If you’re going to dream, dream big. I took that advice literally back in 1984 when I was a feature reporter for The Coors Sports Page on TBS. While craning my neck to interview behemoths like 7’4″ Mark Eaton of the Utah Jazz, I fantasized what it would be like if I, like him, had to duck before entering any room. Not so I could run into chandeliers or scrape drywall off living room ceilings. No, I wanted to see what life would be like as a dominant center in the NBA. At 5’11”, that simply wasn’t going to happen organically.

My playing career, if it could be called “playing,” consisted of two years as a bench rider for Blackford High School’s “C” and “D” teams. We played our games during football season and out of view of the student body, which was just as well. It was from those benches that I would spring into action with forty-five seconds left in the game, knowing that whatever contribution I made, good or bad, would have no effect whatsoever on the outcome. That relieved me of a lot of pressure. Like the pressure to keep the plays straight in my head and translate them into action on the court. In two years of high school ball, I scored a total of seven points.

But in an unguarded moment of compassion, my coach allowed me to start a game late in my second season. I can still remember sitting in the visitor’s locker room prior to the game against Camden High School and soaking in the coach’s instructions. He was diagramming plays on the chalkboard and my only thought was, “What in the world is he talking about?”

Some twenty years later, when I was a reporter for TBS and was interviewing Golden State head coach Don Nelson, I related that story to him off-camera. He smiled knowingly. “I still have guys like that,” he said.

So I have always known that if I were going to make a splash in the realm of sports, it would have to be as a reporter or announcer, not a participant.

Which brings me back to 1984 and the day that I decided to change all that, if only fictitiously. I called a buddy of mine, Phil Gambill, who coached a middle school basketball team, and convinced him to get his team to meet me at the Omni, where the Atlanta Hawks played then, and let me fulfill a fantasy. We lowered the baskets, drew up a few plays, and transformed this one-time feckless sub into a superstar. I’ve got to be honest. It was a rush. One less item in the bucket list:

Oh, and for the pop culture reference at the end, you’ll have to watch this to understand it. If you’re over 50, you already got it.

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