Jump Balls & Four Corner Delay Game

Between Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall, I used to say my favorite season was basketball. And basketball was my spouse.

I fell in love with the sport in 1978—back when jump balls occurred at every tie-up. The set-ups often looked funny if a tall player jumped against the feisty guard, but you jolly green giants should not have brought the ball down for us pesky rat terriers to grab it.

The first basketball team I ever played on. I was in 7th grade.
I'm number 33 standing by Coach Ruth Hausemann.
Tinted glass were in style.

I know I am in the minority, but I wish we still had jump balls. That possession arrow determines the winner in close games, and shouldn't the defense have a chance at getting the ball back if the offense didn't take care of it?

Our superintendent, Dale Schneider, a member of the South Dakota Activities Association in the 70s and 80s, would ask us thought provoking questions like that during government class. I could never tell which side of the question he was on.

A change I did like was the smaller ball. It came out during my junior year in high school and helped me shoot and dribble better. I also remember experiments with a shot clock. Didn't like that one bit.

I still do not like watching games with a shot clock. It eliminates the stalling tactic, yes, but it put a new spin on the game delay tactic that I liked. Sure, some coaches, unethical in my opinion, would run a delay game when they were way ahead. But when it was a nail biter, shouldn't the better ball handling team or the well-oiled delay game team win? Isn't that part of the strategy?

I know, some of you are like my mom used to be. She hated how the offensive guards would put on a clinic as the defensive guards darted back and forth hoping for a steal. But oh, when their persistence paid off with a steal and a bucket—what a game! Besides, to be a guard, one needs to be little bit of a show-off, don't you think?

Running a delay game is a big risk. And every basketball fan from South Dakota in the late 70s to early 80s will remember when the Huron College Tribe ran one. The college was only thirty minutes from our farm, so Dad and I went to many of their games.

picture from South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame

Eddie Boyd, Mel Smith, Spinkle, and Coach Bruce Carrier were household names in east central South Dakota. Sprinkle would tick off Carrier so bad he'd get sent to the showers in the first half, sit at the end of the bench in street clothes, but then after half-time, Sprinkle would be back in his jersey playing. Rumor had it some of the little old ladies in town attended games just to yell at Carrier. 

And boy did he get criticized for his delay game tactic in the NAIA playoffs one year. Our teachers let us listen to the play-by-play on the radio during school, but I believe this particular game was in the evening, so we listened at home.

The Tribe literally stalled the entire second half. One player stood in the corner of the court and held the ball. It didn't even pass the hashmark (not a Twitter term). That rule wasn't in place yet. They wanted the last shot of the game to win it, but they flubbed. I can't remember all the details of it except that it was another one of Carrier's controversial coaching maneuvers. It would be interesting to know whatever became of him and his players.


What experience do you have with the old jump ball rule or the four-corner delay tactic? And for my South Dakota readers, what's your favorite Huron Tribe memory?

Seven Silly Tidbits

Do you possess any unique abilities? 

I can squat so that my elbows touch the floor without lifting up my heals. Try it: put your feet in a V-position and squat. When kids attempt it, they fall over or almost rip their pants. I thank my jr. high basketball coaches, Ruth Hausemann and Cindy Borkowski, for my flexibility. They required stretching of hamstring, quads, calves, and more before we did a thing in practice.

Me at 40. I can still do it eight years later.

What ability or skill do you wish you had?

Operating a hair dryer to style my hair. I just don't get it. Hair stylists have patiently tried to teach me. I can't do it. For those like me, here's how to solve this problem: go to bed with it wet so it will puff up by morning. I place a towel on my pillow to absorb the moisture. It also serves as a drool catcher.

If you could live anywhere in the world and afford it upon your retirement, where would that be? 

 

In my childhood home in South Dakota renovated by my HGTV favorites: the Property Brothers, the Fixer Upper couple, the Love It Or List It duo, and the Flip or Flop couple. I have fond childhood memories of that house, and it would be the best place to grow old—just like my dad. At 89, he's living in the house he was born in. Parts of the house are ready to fall in, so all those HGTV reinforcements and remodeling gurus would be necessary. I would need lots of money to pull it off.

 

Believe me, it looks even worse now. This was back in 2011. Paint alone would do wonders.

You can only keep one modern amenity in your home. What would you pick between the microwave, the Internet, and the television? 

 

I have always loved TV. As a little girl, I got in trouble for sitting too close to it. As an adult, I do housework and exercise while watching TV. I do enjoy cooking, so I could live without a microwave, and I can get Wi-Fi at work or in public places, so unlike my husband, I could survive without the Internet at home. There is nothing like sitting down with my doggies and watching television. TV is like another person to me. It talks to me and I talk back to it. No, I’m not Mildred from Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I don't have three walls of it, but I do own four televisions.

What is your greatest fear?

A tornado or some other disaster destroying, not my house, but all of my computer generated documents. So for years, I have had a tornado file. I coined the term a long time ago when Esther Mayer, one of our school's maintenance employees, caught me running off papers and stuffing them into manilla envelopes at the end of the school year. I told her I was making copies to store at my sister Priscilla's in South Dakota. Thus came the term, tornado file. Now I just switch out jump drives when I go up for a visit. But I do have back-ups in my house on an external drive, on my home PC, and on another jump drive. I keep a jump drive in my desk at school too. No, I do not trust the Cloud, Dropbox, or Google Drive for my back-ups. I want access without the Internet. A bit overkill? Maybe, but this is a fear I can do something about, so I will do everything I can to prevent losing over two decades worth of work.

Biggest regret?

I should have taken a basic economics class in college. If I had, I might actually understand the difference between stocks and bonds, an annuity, a 401B, and a Roth IRA. I might even be able to explain what the heck a mill levy is. My oldest nephew Michael has given me countless lessons on these terms, but I do not retain any of it. Taking an economics course might have stopped me from making money mistakes. To learn more about those, read my post entitled, Dollars and Sense: A Lesson in Interest of a Different Kind.

Future wishes?

I have been an aunt since I was 6-years-old, and I want to be healthy enough to live so I can be a great-great-great aunt. I am already a great aunt with my oldest great, Leah, being 12-years-old. So if she marries in eight years and has a child soon after, I will be in my mid-50's and become a great-great. Then if her child gets married around 20 and has a child right away, I'll be a great-great-great and be in my mid-70s. That's possible. Now, if I have to depend on the youngest great, the one to be born this November to my niece Suzanne and her husband David, I'll have to make it well past a hundred years old for it to all work out using that have-a-kid-at-20 formula. 

I am in the middle surrounded by my nieces and nephews. From these 8, come 19 greats.

 

You are given a chance to meet and spend time with one of your relatives who is no longer living. Who would it be?

After I wrote my answer, I decided this person deserves more than a few sentences. Will it be one of my second cousins, my grandparents, my mom, one of my aunts or uncles, or my state wrestling champ cousin? Stayed tuned for a future post about this person.

Writer's Note: I was tagged by my online writing friend and fellow blogger, Shelli Littleton, to post random pieces of information about myself. So I interviewed myself and had fun writing this post. Thanks, Shelli, for the inspiration of this post and some others to come! The link for Shelli's list is here.