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Making It Routine
by Tully Beatty
In the sixth grade, I played YMCA basketball and was coached by my classmate/neighbor's father. His sadistic assistant used to routinely fire passes at Billy Nesbitt's head because Billy had such terrible hands; his poor hands caused his braces to cause his mouth to bleed. Sobbing, snot, and blood are not too fun to witness when you're in sixth grade. I never wanted to be anything like poor Billy. I think he's an orthodontist now.
The one catch that I know I am going to always have to make routinely, or have had made routinely, is the one where you're coming under and the defender is breathing down your neck, and the throw is just a little bit too high, like an arm length and a half too high, and you have to go up with your opposite hand to make the grab. In practice, in various drills, I try and go opposite hand on anything that's floaty. However, it's the ones that are down around the laces that give me the most trouble and the types I continue to work on.
I was Chris Hinkle's teammate on Ring of Fire for four seasons and what constantly impressed me and what I continue to try and emulate was his ability to come under at full speed and make the catch down around the laces with one hand, usually his opposite hand, switch hands while establishing the pivot, and be ready to deliver and get rid of the disc in what seemed like one complete motion. Obviously it was his baseball background that made it look effortless and easy. More often than not, I'd have to slide in to the catch, awarded a nice strawberry on the right cheek for doing so. But if the throw was right (wrong actually) and the separation was enough, fielding the disc usually worked and it felt good switching hands and moving the disc before "stalling 3" was uttered.
And for my own play, for my role, the seemingly easy catches are always the most important.
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Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 |
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