Growing up playing basketball, there is one thing you and your friends practice in the driveway more than hitting a buzzer-beater to win a championship. And that is dunking.
Dunking on a 7-foot rim with a mini-basketball, to be more precise. I remember hours and hours in Clark Randall’s driveway in grade school throwing down ridiculous alley-oops and windmills with Pat Conners and Dan Tlapek, inspired by grown men dunking full-sized balls on regulation-sized rims. One of my favorite activities was when we’d go one-on-one, with one guy dunking and the other guy trying to block him at the rim. Oh, how my 13-year-old testosterone would peak in those moments! Nothing was better than capturing one of these blocks or dunks on video on our flip phone cameras and reliving them right after. (I recall specifically doing this to both Clark and Connor Flemming at the start of one summer.)
I hope any kid who had half a childhood and any sort of athletic ability can relate to these memories.
As we got older, though, we grew out of dunking on lowered rims. By high school, it was a race to be the first to dunk. The first to dunk anything actually, all the way down to tennis and even golf balls.
I began to dunk (basketballs) on a regular basis during my sophomore year. I was just shy of 6-foot-4 at the time, but once I started dunking, I rarely told people I was above 6-foot-2 (it’s essential that people attribute your dunking ability to your hops, and not your height).
My junior year, I was playing varsity basketball but never had an opportunity to dunk in a game. Plus, once you’re at the varsity level, dunking just isn’t as sexy, given that the vast majority of high school big men can dunk.
My senior year, though, in one of the early season tournaments, we had [a dunk contest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BHiABF6Z6U). It was the Statesmen Classic at Webster Groves High School, my hometown. It was a tournament I’d been attending since the seventh grade –– a dunk contest whose dunks I had been mimicking for years.
This was my moment, in front of friends and family, to showcase my dunking prowess. To have grade school kids imitating _my_ dunks in _their_ driveways.
I had my good friend and team manager DJ LaPoint record the spectacle on my iPhone from the stands. This would be a moment my grandkids were going to have memorized before they could walk. Something I would be casually pulling out at parties and work functions down the road to impress anyone who would watch.
The plan was for Matt Clark, our star guard, to dribble ahead of me from half-court while I got a running start behind him. When Matt got to the basket, he would lay the ball off the backboard directly back to me, at which point I would rise, cup the ball in one hand and emphatically slam it down. The crowd would roar, my teammates go crazy and the women swoon.
The PA guy called my name, I removed my warm-up (underneath, I had a hand-written message instructing the crowd to follow me on Twitter) and did some quick, obnoxious calisthenics to get the crowd laughing and on my side.
After briefly going over the plan one more time with Matt, it was time. Unfortunately, Matt’s pass off the backboard was too high, and the ball bounced off my fingertips. No matter. I had three attempts. We regrouped and went for it again. The pass wasn’t right where I wanted it, but it was still dunkable. I missed.
Nerves began to settle in. I wanted this dunk, damn it. I _needed_ this dunk. I walked back to half-court. I turned, gave Matt a look of confidence, made the sign of the cross and took off behind Matt one last time. My jump was perfect, and Matt nailed the pass. The rim was halfway up my forearm as I grabbed the ball off the backboard. I threw it down. I threw it down and the ball went in and out. I had missed my last attempt. My dunk contest was over.
I was beside myself. Mothers’ chants of “good try, Schmidty!” fell on deaf ears. My grandkids would grow up without proof of whether or not their grandfather could dunk.
As upset as I was, I still uploaded the clip to YouTube (because I have no shame). It received decently negative feedback. This gave me an idea.
I made [a response clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heBInvSGE8E) to my dunk contest failure. With Nate Heagney recording, I spoke a brief message to my viewers, walked over to the basket and dunked the basketball (while wearing sweatpants), which I then followed with a primal yell. I think it speaks volumes that my response clip has more views than my initial failure.
In life, you’re going to miss some shots. Shots on big stages under the bright lights, just like I did. And when you do, I want you to know that you can recreate it and make those shots in a controlled setting of your choosing. Just make sure you have someone there to record it.
