The Good Ole' Days!

"Playing without nets! Now that's what I'm talking about!"

Our kids are growing up during a very technological time where everything is right at they're finger tips. They are so engulfed into computers, IPods and video games that they are missing the most important thing, playing outside. They don't know what it is to just run up and down the street. Sports weren't playing in some organized league, it was simply going outside and playing ball. Bragging rights was taking off your shoes and racing down the street to see who was the fastest in the hood. I don't know why, but you were much faster barefoot or at least you thought you were. Those were the good ole' days! No one signed up for sports until they were many times 4th or 5th grade not in kindergarten like they do now. Heck, there were a lot of kids that didn't play organized sports until high school. Just because they didn't play on the little league team didn't mean that they couldn't play. The best games were in the hood right out in the middle of the street.  I don't care if it was football, baseball, piggy(a form of baseball only played in the hood) or dodge ball. Those were the good ole' days!

The best athletes played in the street and the best hooper's played in the cage(a complete fence around the court that kept the ball from getting away) in the projects. There wasn't an AAU league that everybody signed up for. You learned how to compete by playing the best everyday of your life. Now if you're good you can't go outside and find a great game because the best kids are playing AAU ball somewhere. So kids have to play in a league in order to get better and that costs money. Back in the day the All-Americans were right in the cage all day long. So if you wanted to put in work and get better the tutors were right where they should be everyday, on the court! It was nothing to play against guys 3 to 5 years older than you were either. That's how you got better. Those were the good ole' days!

There would be at least 20 kids playing in the street at any given time and most of them would be related. I don't remember a house with less than three or four kids. Most households had 9 or 10 kids. So when the Johnson's etc came through they had a whole team with them. If no one was home I could still go out and play because I had four siblings to play with until everybody else came out. Those were the good ole' days.

Now it costs so much to live that people are only having one or two kids. Everybody's mom was a stay at home mom so in the summers we'd play from 9 am til it got dark.There was also "Recreation"(open gym) at all of the schools from 10am until 2pm. EA Sports has also taken away the all day games in the streets and the pickup games in the cages. I will admit that our kids understand the games better because of  NFL Madden or NBA 2K11 etc. I was in college before I understood offenses and  how to read defenses. However, it's something to be said about being able to just walk out of your front door and get right in the middle of serious game or to be able to say, "I got next". Those were the good ole' days!.

Our kids are going on play dates and making arrangements to play. I can remember being gone somewhere with my family and pulling up to find ten kids sitting on our porch waiting on us(my brothers included). They'd say, "We need you guys because the next street over challenged us to a game of football or baseball. We'd run in to put our play clothes on and dart out of the front door full speed and would be gone for 6 hours at least. Those were the good ole' days!

 Now the NFL has to market "NFL Play 60" for kids to go somewhere and play for an hour. Are you kidding me? We played until the street lights came on or until your mother would come out of the back door and scream your name. You could be three blocks away and still hear her. Then you would just drop the ball and run to the crib saying, "All right dawg, I'll see ya'll tomorrow."
Those were the good ole' days!

Jay Graves
jaygraves@thejaygravesreport.com
Follow me on Twitter: @jaygravesreport
This article was inpired by a conversation with my brother Jimmy Graves.