The Bald Eagles

That's me.

February, 1982.

North Collins versus Eden during my Senior Year of High School. The North Collins Eagles were really struggling and Eden was a good team. We had the huge game before us in the small gym in North Collins.

I was starting the game.

The other starters on that night were Al DeCarlo, Digger Braymiller, Ron Haier, and our superstar Chris Heinold.

The Eden team was stacked. Their best player was an annoying bastard by the name of Chris Miller. He hated all of us. Eden was going to kill us that night...we all knew it.

One of our leaders, Al DeCarlo had an idea.

"You think your Dad would shave our heads?" He asked me at lunch.

"For what?"

"We go to your house...all five starters...shave our heads...and come out of the locker room with ski caps on our heads...we'll get headbands. Eden won't know what hit them. The crowd will go nuts."

Al was a thinker and a dreamer. He always liked to put on a show.

So we headed to my parent's home.

"Get in the chair," my Dad said.

He shaved four heads in about ten minutes. Our big star, Heinold, didn't want anything to do with it.

So there were were at the door of the gym. They announced our names and we headed out.

Al was right. The crowd was sort of stunned. We ran through our warm-ups. One of the guys on Eden called us the "Charlie Browns."

And the game started with a solid run. I hit four long shots. Real bombs. The Eden coach called time-out.

"Who is that?" I heard him scream at his team. "He's shooting from half-court! Guard him! We gonna' let that idiot score fifty!!"

The momentum didn't hold. Even though we had a lead at the half...Eden took control of the game in the 2nd half. I remember a lot about the game though because it was my career high game.

I had scored 12.

I also remember one very painful moment, and perhaps that was when the game fell apart for me. The girl I had a huge crush on, Kellie, was in the stands. We had dated a few times by then. On one trip up the floor I caught her eye.

"You're an idiot," she mouthed.

And she wasn't kidding. She was mad.

I could've gone for 20 that night.

I swear that's true.

But her being mad took away some of the steam.

Here we sit.

32 years later.

Chris Heinold sent me the photo that I used for the blog.

Chris Miller added a couple of snide comments.

"What an idiot," he texted. It brought back what Kellie had said. "You sucked."

Best game of my life.