ZEBULON — I’ve made the personal mistake of trying my hand on the court with a former high school basketball player in the past, but not until last week has anyone caught the evidence on camera.

Not only was it caught on tape, it was against a player many of the North Carolina scouting systems consider to be in the top-10 in the state exiting high school; Knightdale’s Stan Okoye.

Okoye’s done some pretty big things in the couple of years I’ve had the pleasure of watching from the baseline. All-Conference, All-Glaxo, 42 points in a second-round playoff game at Durham-Riverside — the future Virginia Military Academy player’s hoops credentials are everything whereas mine are nothing.

I used to get out and play some church ball and the occasional pickup game here and there, but then something terrible happened to me; I entered the real world for those of us that can’t hang in the NCAA.

It was hot out when “Stan the man”, our online guru Brian High and I met at the courts behind Knightdale High School, and I partially blame sweat in the contact lenses for some of my shortcomings. 

High was there to interview Okoye for our blog, Eastern Wake Buzz, and get some of that interview on tape for the Internet world to see. At that, I jumped at the opportunity to kill three birds with one stone — High’s interview, a video of me against Okoye and my dignity.

We started out just shooting, and I was more or less dodging the bullet of a schooling until Okoye pushed me into a game to five by ones. 

“I’ll give you first ball,” Okoye said, like it would matter.

I only had three possessions against “the man”, and however moot, I’d like to save face by saying I hit one of the only two shots I managed to squeeze out, and a three-pointer at that. Needless to say, at 5-foot-11-ish I didn’t think it smart to take it downtown on 6-foot-4 Okoye, at least not where it could be witnessed first-hand online at the click of a button.  

On the other end of the spectrum, my height didn’t seem to bother Okoye too much. Those who have seen him play probably have a good idea what I mean.

I’d recommend checking out the video of my mauling. It’s painful for me to reveal but painless to find online. Just head to easternwakenews.com/multimedia.