Jayrod
Footballguy
So about two months ago, I got into an incident and it may have been one of the dumbest things I've ever done in my life.
It was a Sunday afternoon and I had wanted to get a workout in and had my son with me. I took him to a local city run rec center where I have a punch card for 15 visits (not actually a member). My son is 15 and plays football and basketball in HS so he wanted to get some work in as well. After lifting weights, we went down to the basketball court where there were about 35 people shooting/playing because I just like to shoot baskets as my cardio workout (HATE treadmills/ellipticals/etc.). It was crowded and the vast majority were kids. On one half, a 5 on 5 full court game was going on with older kids and a few 20-30 something yr olds. My son and I went to the other half just to shoot around and there were about 20+ people shooting on 3 goals, mostly young teens.
After a few minutes, I was shooting between multiple goals and two older teens/younger 20 somethings asked if I could let them have a goal to play 1 on 1. I looked around and said "sorry, but no" because that would leave only 2 goals for the other 20 of us. That's when things got stupid. The two start just berating me, calling me names like "b*tch *ss **gg*r" and threatening me. I just laughed at them and said I'm not letting you have this goal all to yourselves. Sorry, but you don't get to bully everyone else into letting you have your way. Now I'm 44 yrs old, 6-2" and about 220 lbs and in good shape as I lift 2x's per week and still play ball weekly. These two were around 5-10" and 160 each and somewhere between 17-22 yrs old. They looked really young to me, but had tats/gold teeth that indicated possibly older. I just couldn't tell for sure. My son thought they were in their 20's.
It continued and they then started saying crap about meeting me in the parking lot and I just laughed at them and said "OK, kid, whatever". I made sure to call them "kid" over and over to hammer home what I thought of them. I decided to let it go and while I didn't "agree" to let them have the goal, I avoided it for a good bit while they played 1 on 1. After about 5-10 minutes they stop playing and start talking to some dude in the middle of the court, so I thought they were done and started shooting on their goal again. One of them threatens me again to get off the court again and I ignored him. But it looked like they weren't actually done, but had just paused to talk, so I moved away to another goal again to let them resume and went back to shooting on one of the crowded goals.
Then things got nuts. I took a long shot on the other goal, but my ball ricocheted to their goal. The mouthiest of the two, saw it, grabbed it and threw it down to the other end of the court. At this point, I saw a whole lot of red. My son saw my face and later said he knew something was going to happen. In a rage, I ran at the kid. He was holding their ball and my brilliant plan was to take his ball from him and make him go get mine or he wasn't getting it back. However, as soon as I got within range, he punched me right in the nose. I stopped there and blood starts gushing out of my nose. My son and several other bystanders coming running in real quick and this kid's eyes are as big as pancakes while my son is just saying "let's go dad!" I stare the kid down for a minute or so yelling "what the heck is wrong with you!" with blood just dripping all over the court and I'm pretty sure all 30+ people are staring at us, but things were so intense at that point I don't remember much.
All I could think about was that I didn't know how old he was and I didn't need to do something stupid and get an assault of a minor charge. So, blood dripping everywhere, I just waved my hands at them and walked off toward the lockerrooms. On my way, I stopped off at the front desk and told them a kid just punched me in the nose, and asked for a towel (gave me brown paper towels), and gave them a brief account. They told me they would need to file a report and asked for a description of the person who did it.
Finally I get the blood stopped and come out, and they have the kid there and then ask me if I want to file a report (while indicating they clearly didn't want to deal with it). I said I really didn't want to because I didn't feel like staying there for 20 minutes while waiting for a Park Ranger (it's run by the Parks Dept and they are considered law officers) and talking about the incident over and over and have anything come back to me about this later in life. Not sure I did anything wrong, but didn't feel like finding out if someone would somehow blame me because I ran toward the kid in a threatening manner. We stand around and I go on a rant about the "punk kid trying to bully everyone" and how it is just ridiculous and rude to expect everyone to get out of your way when there are 30 people trying to shoot baskets. He then said "I just asked you to leave the court" and I went on another rant about how when you try to force someone to do what you want that's not asking, that's bullying and its bull#### and that if you actually "ask" someone then they can say no. He didn't say another word.
Anyway, my son and I finally just left. I didn't visit the place again for over a month and I'm pretty sure they have no idea who I am or what my name is because when I checked in they just hole punched my card and never took any info.
Part of me is relieved that is all that happened, but then sometimes I get irate at the idea that this kid may have just gotten off with no punishment for trying to bully and threaten me and punching me in the face. He probably thinks he is some badass and he and his friends just laugh about that dumb old guy they punked. But my life is going good and no need to F it up with some stupid incident against some kid who may or may not be a minor, so I'm probably lucky nothing more happened.
TLDR; got into an argument at a rec center over which basket I could shoot on and got punched in the nose by a kid who may or may not have been a minor and left without further incident or filing a report.
