Make a Free Throw Shot

“Maybe I was hoping the snow would melt off by time it was my day to shoot my 15 free throws, or maybe a bit of insanity raced through me when I scheduled my day to shoot, but it turned out to be a most unique experience. Do you know how hard it is to locate a white foul line stripe under a foot of snow and ice? Let me tell you, it's pretty difficult. With the snow shovel and ice chopper, I shoveled a path from the basket to where I thought my foul stripe was. The whole time I'm thinking, why couldn't I have been original and painted it orange or yellow? No, I had to go with the traditional white. After a good bit of probing, I finally found the stupid foul line, staring up at me as if saying, "Is it springtime already?" The moment of reckoning had come. My distribution manager arrived to rebound for me and verify my total. He stood on my wintry basketball court dressed in a trench coat, scarf, boots and gloves to ward off the cold. My bid to be the best free throw shooter among all the paperboys in the entire county fell victim to the elements. I made my first foul shot and my last.”

“I’ve done it a few years ago & it was definitely fun & I still regularly look back at the pic I got from it, I even considered doing it again recently ! That said, for me personally, I’m a major lifelong spurs fanatic & everything about the “live sports experience” is absolute peak for me, so doing the free throw was euphoric to be there on the same wood shooting the same shot. If that experience isn’t enough for you, I would pass on it. You go down at the end, wait in a cattle line of everyone else who’s doing it, there are some hype squad members there to guide you, take the shot & walk off. Over in seconds once you get to the front of the line. For me? WORTH IT. For others, maybe not”

“I was one of those guys who did shoot a lot of free throws in the off season and during. All that work ultimately didn’t produce stellar results. I made about 60 percent, which isn’t good and embarrassing to admit. While on the line I found myself thinking about too many things in games and my focus and concentration weren’t locked in. I had too much on my mind when I needed to erase all thoughts other than reaching for the figurative “peach” inside the rim (the peach basket) with my follow through making sure there was enough arc. I didn’t do this well in a few pressure situations that remain stuck in my mind to this second. I had two free throws to tie the game with under a minute to play. On the bench my coach and teammates tried to make light of the situation – my coach flipped around a towel in my direction — with me fully aware I was probably going to choke. The reverse psychology didn’t work. I clanked both shots and we lost.”