The third in a virtual glossary of terms either specific to the 1980s or to our staff’s own upbringing in said decade. This time around we focus on a term that isn’t specific to the culture of the Eightiesologist’s upbringing.
“Hoops”
- 1. Circular figures or objects
- 2. The game of basketball, the act of shooting baskets, or simply loitering around a basketball court with only minor intent to play the sport and major intent to be social
The simple term of “shooting hoops” or “going to shoot hoops” invokes the basic act of playing the sport of basketball or practicing the art of shooting the basketball into the net, or hoop. However, this came to take on a more significant meaning in my world towards the end of the ‘80s and early ‘90s.
It’s important to note that playing basketball and shooting hoops were not technically the same thing. I played basketball in high school for four years. This entailed attending practices everyday except Sunday, grueling practices that included a wind spring so psychotic that they were called “suicides.” The practices were in preparation for games which took us all over Bergen County and sometimes into dreaded Hudson County. Junior year, as my classmates took over the starting positions on the Varsity team, the Wood-Ridge Blue Devils went into an awful losing spell that lasted until our Senior year. This was basketball for us. Miserable losses and ridiculous practices. The best part of a basketball game was going to Amore afterwards for cheese steak sandwiches and hanging out with our friends.
Shooting hoops was an altogether different experience. Stripped of the stigma of a losing team or of being a benchwarmer, this was a freelance experience, a freeform experience. While I played basketball with my high school classmates, I shot hoops with my friends from town who went to various different Catholic high schools. We all played basketball for our different HS teams but came together on common ground during in-season off-days and pretty much every other time imaginable to shoot hoops at the Assumption. For many of us, it was a walk across the street or a few blocks away. On a school day, it was the first thing you did upon your return home. On the weekend, it was pretty much what we did from late morning until it was too dark to play anymore. Sometimes even that couldn’t stop us as we let our eyes adjust and the nearby street lamps to give us just enough vision to shoot hoops.
What is Hoops? It’s not complicated. The weather had to be disastrous to prevent us from shooting hoops. With that cooperation, we individually made our ways to the Assumption parking lot. Sometimes a phone call or a ringed doorbell induced a scheduled arrival but more times than not, it was simply an instinctual gathering. I had the advantage of being able to see the court and hear a bouncing basketball from my house which gave me an edge to be timely and ever-present. Lace up your high-tops, put on sweats or shorts, grab a ball and head over.
It started with simply shooting hoops, your typical free-for-all practice of shooting your basketball towards the net while chatting with the congregation, awaiting the arrival of certain scheduled attendees or simply waiting to form a 3-on-3, 4-on-4 or 5-on-5 half-court game. Some days we’d have enough to rotate teams, other days we had to have subs. These games were fun, frustrating, funny, and fierce. Daylong arguments would be formed by the ambiguity of a play. Comely female bystanders would pass through invoking distraction or empowering players to show-off. It’s amazing how much higher you could jump or how much more heart you put into a play when a cute girl is even vaguely aware of the existence of 1) the game or 2) you.
We’d break for a trip to 7-11 or Boulevard Pizza, gas ourselves back up while patrolling the town and eventually return for more hoops and more games. Later the crowd would slowly disperse for familial engagements or dinner, leaving a select few late-diners shooting their last hoops. After dinner and digestion, we’d slowly return to the court again much like that afternoon or morning arrival. During the school week, this was a brief foray to make the most of the daylight before heading back in for homework and some television. During summers, breaks and weekends, this post-dinner return to the courts could last just as long as the early session. Often it was just an excuse to gather, with perhaps little intent to actually sweat out a game and mostly to congregate in anticipation of evening events such as a Youth night, party, or basic neighborhood carousing. It wasn’t just an event, it was the only thing we need to do when we were waiting or bored.
Hoops could be therapy and could be comedy as well. I formed a lot of good friendships on those courts, sometimes just shooting hoops with one or two buddies, almost disconnected from the art of shooting the ball itself as the conversations about ideas, aspirations, crushes, sports, music and movies filled in all the spaces between the bouncing balls. Other friendships were simply redefined on those courts. Mike, Matt and I, who already had a history of big wheels, G.I. Joe, army, and Hoth, came to create a game we dubbed Bonehead. This was our HORSE. The object of the game was to basically never let the ball stop bouncing as each player took a turn shooting for the basket, and you couldn’t stop or plant your feet to shoot the ball. This frenetic, absurd game earned us the admiration of none but hilarity for we few.
Hoops was a cultural thing for me that transcended the sport itself. We loved playing basketball, talking about and watching the NBA and all wanted to improve ourselves on those courts to help improve ourselves on the organized teams we were part of. But it also was a way of life for us, something that whether we were good or bad at it, was an essential part of that time of our lives. No matter what memory you had at the time, you were almost always carrying a basketball or standing under a net at the Assumption.
The Assumption schoolyard, home of "hoops."
