Life After Being “That Guy”

I don’t feel old per se. But you know you’re not the young buck in on the open range when some 14 year old at the gym says, “You could probably guard Kobe couldn’t you?” With hope in his eyes and a glimmer of wonderous awe the youth looks to you as if to a demi-god. For a moment there’s a chance (the kid thinks) that he has just met a member of the upper echelon of basketball. But to his chagrin I reply, “Man, I’m 34. I couldn’t guard Kobe when I was 23. But if he ever wants to play I’m in.” Wow, I’m a dream killer. I just deflated that kid.

Well maybe he’s not totally undone but I’m not That Guy. And I was just talking to a friend during some hoop recently about players we all know who were That Guy. We discussed how the accolades of say the early 1990s mean nothing to up and coming stars. You could find yourself in a gymnasium runnin’ up and down with the guys who are putting it down currently. That is, they’re playing at Division I universities, professionally overseas or even in the NBA. It’s 2010 and if you were the man once-a-upon-a-time, that time has long since passed. And therein lies the anatomy of a life transition.

How do you learn to defer to the more capable, more gifted, born-in-the Late 80s/early 90s kids? It’s not that hard. We need only to let go of temporal identities through which we perpetually and possibly fraudulently define ourselves. Aging is a pariah and yet one of the few guarantees of our lifetime, unless your tenure is cut short by a bus you didn’t see coming. When did taking one’s place as an elder of society or at least a mentor become so undesirable? Maybe a better question is why it’s so undesirable? Easy answer. Being young and in the spotlight is fun. It’s your time to shine, you think. So we shine on a dime getting pretty, feeling invincible and striving to establish an identity based on some performance criteria. Those who are successful at this when they’re young, acquire reputation singularly based on the talent they’ve cultivated. But there’s a shelf life or better yet a best-if-used-by date for all fame and fanfare. No one gets to be HOT for a lifetime. I used to be pretty explosive to the basket off of one foot. Now I have Patellar Tendonitis and I play through a bit of pain every time I jump. I pass more now when playing with younger guys who play daily and train with scouts. Why in the world would I think that they should be passing me the ball? I had my time. Truth told, I was never That Guy but if you were, today you’re probably not so put the ego down and nobody gets hurt.