Aaron M. Smith

Excerpt from TNT:

Fran Niehaus stands at just about five foot six, his ankles wrapped in braces, his feet nestled into extra wide black New Balance high-tops and multiple pairs of socks. He covers his bald head with an old triathlon hat that is missing half of the bill, which he cut off so that he could shoot a basketball without interference. Fran swears to himself that he’ll be more than a foot taller sometime in another life.

 

“Dear, God, please make me six foot ten when I get to heaven,” he’ll say. “I’ll even settle for six foot eight.”

 

He’s joking, sure, but I honestly think he has prayed to God to transform his frame into that of an NBA body when he reaches the great basketball court in the sky. I, for one, am a little afraid of this. I am six foot one and have had my share of blocks on Fran. After many of the swats, he will respond with an anguished snarl, “You dog!”

 

I am his son-in-law. And I am in trouble. If I am lucky enough to one day make it to heaven, Fran will make it hell on me on the holiest of courts.

 

Fran and I have a bond, certainly as in-laws, but likely even stronger as fellow basketball players. It is a bond my dad, Scott, formed with me at an early age, one that was nurtured under the hot summer sun on our gravel makeshift court an hour outside of Columbus, Ohio.

 

Some of my fondest memories are the grueling two-on-two games with my dad and my brothers, Jeremy and Nathanael. My love for basketball was born on that rock-infested court, which likely is the source of the ankle problems that plague me to this day. On that court, I was Ohio State’s Jay Burson, Dennis Hopson, or Jimmy Jackson. I was Indiana Pacers guard Reggie Miller, shooting impossible three-pointers. I was anyone I wanted to be on that court. Growing up playing basketball with my dad and brothers and now playing with my father-in-law has given a special value to the game, transforming it into something much more than simply a sport.

 

I met Fran in 2004, and early on, my efforts were split between playing basketball and persuading him to allow me to date and eventually marry his oldest of three daughters, Chrissy. He relented on my persistence to marry his daughter, but he has yet to relent on the basketball court.

 

For nine months, I even lived with the man in transition before moving to California with Chrissy after our wedding in June of 2005. I left my job as a sports editor at the Port Clinton News Herald in October of 2004 and went to work for Fran until the following June, helping out with writing projects he needed for his law and financial planning office. I lived in his house for those nine months to save money for the upcoming cross-country move and, during that time, I played a lot of basketball with Fran. A lot of basketball.

 

We have endured exhausting one-on-one battles on the court together. What Fran may lack in height, he makes up for with quickness, endurance, and shooting accuracy. In the earlier days, he made me pay for being out of shape. I was about 212 pounds when I first started playing against Fran. I was a wheezing mess and struggled to stay with him. Those early games motivated me to get healthier, to shed that lazy bachelor weight that had been piling on since college. Now, thirty pounds lighter, I have closed the speed gap between us a bit and finally have the endurance needed to stay with Fran defensively.

 

We have frustrated each other, annoyed each other, and left each other shaking our heads. The game has squeezed out of us a few words that we would otherwise never say. That’s basketball. That’s competition. And we thrive on it.

 

It was about ten years ago also that I began playing with Fran and his longtime friends on Thursday nights. I’m one of the newer guys. Fran has been playing on Thursdays since 1984 on his very own court of dreams. I turned five years old then, and it was the year I received my first basketball for my birthday. Some of the guys Fran began playing basketball with thirty years ago still show up to battle under the Thursday night lights of Apple Ridge Lane.

 

After all, we all need a little therapy from time to time. We just don’t need to lie on a couch to get it. Thursday night basketball is a necessity for me. By the time it rolls around, the stresses of the week are just about at their peak. I am blessed; I am sensible enough to know that my stresses pale in comparison to some. That being said, being home with three children ages seven and younger a lot of the week while squeezing in time to write and take care of our house, my mind and body are in serious need of competition, male camaraderie, and an all-out physical challenge.

 

I’ve never been more exhausted than I am at about 12:05 early Friday morning after three hours of rigorous exercise on unforgiving concrete. Nothing, however, feels better than that fatigue, than that pain screaming in my ankles and knees, or wherever I received an errant elbow on that particular night.

 

I love the group of players we have on Thursday night. We have guys in their sixties who come complete with confounding energy and deadly accuracy. We have guys in their fifties and forties who shoot hook shots and try to implement spread offenses. We have guys in their thirties or younger who like to drive to the basket because they never were allowed to [or able to] when they played in high school. And, on occasion, a teenager [most likely a son or even grandson of one of the guys] shows up to play; his rabbit-like quickness and leaping ability an unfortunate reminder of just how old we’re all getting.

 

It is a good mix of better people.

 

“I love being around people and I cherish community,” Jason Angelo, a good shooter in his forties and one of our regulars for several years, said. “That’s what’s differentiated Fran’s Thursday night hoops from anywhere else I’ve played. These are really, really good people. All walks of life, all age groups, all levels of skill, but totally consistent in the quality of character. And you couldn’t pull together a nicer group of gentlemen.”

 

The competition is great too. Everyone has their strengths. We have shooters and rebounders, lockdown defenders, and good passers. In a best-of-three series, we almost always go the distance.

 

Sure, there are times, though, when tempers can flare—a bad call here, a misplaced elbow there, a complaint or two that rises above a mutter.

 

But that is the nature of the sport. You can’t battle against the same people for years and years under black muggy skies without getting into a bit of a disagreement from time to time. It’s actually a blessing. We give each other an outlet, a way to release frustrations. The emotion comes out on the court instead of at home and that can only be a good thing.

 

“There’d be nights when you just want to hit somebody very hard or set a pick and nail somebody with a pick when they didn’t see it coming,” Fran admitted. “It was just to get some of that aggression out. It became like a fix to get that aggression out every Thursday night and it was a lot of fun.”

 

I can relate. Sometimes, I can get worked up on the court. I get frustrated at myself and a week’s worth of stress can pour out on the court. But that’s good. I leave it on the court and feel like a burden has been lifted from my weary shoulders. No disrespect is ever intended, and I never feel disrespected when others release similarly. I believe there is an understanding, and we all need that “fix” as Fran called it.

 

The guys who show up on Thursdays are great men—businessmen, writers, lawyers, volunteers, and, more importantly, husbands and fathers. There may be a spat here or there, but I know that there is a great deal of respect for everyone that steps out there on that court. Nothing is ever personal. Nothing ever leaves the court.

 

“Like they say, I would be in the foxhole with any of them and I think, I hope, they would say the same about me,” John Orr said, strong and stocky yet with a friendly face. He has been with this group from the start. “It’s just been a pretty extraordinary run for thirty years and with a different cast of characters through the years. It seems that everyone who becomes involved with this group is just a super person.”

 

To be expected, there have been injuries too. Broken fingers, torn ligaments, knees that bend in the wrong direction, broken noses, rolled ankles, teeth marks on balding heads, skinned knees, and separated shoulders. We are a tangle of wraps, braces, and sports goggles.

 

But we always come back.

 

Thursday night hoops is the equivalent of three hours of therapy every week. We all have problems ranging from health issues to work stress to family situations. It simmers and builds during the week and somehow, some way, there needs to be a release.

 

Thankfully, for all of us, Thursday night is always just around the corner.

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