A childhood basketball hoop mishap

“Hoosiers,” for all its rank sentimentality, saccharine nostalgia and over-the-top underdog obviousness, isn’t really a bad little movie.

What saves it from the fate of forgotten films is a tape measure.

For those unfamiliar with the 1986 release starring Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper and Barbara Hershey, it’s the heartwarming story of a small-town Indiana high school basketball team that makes it to the state tournament finals. Along the way we get to know coach Norman Dale, a no-nonsense disciplinarian who insists on doing things his way, which upsets the citizenry to the point that the council votes him out of his job, only to reverse their decision.

When the team arrives in the state capital for the big game, the players are awestruck by the size and grandeur of the arena, which, after playing their entire season in tiny gyms, makes perfect sense.

To allay their fears and calm their nerves, Hackman asks for a tape measure and has a player report the distance from the free-throw line to the basket. Then he has him get on the shoulders of a taller teammate and measure the height of the rim itself to the floor.

Both are identical to their home court. It’s a great scene, one that sets the stage for a thrilling contest, which plucky Hickory wins.

I watched “Hoosiers” again the other night, and as always happens, I got caught up in the melodrama, ignoring its flaws, and found myself remembering my 14th birthday when my father, an Indiana alumnus and Hoosiers fan, surprised me with an incredible gift.

Tucked inside my card alongside a crisp $20 bill was a typewritten note that read, “Michael, Also one IOU for a basketball hoop mounted near the driveway … backed by a hope and a prayer!”

He signed it from him and Mom, and, no surprise, I still have it.

This is where our wholesome story gets a little, well, complicated.

Saddled by fate with a late-February birthday — I was supposed to arrive around St. Patrick’s Day but jumped the gun — my present took a while to arrive, the ground being frozen for weeks on end.

When the hole was eventually dug and the pole positioned in its proper place, the workers attached the backboard and the hoop.

It was a landmark spring day in the Dewey family, and I couldn’t have been happier. There, as promised, was our own home court.

But something was wrong. As soon as I started shooting at the basket, I thought to myself, “Hey, that rim is way too high.”

Which it was … 12 inches too high, to be precise.

What was supposed to be 10 feet off the ground was hung, in point of fact and mathematically speaking, 11 full feet from the surface of the driveway. How it happened and why, I’ll never know, but I wasn’t going to ruin the day by saying anything petty or selfish.

There was no way to lower the backboard, which had been bolted to the pole, which had been cemented into the ground. My only recourse was to learn to live with things the way they were. Sure, some friends who showed up to christen the court noticed the disparity, but I told them, in no uncertain terms, to shut up about it.

“You will not hurt their feelings,” I said. “Please just play along.”

That fall, my first in the public school system, I tried out for the freshman basketball team. I did my best, but when the day came that the coach posted the names of those who had made the final cut, mine wasn’t on it, but I never, ever blamed the 11-foot hoop.

So instead of playing with the travel team, I hooked on with the intramural program and found a spot on a squad that did well. In years to come, through high school and beyond, I played on some YMCA teams and had a lot of fun winning a Church League title.

Basketball was never going to be my first love — that was always baseball — but there was something very comfortable about playing in warm buildings with good lighting and electric scoreboards.

At Notre Dame, where everyone was a stud athlete (or so it seemed), I participated in the annual Bookstore Tournament, a campus tradition played on asphalt with metal mesh nets, an event that drew many students who came to witness the brute physicality.

Once, I got lucky enough to hit a 12-foot jumper over Joe Montana, who looked at me and said, “Nice shot,” my brush with greatness.

When I took over as sports editor back in my hometown, I helped organize a team of writers who would, every winter, play coaches and teachers from area high schools, with proceeds benefiting their athletic funds. It was good PR, and we didn’t lose all the time, though the best part was getting together in one of their homes after the game, with lots of tasty snacks and a few cold ones.

We called ourselves the Scribes and ordered green uniform jerseys, which made for an interesting billing procedure with my bosses.

That 11-foot rim and its supporting pole no longer stand just off the driveway in the house where I grew up, but when I drive by the old place, I can’t help but smile. In my mind’s eye, I imagine the way I’d drive around the crabapple tree and, imitating my hoops hero Pete Maravich, launch an off-balance fade-away, netting it.

That basket could have been 12 feet up, and I’d have figured it out.

Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to join him on his Facebook page, where not every shot falls, but most are darn close.