06. Go Hoop Pt.1 | Soccer, She Wrote

Tuesday, October 26, 2021 

Last Sunday, the WNBA Finals concluded with the Chicago Sky crowned as champions, after overtaking the Phoenix Mercury 3-1 in the series. Huge shoutout to my fellow Kentwood High School alum, Courtney Vandersloot, who recorded 102 assists in the WNBA Playoffs, a league record, with 50 dimes bagged during the WNBA Finals, the most to be done. Ever. 

Watching basketball makes me reminisce on my time spent playing the sport. And man, from about third grade to eighth grade I loved to hoop. Unlike soccer fields, in most cities in the States, every school, every neighborhood, and every church had a basketball court. Kent, Washington was no exception. Though I would have thoroughly enjoyed breaking ankles on the soccer pitch, if I wanted to show up the boys I had to do it on the basketball court. Pickup games at school during recess, 2-on-2 at the neighborhood court in front of my house– you name it, I was there. 

I also played organized ball. When I was really young my parents coached my youth recreation teams, but as I got older and better I made my way to the AAU league where I played against the best players in the Seattle metro. If you’ve ever played basketball, you know basketball culture is like no other. From the trash talking, to the stare downs, to the mommas cussin’ out mommas, there’s this palpable intensity and propensity for drama. Compared to soccer games in the burbs, basketball was on a whole ‘nother level. 

More Soccer, She Wrote

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04. No Pain, No Gain | Soccer, She Wrote

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The Fallacy of Pace and Power

It’s funny because my b-ball coaches would always ask me, “When are you going to quit soccer?” and my soccer coaches would constantly say, “When are you going to stop playing basketball and focus on football?”.  

Looking back, I can say with the utmost certainty that basketball was indispensable to my soccer success. Basketball is where I learned to be mentally tough and how to respond to challenging situations. The sport had a way of stretching my limits, exposing my mistakes, and forcing me to deal with discomfort, in a way that soccer didn’t.

It’s hard to put into words how basketball, in it’s unique way, taught me mental fortitude. So, instead of long paragraphs I wrote a list. I listed instances where I was confronted with failure, embarrassment, insecurity, and intimidation. Instances like these happened over and over again while I played, but in order to succeed, demanded resilience. 

1. You get your shot blocked and the opponent starts shit-talking you.
2. Player hits a 3 in your face. Starts show-boating in front of you.
3. Show up to practice and your fit isn’t right. Promptly get made fun of.  
4. Join a new team that’s a year up, and the starting point-guard who thinks you’re trying to take “her” spot, takes every opportunity she gets to yell at you for making an error. 
5. Screw up a shooting drill and Coach stops the entire practice to point out your mistake.
6. Have guard training with one of the best point guards in the state (y’all, she went on to become a Harlem Globetrotter) and have to keep up. 
7. Airball a shot. Immediately hear: AIRBALL! AIRBALL! AIRBALL! 
8. Screw up a shooting drill a second time and Coach stops practice to threaten to make the team run if you mess up again.  
9. Turn the ball over. Half a second later hear Coach say from the sideline, “Go check-in for Mariah” 
10. You’re not starting on a team. Coach states that in order for a non-starter to win a starting spot, they have to challenge the person at their position to a 1-on-1 game. 

The benefits of hooping weren’t only mental. Basketball also taught me tangible skills that were directly transferable to football. My b-ball coaches taught me how to use my body in a way that my soccer coaches didn’t (and if you’ve ever seen me play soccer, you know that it’s extremely hard for my opponent to get the ball from me). Here are some skills I learned while hooping that I took with me to the soccer pitch:

1. Shuffling: the first thing you’re taught in b-ball is how to shuffle (properly!). To this day, when we warm up for soccer I hear the click-click of heels coming together and cringe. Shuffling trains maintaining a low center of gravity while changing directions, which is fundamental to 1v1 defending in soccer, as well as basketball. 
2. Rebounding: gaining body position on your opponent first, before going for the ball is Rebounding 101. Same principles apply when defending 1v1 in football. 
3. The Crossover: a point guard’s bread and butter. The entire objective of a crossover is to shift the defender’s weight. I do this almost every time I beat a defender off the dribble in football. 
4. The Hesitation: another basic, but killer move. This one uses body fakes and a change of speed to freeze a defender, or make them flat-footed. The ability to do this is key to getting past defenders in any sport. 
5. Off-the-Ball Defending: staying on your mark and not letting them touch the ball. Directly transferable to defending set-pieces. 
6. The Hook & Swim: a technique used to get around a screen by utilizing leverage from your hands to get around an opponent. I use a very similar technique when getting around a defender that’s trying to shield me from a ball in soccer. 
7. Using Your Off Arm: the use of the arm that’s not dribbling the ball to create separation from the defender. Though both arms are free in soccer, I use my inside hand to generate separation while beating defenders off the dribble.    
8. The Push-off: gaining off-the-ball separation from a defender using a combination of strength and movement. The key to this move is to use your arms, but not extend your elbows, so you’re not called for a foul. Whether you’re pushing-off to catch a ball or trap a ball, it’s all the same. 
9. Attacking the Front Foot: driving at a defender’s front (or high) foot is taught specifically in basketball. When you attack the front foot, defenders have to drop their hip to recover, which takes longer and creates space for a shot. 
10. Posting-up: post moves centers learn are exactly what I use while playing target forward. How to feel the opponent, shift your weight to get them to bite, and spin if they’re on the wrong side– all applicable to football. 

The point of this blog isn’t to convince every soccer mom to sign-up her kids for basketball (though, if you know of any who are deep on the Specialization Train, please shoot them this article). Every sport offers transferable skills. Take my former Stanford teammate, Haley Rosen, for example. She had an amazing, driven shot from distance. Those shots require a locked ankle throughout the entire motion (it’s very hard to do– why you see pros sky those shots all the time), and guess what sport she did competitively for years? Ballet. The sport that literally forces its participants to keep a locked ankle for 99% of the time. 

The point of this blog, and the next one, is to illuminate how one sport can offer another sport so much and in ways we don’t always think about. So to all my astute readers, no, I wasn’t lying when I wrote Part I in the subtitle. There is more hoop talk coming. Just check back in two weeks. 

Until then… Go Hoop. You might learn something.

This blog is dedicated to all my basketball coaches. 

Mom, Dad, Mr. Max, Coach Keith, GC, Coach Emil, & Coach Darnell, thank you for helping me achieve my dreams. 

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