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In the Georgetown Prep Tournament in 1980 when Little Flower battled a less talented Blessed Sacrament team, Rudy lit up the Little Hoya scoreboard from logo land showing off his deadly two-hand push shot from his bosom plate.
From the GP logo, bamb; left sideline, money; out beyond the top of the key, swish. Fine-tuned his craft by practicing for countless hours – and losing — to his idol Sportface in H-O-R-S-E.
JBalls couldn’t cover him; Moose was on the bench. That night would be his finest hour as a basketball player even though it happened 48 years ago and he still plays in a men’s league each week as an old man with two new hips. A shooting show he put on. His one shining moment.
High school and college scouts were starting to babble about the boisterous boy with a Bertha Butt who could stick jumpers in his plastic red Little Flower game pants. Rudy was ahead of his time. The push bomb was as simple and elegant as Caitlin Clark’s and Steph Curry’s.
Push Boy finished with 17 points, one less than his team’s best player Sportface who always led the team in scoring.
The trajectory of Rudy’s basketball career was on the ascent. But then Rudy got interested in girls. To impress them he abandoned his deadly push shot for a forever-mangled one-hand lab experiment from above his head, an always errant horizontal line drive that he could only make one out of 10 from the sideline calling “bank.” Unable to make shots, he sought fame in another way, becoming a circus act with his passes that never hit the target soaring out of bounds like misguided missiles.
This was Rudy’s reasoning: Girls would be enamored with him and hold his hand at roller skating outings if he shot more like a post-pubescent boy. By any metrics, the decision to change his shot was colossally catastrophic and ill-conceived.
Making this change ended his basketball career. From that day forward he made a paltry 22 percent of his outside shots compared with 62 percent wielding the two-handed pinpointed push.
A dim-witted decision rooted in libido, a pervasive human frailty. Sure the girls liked him more but no basketball coaches did. At a critical juncture in his basketball odyssey, Rudy abandoned an efficient and accurate shooting motion that derailed him from becoming a respectable basketball player.
This is a cautionary tale for all of us. Be careful in making changes in how we do things. Sportface could fundamentally change the way he writes sports blogs, but that could derail this entire business enterprise, so why do that? Why mess with an expanding user base? He’s pleasing the crowd. Stay put.
But isn’t it true – and unfortunate – that we all make decisions that at the time seem trivial and reversible that end up being massive, irreversible, and counterproductive?
Spray painting the word “Wednesday” on my Chevy Impala while living in an apartment in Sarasota, Florida 38 years ago drifting after college wasn’t a good idea; the landlord wondered why, didn’t understand, and evicted me which was an understandable decision all the way around.
At forks in the road, we’re susceptible to taking the wrong turn for the wrong reasons and it makes all the difference. Rudy showed us how to swerve the wrong way and never be able to recover. True he had his fair share of girlfriends but lost one to Sportface in high school because Sportface didn’t change his shot and kept shooting the rock at a high percentage which made him an attractive boyfriend as Rudy drifted from girlfriend to girlfriend without a discernible cohesive strategy.
Numbers illustrate: Rudy only dated about 30 percent as many girls as Wolfford, the Tony Casanova of our homeboys, but Tony lost his ability to play basketball even before Rudy collapsed which was not impressive athletically although all his girlfriends were something to respect.
The lesson in all this is that we make decisions at crucial times in our lives that can change the arcs and slopes of our lives. Let Rudy’s tragic decision be a teaching lesson for all of us.
Think before you decide. Don’t let libido rule you. Before you read another Sportface blog, ask yourself if it will be good or bad for you in the long run. It may not be the direction you want to go.
Do you really want to remain a member of the Baby Boomer Brotherhood? Is it where you want to go? Is there any real upside? Is it time to get off this train?
Decisions – life is nothing but decisions.
Rudy made a bad one.
Doesn’t mean you have to.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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