When I arrived on the Tufts scene in the fall of 1999, I had to chose whether to write about sports or play them. I chose the easy way out, and on Friday, that decision came back to haunt me. However, I am still unsure whether Friday's experience on the basketball court reinforced my decision to spend my time refining my writing style as opposed to my jump shot, or whether the decision actually brought about my athletic demise.
Instead of running everyday like I did in high school when I competed in track and cross country, I now consider walking to and from class to be a strenuous workout. In addition to the "power walks," I also do stairs, up and down three flights every three weeks or so to do my laundry. And of course, there is that time-honored sport of beer pong, which we play religiously in my apartment. In my defense, my apartment is about a 15-minute walk to campus, which works out to more than half a mile to Olin. But despite the daily walks, it came to my attention on Friday that I am not the same physical specimen that I once was.
I have always been a decent basketball player. So when my friend and co-sports editor Neal McMahon asked me to be on his three man team for a charity basketball tournament, it seemed like a great opportunity to get back into the wonderful world of physical fitness and also to support a good cause. Unfortunately, the only balling I had done recently was NBA Hangtime on my friend's Nintendo 64.
Nevertheless, I assumed this would be a minor obstacle to overcome, and I immediately did some scouting to find out what type of competition we would be up against. I discovered that we would be facing a team captained by my friend and fellow Daily editor, Russell Capone. I am bigger than McMahon and he is a good deal bigger than Capone is, and I am not a big guy. Immediately, I assumed advantage Fowler. So of course I began talking smack.
There were about 32 other teams competing in the tournament and my goal was, in my opinion, modest. I wanted to make it out of the first round.
McMahon and I decided to jog over to the gym to work up a sweat and meet up with our other teammate, Scott Taylor, before the game. In the three-minute jog from the campus center to the gym, I felt the old competitive fire returning. I thought nothing of the fact that that I was breathing pretty hard after running less than half a mile.
The game began well. I drove off the left and blew by the guy who was sticking me for an easy lay-up. I was already feeling it. After scoring the first point of the game, we quickly fell behind by a 5-2 margin. I knew it was Fowler time. Standing on the left block, I called for the ball and ran off four straight points, putting us up 6-5. I began flexing for my friends in the stands who were watching me.
This was a big mistake for two reasons. First of all, I'm a fairly skinny guy, so my flexing does not have quite the same effect as say a Shaquille O'Neal or even a Lisa Leslie flexing over a fallen opponent. Secondly, flexing caused me to waste some of my rapidly disappearing energy. And thirdly, to my dismay, the game was far from over.
Midway through the game, I was bending over, hands on my knees, gasping for breath in between points. I began to encourage my teammates to take some shots because I couldn't breathe. I became the ultimate teammate, sacrificing my statistics for the sake of giving my teammates the opportunity to score.
I was able to gather myself enough to score a couple more points, and my teammates chipped in with a few more, and we actually took the lead. Unfortunately, I was on my last legs, and visions of TEMS peeling me off the court ran through my head. When the score reached 10-9 in our opponent's favor, I began hoisting up a barrage of two-pointers. I needed the game to end before I died of exhaustion. I kept taking two's and begged my teammates to do the same.
Finally, Capone, who I completely underestimated due to his small stature, took the ball on the left side as McMahon guarded him. I would have helped out on defense except for the fact that I couldn't breathe. Capone faded, had his glasses slapped off his face and still managed to swish the jumper from ten feet out to win the game.
Immediately, I thought that it should have been me draining the game winner. But then, after a brief moment of reflection, I concluded that it was better that Capone and company pulled out the victory. The main reason being that had we won, I would have had to find someone to replace me for the second round do to the fact that I was near death.
After the game I managed to shake my opponents hands before exploding into a fit of coughing more aptly described as dry heaving. I quickly left the gym before what looked like a potentially embarrassing situation developed. It appeared that I was going to be sick. Sure, people throw up after a marathon or even a three-mile race but not after 20 minutes of basketball, especially not me. As I was clutching my stomach attempting not to throw up, the visibly frightened McMahon stood over me, watching.
After nearly ten minutes on the ground I recovered enough to walk to my car and drive home. Immediately upon getting home, I called my mother and asked her to send me my inhaler (in twelfth grade I was diagnosed with exertional asthma). I told my mother that I had suffered an asthma attack, and she laughed at me.
Apparently, she felt my "asthma attack" was not really an asthma attack but rather was a result of my laziness catching up to me. I yelled at her for insulting me and hung up.
But I quickly came to the realization that she was probably right. So instead of reordering my inhaler, I picked up the phone and ordered a chicken finger dinner from Espresso's, and I proceeded to spend the remainder of the three-day weekend in typical fashion: sitting on my ass. But I swear I'm going to start running again. Today.
