys and 16 girls in those grades.
Benny, Harry and I made up the eighth-grade class. We became the captains of the Astronauts, Cosmonauts and Islanders.
You can stop laughing; I told you it was a small school.
The boys’ league play was on Saturday mornings followed by the girls’ Each division played with a double headers with one team playing two games while the other two only one game. The league ran for nine weeks.
There were some changes from regular basketball; only five players per team and only three playing on the court at one time.
There was no pressing and only man-to-man defense. The games were played on the outdoor basketball courts at the school grounds.
Oh, one other thing -- on Wake Island the winds blew from 20 to 25 mph and some
Games were played in hurricane-like winds.
Learning to shoot in those winds made every player a mathematician as you had to figure the correct angle when you shot the ball so the wind would carry the ball to the basket. We played the games in rain or shine. Most rainstorms lasted a few minutes on Wake so there was no reason to stop play, besides the players could use a heavy downpour to hide in.
I remember one game during a particularly high wind that resulted in heated words and flying fists. .
Benny’s Islanders were taking on Harry’s Astronauts in the second contest of the day.
The score was tied and Harry’s team was driving down court in the closing seconds to try to win the game.
One of Harry’s players let go a long shot, and a sudden blast of wind carried the ball over his head back down court and dropped the ball into the wrong goal as the buzzer sounded, ending the game.
Benny’s team went wild, Harry protested and a verbal battle turned into a battle of pushing, shoving and a few fists being thrown.
The referee, who was the also the principal, tried to step in and break up the brawl and was belted with a basketball square in the face, sending him crashing to the court.
The battle stopped. Everyone looked at the principal on the asphalt and the court cleared in seconds, leaving the principal where he lay. I went home and told my parents, who took me in the jeep to the playground.
My parents took the principal to the infirmary for medical care.
The next Monday the Principal called all the players, both boys and girls, into his office. He sat behind his desk with black eyes and tape across his broken nose. He looked up at us, smiled and informed us the league was disbanded.
We went back swimming at recess.
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