(Provided photo — 1981 NCCC Yearbook)

Anyone who knows me well knows I’m competitive. Board games, cards, checkers, it doesn’t matter. I believe if you don’t play to win, then why play at all. It’s something in my genes.

How competitive am I? It depends, but there was the time my best friend from college, Scott Smith, and I went out into his yard to play catch with a frisbee. We took turns. One of us stood between two trees as goalie while the other tried to throw the frisbee past him. We were outside for nearly an hour and when we came back in and told our spouses who won, they couldn’t believe we’d made it into a competitive game with a winner and loser. (Just for the record, I won 10-8.) Seventh grade was the first time I wanted to play an organized sport. I put a rim up in our barn a la Larry Bird and shot baskets all winter. A year later, as an 8th grader with high hopes, I went out for the team. There were four rounds of cuts, and after each, I’d anxiously look for my name on the list outside Coach Joe Silver’s office. Each time it was on the list … until the last cut.

I didn’t make it. I took it in stride, but many years later I learned the wrestling coach Lynn Tewskbury conspired with Coach Silver to make sure I didn’t make the team. Coach Tewksbury said, “Drury will never make it as a basketball player. He’ll make a decent wrestler, so don’t try to make him a lousy basketball player.”

Although he was right, I was disappointed my basketball career ended. Sort of.

I had an OK wrestling career but spent many more hours playing basketball than I ever did wrestling. Terry Mattoon, my best friend from high school, and I put rims on either end of our barn, and a generation of Boomers played a lot of basketball in Drury’s barn. My technique was awful. I’d never been coached and never heard of the acronym BEEF — Balance, Eyes, Elbow, Follow-through — but that didn’t keep me from having fun.

Through the years, although a hack, I played pick-up games whenever the opportunity arose. I was never the first guy picked, but not the last either. Whoever’s team I was on knew I’d play hard, was not afraid to be physical (perhaps occasionally too physical), and I’d give it my best shot, literally and figuratively.

The highlight of my basketball career was in 1981. I was part of the faculty basketball team in the intramural league at NCCC. Our team was made up of faculty members: Grover Moore, who had been basketball coach for many years, college counselor Bob Abdo, then-current basketball coach Kevin O’Neill, Kevin Seymour, a community member … and, of course, yours truly. They all knew the game much better than I, and if you had to rank the players, I’d be at the bottom of the list. Fortunately for me, we only had five players on the team, so I got plenty of action although rarely got the ball — That is, until one fateful evening.

Before I go any further, I must share a bit about Kevin O’Neill. He was a basketball prodigy from Chateaugay and had a stellar basketball career at McGill University, before a head coaching stop at NCCC, on his way to a fascinating coaching career. After three years at NCCC, known as a great recruiter, he worked his way up through the college ranks, with head coaching gigs at Marquette, Tennessee, Northwestern and Arizona. From the university sidelines, he went on to a coaching career in the NBA. Anyone who knew Kevin — and I didn’t know him well — could tell you a Kevin O’Neill story, each more outrageous than the other. Luckily, I think the statute of limitations has run out.

At the end of the intramural basketball season, there was a tournament, and somehow our team of grizzled veterans — held together by knee braces, horse liniment and stubborn pride — limped its way into the finals. We faced a group of scrappy students who, unlike us, were tireless. With less than 10 seconds on the clock, we were down by a point and had possession of the ball. I’d not scored a single point all game. Not one. Grover Moore called a timeout and drew up a play clearly designed for Kevin O’Neill to take the final shot — so clearly, that my role wasn’t mentioned, implied or even hinted.

The ball was inbounded, and I focused on my primary assignment — staying out of the way. Abdo set a pick. O’Neill got the ball — and immediately got smothered by two defenders who clung to him like lint on black. The clock ticked mercilessly toward zero. I found myself standing just above the foul line, utterly alone. Everyone else was covered. Suddenly, Kevin spotted me, panic flickering across his face, and, in an act of desperation, fired the ball my way. With two seconds left and my heart pounding, I caught it and did the only thing I could think of: I faced the basket, my eyes on the rim and let the ball fly.

Now, you’re probably wondering what happened next. Did I drain the shot and ascend instantly to campus legend? Did the ball do that cruel little dance around the rim before rattling out? Or did it miss everything — backboard, rim, and dignity — as the buzzer screamed its final insult?

Against all odds and common sense, the ball sailed through the hoop cleanly. NBN — Nothing But Net.

Time stood still as I stared at the basket as if I had just betrayed the laws of physics. I’m not sure who was more stunned: Me or my teammates, who looked at me gob smacked. They mobbed me with congratulations, high-fives and back slaps. They stopped just short of lifting me onto their shoulders — mostly, I suspect, for fear of throwing out their backs.

Sadly, no trophy was awarded. If there had been, I would have proudly placed it alongside my only other athletic hardware — my last-place bowling trophy from fifth grade.