It was a Sunday afternoon and I had wanted to get a workout in and had my son with me. I took him to a local city run rec center where I have a punch card for 15 visits (not actually a member). My son is 15 and plays football and basketball in HS so he wanted to get some work in as well. After lifting weights, we went down to the basketball court where there were about 35 people shooting/playing because I just like to shoot baskets as my cardio workout (HATE treadmills/ellipticals/etc.). It was crowded and the vast majority were kids. On one half, a 5 on 5 full court game was going on with older kids and a few 20-30 something yr olds. My son and I went to the other half just to shoot around and there were about 20+ people shooting on 3 goals, mostly young teens.
After a few minutes, I was shooting between multiple goals and two older teens/younger 20 somethings asked if I could let them have a goal to play 1 on 1. I looked around and said "sorry, but no" because that would leave only 2 goals for the other 20 of us. That's when things got stupid. The two start just berating me, calling me names like "b*tch *ss **gg*r" and threatening me. I just laughed at them and said I'm not letting you have this goal all to yourselves. Sorry, but you don't get to bully everyone else into letting you have your way. Now I'm 44 yrs old, 6-2" and about 220 lbs and in good shape as I lift 2x's per week and still play ball weekly. These two were around 5-10" and 160 each and somewhere between 17-22 yrs old. They looked really young to me, but had tats/gold teeth that indicated possibly older. I just couldn't tell for sure. My son thought they were in their 20's.
It continued and they then started saying crap about meeting me in the parking lot and I just laughed at them and said "OK, kid, whatever". I made sure to call them "kid" over and over to hammer home what I thought of them. I decided to let it go and while I didn't "agree" to let them have the goal, I avoided it for a good bit while they played 1 on 1. After about 5-10 minutes they stop playing and start talking to some dude in the middle of the court, so I thought they were done and started shooting on their goal again. One of them threatens me again to get off the court again and I ignored him. But it looked like they weren't actually done, but had just paused to talk, so I moved away to another goal again to let them resume and went back to shooting on one of the crowded goals.
Then things got nuts. I took a long shot on the other goal, but my ball ricocheted to their goal. The mouthiest of the two, saw it, grabbed it and threw it down to the other end of the court. At this point, I saw a whole lot of red. My son saw my face and later said he knew something was going to happen. In a rage, I ran at the kid. He was holding their ball and my brilliant plan was to take his ball from him and make him go get mine or he wasn't getting it back. However, as soon as I got within range, he punched me right in the nose. I stopped there and blood starts gushing out of my nose. My son and several other bystanders coming running in real quick and this kid's eyes are as big as pancakes while my son is just saying "let's go dad!" I stare the kid down for a minute or so yelling "what the heck is wrong with you!" with blood just dripping all over the court and I'm pretty sure all 30+ people are staring at us, but things were so intense at that point I don't remember much.
All I could think about was that I didn't know how old he was and I didn't need to do something stupid and get an assault of a minor charge. So, blood dripping everywhere, I just waved my hands at them and walked off toward the lockerrooms. On my way, I stopped off at the front desk and told them a kid just punched me in the nose, and asked for a towel (gave me brown paper towels), and gave them a brief account. They told me they would need to file a report and asked for a description of the person who did it.
Finally I get the blood stopped and come out, and they have the kid there and then ask me if I want to file a report (while indicating they clearly didn't want to deal with it). I said I really didn't want to because I didn't feel like staying there for 20 minutes while waiting for a Park Ranger (it's run by the Parks Dept and they are considered law officers) and talking about the incident over and over and have anything come back to me about this later in life. Not sure I did anything wrong, but didn't feel like finding out if someone would somehow blame me because I ran toward the kid in a threatening manner. We stand around and I go on a rant about the "punk kid trying to bully everyone" and how it is just ridiculous and rude to expect everyone to get out of your way when there are 30 people trying to shoot baskets. He then said "I just asked you to leave the court" and I went on another rant about how when you try to force someone to do what you want that's not asking, that's bullying and its bull#### and that if you actually "ask" someone then they can say no. He didn't say another word.
Anyway, my son and I finally just left. I didn't visit the place again for over a month and I'm pretty sure they have no idea who I am or what my name is because when I checked in they just hole punched my card and never took any info.
Part of me is relieved that is all that happened, but then sometimes I get irate at the idea that this kid may have just gotten off with no punishment for trying to bully and threaten me and punching me in the face. He probably thinks he is some badass and he and his friends just laugh about that dumb old guy they punked. But my life is going good and no need to F it up with some stupid incident against some kid who may or may not be a minor, so I'm probably lucky nothing more happened.
TLDR; got into an argument at a rec center over which basket I could shoot on and got punched in the nose by a kid who may or may not have been a minor and left without further incident or filing a report.
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Basketball. They are often called goals. Sometimes "hoops" or "rims" or "baskets" as well, but lots of people call them basketball goals around here.
