Here I am, before a crowd of 300 students and staff, all eyes on me as I walk back and forth gripping a wireless microphone. The energy at the school assembly is palpable. Every single kid appears as if they would run onto the gymnasium floor and explode with play if given the slightest signal of consent. But they don’t. They remain in their seats as I pace the floor.
‘REPEAT AFTER ME!… I AM AMAZING!’
“I AM AMAZING!’
‘I AM CREATIVE!’
“I AM CREATIVE!”
‘I AM AN ARTIST!’
“I AM AN ARTIST!”
‘WHEN I SAY DO, YOU SAY ART… DO!’
“ART!”
‘DO!’
“ART!”
‘DO!’
“ART!”
I put the mic back on the stand. I pick up the nearby Pikachu stuffed animal lying on the floor from where I dropped it while juggling. I hoist it in the air as a beacon of focus and fun. The kids all flow in unison chanting:
“PEE-KAA-CHU! PEE-KAA-CHU! PEE-KAA-CHU!”
I point at the basketball hope located to my right. Everyone erupts again. I continue to gesture, conducting the electricity to build anticipation. It doesn’t take long for them to begin a chant:
“SHOOT-THE-THREE! SHOOT-THE-THREE! SHOOT-THE-THREE!”
A confidence courses through me. Something indescribable. A rush of absolute certainty that anything I turned to I could make happen. It was no longer me, but the moment. I revert back to my childhood basketball mind, take a few fake dribbles with the stuffed pikachu, find my shooting footwork rhythm, then as if time was irrelevant, all those hours of practice manifested itself in my shooting form, and release. Being a stuffed animal, Pikachu floated with a slow motion that wouldn’t occur with an actual ball. For a split second, there was almost a calm. Then, like the certainty within me assured me, Pikachu goes in, nothing but net. The school assembly erupts. I go running into the stands slapping every hand I can. Quickly the students recognize this, and all begin to line up in a tunnel up and down the accessible stairs. I run up and down, and side to side, trying to pass the magic to every torch.
As Charles Barkley famously said in the greatest basketball film ever made:
“IT WASN’T A DREAM. IT REALLY HAPPENED!”
