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Date with fate post 47 - Missed basketball roster day
This entry was posted on 8/11/2011 1:30 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies.
There was this strange little incident in the late fall of 1970. It was related to the sport of basketball - an activity I had took up in junior high while waiting it out to get to high school football. Oh, I made my Freshman football team in the fall of 1970. In fact I had started as fullback as an upstart farm kid. Our school system did not start you in organized football until your Freshman year. Basketball however started in Seventh Grade. I had made the Eighth Grade team and was hoping to make the Freshman squad as well.
Although a smallish kid back then, I loved basketball, and for a farm kid with limited access to basketball courts, I wasn't too bad a player. After the football season, I joined the tryout practices for the Freshman team. Looking back now, I was probably going to make the team just like in Eighth Grade.
And then, just as the roster was about to be chosen, out of nowhere came pneumonia. In retrospect, I got sick rather often, perhaps it was the precursor to my blood problems later in life. Poor circulation and a clotting disorger would indeed effect the lungs. None-the-less, just a day before final tryouts, I was laid up for at least a week.
When I came back to school, the team had already been chosen. In the paradoxical era of long-hair, illegal drugs, hippies, Vietnam, mini-skirts, smoking lounges for kids, and a culture of any thing goes, sports still held on to some idea of "ritualism" and "absolutism." If you did not make the tryout, you could not make the team. No exceptions - not even for pneumonia.
I remembered my Mom called the school and ripped the coach a new butt hole. The neighbor lady who was the wife of the Varsity Football Assistant Coach, even intervened on my behalf. But alas, to no avail. "Rules is rules, son."
I was so bitter, I never tried out for another basketball team. I certainly could have tried out the next year for the Junior Varsity team. But I too was caught up in ritualism. "Screw them," I remember thinking.
I played on the intramural teams and did quite well. I remember playing some of the varsity players down at the Armory on weekend in pickup games - and seemed to keep up with them with no problem. In fact, I went out of my way to show them up.
I wonder how my life would have changed with four years of high school basketball on my resume? Would it have lured me to college right after high school instead of 30 years later. Would I have played in college? Perhaps then I would never have bothered with the Army after high school. Would it have gotten me networked with a culture that may have gotten me a better job later?
Every time I walk across a hard wood basketball court, I wonder about that one week in late 1970.
What ifs.
Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" Category does not list the brushes with fate chronologically - I write about the experiences as they pop up in my memory and I often revisit an older event. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies Page for an ordered chronology.
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)
Army Private First Class Jacob Alexander Gassen, 21, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, was killed on Monday, November 29, 2010, at Combat Outpost Lonestar in the Pachir Wa Agam district of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. An insurgent wearing an Afghan border policeman uniform attacked his unit with small arms fire. Gassen was one of six soldiers killed. Private First Class Gassen was assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Troop,1st Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes Private First Class Gassen was an Army medic. Jacob graduated from Beaver Dam in 2008. He studied for a year at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh before joining the Army. He had aspirations to someday be a nurse. Gassen had just turned 21 on November 19 before his death. The Journal Sentinel went on to mention he had been a swimmer for the YMCA's Sea Dragons swim team; he was later hired on to be a swim instructor and lifeguard. He had played viola in his high school orchestra. Jacob Gassen is the third Beaver Dam student to be killed in the Afghan and Iraq wars: Kirk Straseskie was the first Wisconsin military service person to die in Iraq, in May of 2003; Ryan Cantafio was killed in Iraq on Thanksgiving Day in 2004.
The Web site wiscnews.com in a series of articles from the Beaver Dam Daily Citizen notes Gassen was on his first overseas tour of duty. He he enjoyed playing golf and liked fishing. He had participated in the Academic Decathlon. In addition to the YMCA he had also been a lifeguard at the Columbus Aquatic Center. Jacob was born on November 19, 1989, in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. He joined the Army in September of 2009.
At the time of his death Army Private First Class Jacob Gassen was survived by his birth mother Lisa Genardo; her children Samantha, Sara, Emily, Steven, and Jennifer; by parents Gregory and Barbara Gassen; two brothers Christopher and Jesse Gassen; maternal grandmother Phyllis Luck; grandfather Joe Genardo; an aunt and two uncles M. John (Leiko) Gassen, Valerie (Bill) Dahlke, and Dan (Lorrie) Luck.
Army Private First Class Jacob A. Gassen was the 27th Wisconsin military service person to be killed in Afghanistan since October of 2001.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
102,070 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
10,125 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,477 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1680 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
931 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
1 American/Coalition casualty in Libyan "Operation Odyssey Dawn" since March, 2011
32,159 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
13,011 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
107 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
34 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
3 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in the U.S. related to "The War on Terror" since October, 2001.
149 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since September, 2001.
5 journalists (regional and independents) have been killed in Libya since March, 2011.
Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf; and, icasualties.org
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