My Old Teammate Ron.

So when I was in high school we had a standout basketball player (Ron) who was destined to be in the NBA in his life. As a sophomore, he was 6'7" 230, super athletic and was a star in any sport he played, but he loved basketball the most. One night he was out celebrating after a win and his buddy was driving drunk and wrecked. Ron wasn't wearing his seat belt and was thrown from the vehicle. He suffered a lot of serious injuries, but what was devastating was that they had to amputate his arms as they had nearly ripped off from rolling on the pavement. The whole community was so devastated because everyone had such high hopes for him and his future.
Ron was a determined kid though and he vowed to play basketball again.

After almost a year of PT and countless hours in his driveway with his dad practicing, he learned how to headbutt the ball into the basket, and utilize his long legs and strong torso to play defense. Needless to say, we all kinda chuckled (not in a mean way, we're not savages) when he said he was going to try out for the team again. His determined look told us he wasn't kidding, so we went to his tryout to see how he'd do. We were shocked to see the agility he had, and his precise "header shots" as he called them. He actually beat me 1 on 1 later that day in a pick up game. I wasn't a standout, but I could generally hold my own against similar competition. He had these really small stubs that he used to dribble and I have no clue how he pulled the rest off.

Anyways, we were playing in our final game of the year, if we won we'd go to states to compete and everyone was nervous. Ron was simply amazing that game. He put up over 30 points and had 12 assists but towards the end of the game we were only up by 1 point. There were only 7 seconds left on the clock and the opposing team was in-bounding the ball. Somehow the guy I was guarding ran around a screen and I tripped giving him a wide open lane to the basket. I felt sick. The ball immediately went to him and as he drove to the hoop we all see Ron flying across the court. As he pulls his arm up to lay the ball in, Ron dropkicks this kid right into the padding behind the hoop. It was one of the dirtiest plays I've ever seen. The kid goes flailing, the ball bounces awkwardly off the rim and his the ground and the time expires. The whole gymnasium was silent waiting to hear the ref's whistle and see the free throws that would surely tie or end the game, but only the subtle chatter of the refs could be heard followed by a quick whistle to signal the end of the game.

That's when he lost it. The other coach was vehemently screaming at the top of his lungs, flailing his arms, kicking chairs, making a mess, but the ref just looked at him and shook his head and uttered the phrase I'll always remember. The one that sealed our victory, "Sorry coach, No arm, no foul".