Return of Bill Russell

I came out of a 15 year retirement and played basketball today -- a one hour game on the center court at the Hartford Civic Center. AMR Hartford played AMR Waterbury. AMR has the ambulance contract for the Civic center so they were able to get court time for us. I sit here with a black eye, bent pinky and likely bruised ribs. We lost a close game. I was quite fit as far as running the court, but the loss of 15 pounds from my old playing weight showed under the boards. Everytime I got the ball down low, the defense collapsed on me, and I kept getting crunched. Still I scored over 20 points, most of the shots were from down low. Several were hustle followups to teammates missed breakaway or blocked layups. I only took one outside shot which I swished from about 14 feet out. I was 1 for 4 at the foul line. I was pleased with my hustle, including going flying over two rows of chairs to save a ball going out of bounds. Early in the game a bullshaped opponent put his shoulder right into my chest as I defended him. I didn't come out of the game, but I could feel it. I don't know where the black eye or bent pinky came from. On defense I blocked a couple shots, and grabbed a share of rebounds, although it was often me and three opponents going up at the same time. I had a few near length of the open court dribbles - a couple of which ended in turnovers. Had a few assists, including one nice one where I went up to shoot, and then defenders all attacked me, I saw a teammate break open and dished it to him under the basket for an easy two.

It was funny, playing the game, I never even really stopped to think, here I am playing on center court in a 12,000 seat or whatever collisuem. I was just playing basketball. i suppose if the seats had been filled, it would have felt different. Our attendence was probably 20 not counting players.

I don't know if I would play again next year. While it was a lot of fun, I have old bones and don't take the hits like I used to.