Basketball Hoops

 One of my favorite things to see when I'm running through neighborhoods are basketball hoops that are facing the road. I think that this is one of  the greatest signs of life for a neighborhood. I know that it probably drives drivers crazy to have kids playing in the street, but it also makes a whole lot of sense when driveway real estate is limited and there are games to be played. 

Generally speaking, not as a hard and fast rule, but on most occasions these basketball hoops are in neighborhoods that are a little bit more worn out than the areas with well manicured lawns and two car garages. I recently noted an exception to this when I was running through Indianapolis and a basketball hoop on the street stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the extremely well kept new and renovated homes along the block.

The basketball hoops are held down by all kinds of assortment of weights. Sometimes there's an old log to hold it down other times concrete blocks occasionally bags of sand. It's one of the key features of a basketball hoop in the street. On rare occasions I've seen one tipped over, but that's a fairly rare occurrence that I can recall noticing on one or two occasions.

Obviously there's some risk in playing basketball out in the street in a neighborhood that the father side of me should inherently be concerned about, but there's also some risk from running in the street so who am I to make any judgments. It's also real difficult to be playing basketball and be on a screen at the same time. Undoubtedly kids have their phones close by, but the physical activity and the value of play has to be considered.

Bet you'll start to notice basketball hoops everywhere now.