All Time

 I was fortunate to be witness to a period of time when John Elway was rushing about and hurling touchdown passes with seemingly reckless abandon. I spent a lot of Sundays watching from my couch, and on a couple of occasions, I was able to take all that quarterback magic in from the stands of Mile High Stadium. This vantage point was in many ways inferior to the one that offered me close-ups and instant replays and unfettered access to the bathroom at home, but there was something mildly magical about being in rough proximity to that greatness. 

This was much the same feeling I had when I sat down in the Chase Center to watch The Golden State Warriors take on The Portland Trailblazers. Not a playoff game. Not a marquee matchup of stars, but it was my first opportunity to see Steph Curry play basketball in the flesh. 

Not being predisposed to attending professional basketball games, it had been a couple decades since I was in the stands for any NBA game, let alone one that featured the talents of Mister Curry. It just so happened that our school was selected to be a part of a Reading Partnership with the Warriors organization, and at halftime our principal was to be introduced and recognized for her tireless efforts to make readers out of the kids at our school. We were offered sixty tickets to a Monday night game, the aforementioned Warriors/Trailblazers tilt. It was decided that we would take fifty kids who had shown themselves worthy of such distinction, and ten staff members who would ride herd on this field trip. Across the bay. At night. With all manner of distractions and confusions. 

Where's the bathroom? Where's the food? Where's the bathroom again?

I went along on the chaperoning gig to help out. And to support our principal. And to try an squeeze in a peek at the extra-human efforts of one of the greatest natural shooters to ever toss a basketball at a hoop. I did not spend much time in the seat that was provided for me. Instead, I was up and down the steep stairs of the arena, leading or following eight to eleven year olds to the facilities and to explain that none of the vendors in the stadium was taking cash. They would need a credit card. 

This provided some sad faces, so I did what any chaperone might do: I bought four overly-expensive orders of french fries for my group to inhale. This combined with the mass of Lunchables, cookies, chips and bottled water we had served them on the bus ride over didn't seem to dampen their hunger in the slightest. It also did not keep the bulk of them in their seats for more than a few minutes at a time. They were not there to watch basketball. They were there to test the Chase Center plumbing. 

But somewhere in there, in a brief lull between trips up and down the aisle, I was allowed to watch a bit of the game. Just enough to take in the effortless or appearance of effortlessness of Steph Curry shooting a basketball. His motion on the court was similar to the other players, but his was more focused, more a matter of fact. Even his misses looked pretty. And he wasn't just there to put up three point shots. He was hustling on defense, creating opportunities for his teammates, and playing the game as hard as anyone on the court. 

I thought of John Elway breaking away from would-be tacklers to fling a dart to a receiver coming open in the end zone. I thought about how fortunate I was to see that kind of physical ablitlity combined with an ingrained sense of the game. I thought of Steph Curry. 

Just before it was time for another trip down the stairs to the bathroom.