Basketball Taught Me I Can Be a New Person Any Time I Want

I quit playing when I was 10. Now I watch it weekly

Two Februaries ago, I sat in a bar in Shoreditch watching the Kansas City Chiefs play the Philadelphia Eagles for the Super Bowl at 2 a.m. I’d never cared about sports enough to go to bed quite that late before. But I was actually invested in this game, partially because of the homesickness I felt after recently moving abroad, and partially because of the then-novel romance between my favorite songwriter, Taylor Swift, and some tight end. I wasn’t a football fan, and hadn’t been one—at least, not since the Pittsburgh Steelers gave the NFL a regular run for their money circa 2009. Still, I convinced a group of friends to gather and watch the Big Game for the first time in years.

The bar’s environment was exhilarating. Just for the night, I’d chosen to root for Kansas City, and every suspenseful play or ambiguous call got my blood pumping. Not only was I having fun, I felt like I was part of a community, maybe for the first time since moving to London in January 2024. When I cheered, so did half the room. When I gasped, so did someone else three tables back. Having neglected sports for theater early in my academic career and attended a college where attending the weekly football game was almost laughable (sorry, boys), I was pleasantly surprised by just how much fun I was having.

I waited another year for my next Super Bowl experience, and after that game, I craved more of that feeling: sitting on the edge of your seat, banking on chance and a prayer, feeling the excitement of the strangers beside you and holding your breath together.

I decided to just pick a sport to get into and begin learning it. Basketball was an easy choice. Why? The NBA was the one league where Pittsburgh didn’t have a team. For me, football, hockey, and baseball were already covered. But I could untraitorously root for the New York Knicks in the city I’d lived in since college.

I can’t claim I had absolutely zero experience with the sport. My dad was a local basketball star in high school, and I’d followed in his footsteps—up until middle school. Not a natural athlete by any means, it was clear quickly that my above-average height for a 10-year-old girl didn’t make up for my lack of ball-handling skills. More so, at the time, I thought that athleticism was something you were born with, not something to work at. You either had it or you didn’t. So I set my basketball knowledge on a shelf, only to return to it 15 years later.

I began by zooming in closely, learning my chosen team first. A friend of mine gave me the advice to “First, just learn the name of a single player you find hot. Then learn the name of the guy he passes the ball to. And keep going.” Although I didn’t lead with a basketball crush, I did follow her advice in part.

I learned the key players of the team, googling their records and alma maters and going down ESPN rabbit holes to figure out when exactly they’d joined the team and how their stats had changed. I watched games with one eye on the television and the other on my phone, following the Google play-by-play to make sure I didn’t miss any moves.

It was one of the biggest learning challenges I’d thrown at myself in years. I was practically starting from nothing. But that admission of absolute ignorance gave me absolute freedom. I had no shame in searching, “What is a field goal?” or “Difference between a guard and a point guard,” because how would I have known the answers?

After I watched a game, I’d tune into the Knicks Film School podcast by Jonathan Macri, listening to the breakdown of the previous night’s matchup and the hosts’ predictions for future games. I learned what their cited statistics meant and compared them to our rival teams’ stats. When I didn’t understand something, I had friends to ask.

Being vocal about learning the sport has come with its own rewards. Twice now, friends have offered me spare Knicks tickets. The first time I walked into Madison Square Garden for a game, I was absolutely beaming at the chance to watch the action live alongside my fellow fans—with even NBA legends in attendance (even if, at first, I had to look up who they were). I’m proud to still be learning about basketball, and unlike in my career-adjacent interests, like writing and filmmaking, where I feel the pressure to be an expert all of the time, with basketball, I’m happy to lay all of my cards on the table. A year ago, I knew nothing. Now, I know something. Isn’t that something?

My sporting experience has been a reminder that I can always start over from zero, and not every interest has to be a career-driving opportunity. When it comes to basketball, I’m proud to admit that I don’t know the answer. Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll figure it out.

Alexis Buncich (she/her) is a writer, actor, and producer based in between New York, London, and Western Pennsylvania. She loves writing about the Earth, culture, love, and the comedy in being alive. You can find her work in Worth and Nonprofit Quarterly. She explains Taylor Swift lyrics at Taylor Swift, Explained and runs a weekly NYC/London events newsletter at Overt Consumption. Learn more about her work at alexisbuncich.com.