My Knee Bulged Like a Coconut
by Oliver Carlos
I would say I am a legit war-scarred basketball warrior. I had my own share of injuries in my four decades (so far) of playing basketball. I got most of my injuries from playing hard-nosed defense. I was a different player in my younger years, I was more known as a tough defender than a shooter or a playmaker.
My first major injury was on my left knee. I was in third year high school and it was in the varsity tryouts that I got hurt. That was also the first ever tryout I attended. I didn’t last a minute on the floor.
The tryout was huge in attendance. We were so many who wanted to wear those prestigious maroon jerseys. Aside from the wanna-bes, our friends also filled the venue. Each player had his handful of supporters to cheer them on.
When my turn came to get in the court, I knew what to do. I wasn’t nervous, I was oozing with confidence. I had a game plan for the tryouts. I wanted to be different from all the other candidates. My plan was to get noticed by the coach as the best defensive player of them all.
In the first play, while my teammates formed a zone defense, I had other things in mind. I wanted to play full-court man-to-man defense on whoever has the ball.
When an opposing player got the ball and started dribbling deep in their backcourt, I positioned myself in front of him to draw a charging foul. The guy was taller and heftier, yet I was unafraid of him. He tried to dribble around me, but I was too close to him, and so his knee accidentally ran smack into my knee. Being big and bulky, the impact didn’t bother him at all. But for me, I felt like I was run over by a train.
I heard a snap in my knee as I flew in the air. I landed around two meters away. No whistle, no call, no charging foul. The play went on. My never-say-die spirit told me to get back on defense. Notwithstanding the sharp pain on my knee, I stood up. But a split second later, I folded up and fell on the floor again. My knee didn’t hold up. I tried to get up a second time, but I couldn’t.
My friends saw everything. They wasted no time in rushing to the court to pick me up and get me out of the game, as another fastbreak play was about to happen on the place where I fell. My knee quickly swelled to the size of a coconut. I was so frustrated. I went home with a limp and a broken heart.
The following day, my friends visited me at home to check on my injury. Being young and carefree, I just taped it and told them I’m fine. I watched them do some light shooting at the half court in our yard. We laughed off the tryout, and just put up our own team, which we later called “The Buko Boys.”
Even though I didn’t make the varsity team, I’m glad God gave me true friends who picked me up when I was down, literally and figuratively. Ecclesiastes 4:10 (NLV) talks about such friendship:
“For if one of them falls, the other can help him up. But it is hard for the one who falls when there is no one to lift him up.”
Friends are indeed a blessing from above. Let us not take them for granted, but instead, thank God for bringing them in our lives. They are God’s hands and feet, carriers of his loving care.
