SWENSDAY STUFF

The Ship That Went Out to Sea
Swen Nater

I entered Cypress College with virtually no team basketball experience. I was 6’9” and the tools I had were limited to a jump shot. Actually, it was not a “jump” shot because I couldn’t jump over a twig. Jay Carty may have had me in mind when he once said, 

The shortest time span known to man is white hang time.

The head coach at Cypress was Don Johnson and his assistant was Tom Lubin.  Tom’s uncle, Frank Lubin, had been UCLA All-America and also starting center on the first US Olympic basketball team in 1936. Frank had a deadly hook shot and, when Tom began to play basketball, he taught him how to shoot it.

The day after Lubin talked me into trying out for the team, we met on the outside courts (Cypress didn’t have a gymnasium yet). He began teaching me the hook shot. I believe, for my first fifty tries, I made about 8. All the while I kept thinking, ‘If he’ll let me shoot a jump shot, I’ll make those.’ We met almost every weekday until practice started.

Well into the first practice session it was time to scrimmage (five-on-five competition). Before we started, Tom told me to shoot the hook shot whenever I had the opportunity. The first time my team was on offense, somehow, I was passed the ball at the top of the key, about 20 feet from the basket. Now, the only basketball I had played was pickup ball and, in that situation, I had one rule; if somebody passes you the ball, shoot. So I shot a jump shot from downtown. I missed. 

Lubin immediately pulled me out of the scrimmage and said, “Swen, you are 6’9” and the only place you are going to be shooting from is close to the basket and the only shot you are going to take down there is the hook shot you’ve been working on.” I acquiescently nodded and went back into the scrimmage. Up to that point, with my jump shot, I felt like a ship securely and comfortably tied to the dock in the harbor. But when I knew I was only going to shoot a shot I wasn’t very good at, it felt like the ropes were untied, the sails were opened, and a strong wind was taking me out to a turbulent sea that I could clearly see in the distance. It was frightening.

Like Lubin, through the years I have worked with many tall players, teaching them the hook shot. After a session or two, I have told all of them, “When you get into a game, don’t shoot anything but the hook, OK?” All of them sincerely told me they would but I have yet to see one take the risk. For example, about one year ago, after teaching a young man the hook, he had a summer league game that evening. The next day I called his father and asked if he did what I asked. His father said, “He tried.” I was tempted to be critical but I couldn’t because I had been in that player’s shoes myself. It’s tough to commit yourself to change, especially when you’re having some success with what you’re already doing. 

If you are a basketball player who plays close to the basket, and you don’t have the hook shot as your primary weapon, all I can say is, “You might be good but you won’t get close to your potential.” Why do I say that? Because I am confident, if I would not have listened to Lubin and committed myself to mastering the hook shot, no matter how embarrassing it was for a while, I would not have become a professional player. Limited to a jump shot, there were plenty of centers who would have slapped that shot into the fourteenth row. But with the hook shot, I was well over fifty-percent for my career, scoring over Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bob Lanier, and many others. No one ever blocked it.

Right now, like I was, you might be like a ship tied up at the harbor. If you have some skills that are working now, you’re in a pretty safe place. How boring! Won’t you untie those mildewed ropes, raise those unused sails, and venture out to the open sea? The violent winds and threatening waves may toss you about for a while, but you’ll develop perseverance, resilience, and determination. Then, instead of the wild see tossing you about, you’ll brilliantly move through it as you actually use its waves to move closer and closer to perfection. C’mon! What have you got to lose, except perhaps, a jump shot?

A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner
English Proverb