The joy of dunking a basketball
Call it a leap of logic, but I would love to dunk a basketball.
The odds, unlike this landlocked scribe, get slimmer with each passing day.
Here is a quick scouting report ... Age: 50. Height: 6-foot-0. Weight: Yes. You get the idea. It doesn’t look good.
Therefore, I opted for the next-best thing — living vicariously through others.
On Friday night, I ventured to Balfour Collegiate to envy — I mean, interview — some of the participants in the slam-dunk competition at the 26th annual Balfour Fekula Senior Basketball Classic.
The inquiries, of course, established new standards in investigative (burp) journalism. For example: “Uhh, what’s it like to dunk?”
“It’s a crazy feeling,” said a beaming Wes Jones, who is with the University of Regina Cougars men’s basketball team. “If you ask anyone who has done it, it’s almost like flying.”
The experience is so exhilarating, so life-changing that someone’s first-ever dunk can be a landmark.
“I remember the exact day — June 13, 2006,” said Jones, who at the time was six feet tall and a few months away from entering Grade 9 at Sinclair Secondary School in Whitby, Ont.
The groundbreaking slam took place during a basketball camp. A coach noticed that Jones was soaring at impressive levels and suggested that he attempt to dunk a women’s ball. No problem. As a follow-up, Jones picked up a regulation-sized basketball and stuffed it through the hoop — something he has been doing with regularity ever since.
Jones, who won Balfour’s slam-dunk contest in 2013, was dethroned by Saskatoon St. Joseph Guardians aerialist Jashon Henry on Friday.
The Grade 10 student pretty much clinched the title when he jumped over a teammate, Owen Weiss, and stuffed the ball.
“That was my second time doing it,” the 6-foot-3 Henry said of the dazzling dunk.
When was the first time?
“Yesterday in practice,” he replied with a laugh.
Drew Schulz has had plenty of practise since nailing his debut dunk at 15.
At first glance, the 19-yearold Schulz does not look like a surefire dunker. After all, I looked him right in the eyes when we were introduced. He, too, is six feet tall. End of comparison. Schulz compensates for a lack of sky-scraping height with a 41-inch vertical jump.
He had aspired to dunk since watching the cinematic classic, Space Jam, starring Michael Jordan.
As Schulz got older and taller, he kept trying ... and trying ... and trying. And then one fine day, BOOM!
“I flipped out,” recalled Schulz, who joined the Caronport-based Briercrest Clippers after graduating from Kelowna Christian School.
“I went nuts. It was before a big game and I was more than excited. I knew I could do it because I was trying forever and ever.” Mike Malecha can relate. “(Dunking) has always been one of my biggest joys,” said the 6-foot-2 Malecha, a guard with the Cougars. “When I was little, it was always something that I wanted to be able to do. When I got into high school, I started working on my jumping. I was always determined to be able to dunk.”
Sure enough, Malecha celebrated his first dunk, executed early in his Grade 10 year at Campbell Collegiate.
The next step was to dunk in a game — a goal he attained in Grade 12.
“It’s just that really satisfying feeling of hard work paying off,” said Malecha, who joined two Cougars teammates — Jones and Jeremy Zver — in the dunk competition. “There’s a ton of work involved in trying to jump higher and trying to do something you’ve always wanted to do.”
Hence, he dunks at every opportunity — as does everyone who is blessed with that capability.
“I love it so much,” Schulz said. “It never gets old.”
Unlike a certain, dunk-deprived sports columnist.
So, uh, is there any hope for a 50-year-old, who on a good day can jump over the newspaper you are reading?
“Never say never,” Malecha said, reassuringly. “You just have to do a lot of jumping exercises. Get in the gym and work on the squat bar.”
Would a chocolate bar suffice?
Didn’t think so ...