One night last week, I met a former co-worker for drinks. She now works at a different international school, and she was with a few of her current co-workers, and even though I'm trying to avoid hanging out only with other gringos, it was nice to relax and not have to concentrate really really really hard on every word being said.
Anyway, one of these new friends, Tom, told me that he plays basketball regularly with some other teachers. I asked him if I could join in, and he wasn't sure, because it's actually a league, rather than just regular pick-up ball, as I had originally assumed.
On Saturday, I went to a party hosted by another teacher at this other school, which is called Karl C. Parrish. I met a lot more gringos (the teaching staff of Parrish is nearly half North American, as opposed to my school, which has 3 of us), including a couple more members of the basketball team. They told me a bit about the league, and related some fun basketball stories, including one about an interesting character named Steve. Steve, I gleaned, is your traditional nicest-guy-ever-but-incredibly-intense-when-playing-sports. Not to the point of being a jerk, just hyper-competitive. Apparently, you can't tell Steve to calm down, because his response will be (with crazy eyes): "I am calm."
Anyway, I got to experience the legend of Steve first-hand last night, because one of the bball party-goers had been the captain, and he got me onto the team no problem. The descriptions of Steve proved accurate. The best Steve moment was when he was on the bench and an opposing team member was standing close by, waiting for the play to start, and Steve remarked very calmly: "what, are you gonna shoot? you could build a chimney with all the bricks you're putting up" despite the fact that the other team was all Colombian and didn't speak English. Just the Steve way, I guess.
Later on, I was chatting with another team member, Joe. Joe told me he was from Minnesota, and then asked me something like "so, where are you from, Steve?" It threw me off for a second, but then I remembered: in order to get me on the team, they had to claim I was someone else, someone who works at Parrish, I guess. So, on the team, I'm Steve #2. We'll see if I inherit any of the traditional Steve traits.
Steve, you'll know you're changing when you take it all the way yourself and then try to slam it. Just hang back and launch a three every once in a while.
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