Hustle

Since as far back as I can remember,  my role on sports teams has been the hustle guy. Often this is a euphamism for the least skilled player who needs to work extra hard or else he would provide no other value for the team. And for me, the euphamism is spot on.

However, I don't see it as a negative stigma. I see it as me having some skill in one area, namely hustle.  Moreover, while I might have been naturally gifted with some amount of this talent, I practiced hustling so much that I definitely have become better at it. 

Seeing hustle as a skill that I must practice and hone, led me into an altercation today. In my rec-league basketball game, our team was up by about 15 points with less than a minute and a half remaining.  By all estimates, this game was over from a win-loss perspective.  But for me, since the game was still technically going on, I was hustling hard on defense, and accidentally fouled the opposition. While he was taking his free throws, the referee made a comment to me about taking it easy and not to foul at that moment.  But this pissed me off. I can't stop hustling. If I did, I would get used to that, and my one skill would deteriorate.  I didn't have time to explain to the referee that I needed to hustle all of the time, so I ended up being mad, and writing this blog post instead.