Ahead of the pandemic, Roussas had a stand-up pickup match on Thursday morning with a group of guys in their 20s and 30s in Tucson, Arizona, where they knew each other through college, church and their local cafe. It had been over a year since they last played. But now it was time. They were so eager to get back on the pitch that when they realized their regular gym was still closed, they explored the area to find an outdoor hoop where they could play as soon as possible.

“As soon as everyone finished getting their shots, we went there almost immediately,” said Ryan Reid, a student.

So how was it?

“Excellent and awful at the same time,” said Andy Littleton, church pastor.

“Rough,” said Mike Almeroth, Creative Director. “All the random abdominal muscles I forgot I needed were sore for the next two weeks, you know.

“I wish I could say funny,” said Reid, “but I was so out of shape that after four possessions I felt like I had to throw up.

They couldn’t wait to come back next week. With more than half of American adults now vaccinated, the country has entered a new stage in the pandemic. But there will be no official declaration that the worst health crisis in a century is over. Getting back to pre-Covid life isn’t so much a giant leap as it is a progression of small, personal steps – like feeling comfortable enough to play basketball again.

Some gyms have been open for months and some games haven’t waited for the shots, but one of the many lessons of the past year is that people have a risk appetite that can’t always be explained by who they are. are, where they live or what they do. Everyone makes decisions under conditions of uncertainty and no one gives permission to return to normal.

Except, ultimately, when it comes to picking up the basketball.

“If you’re vaccinated and I’m vaccinated, we can play a pickup match tomorrow,” Dr Anthony Fauci told MSNBC host Chris Hayes last month. (The 80-year-old former basketball star added, “I’m probably going to destroy you, but that’s okay.”)

But that weekly Arizona game was played before pickup basketball received the official blessing from the nation’s foremost infectious disease expert. It was exhilarating to come back. It was also weird. “There’s a bit of a mental barrier to getting back into something that hasn’t been right for a year,” Almeroth said.

Roussas, who is completing an MD / MBA program before starting an emergency medicine residency next year, believes he was the first in his game to get the shot. At the end of March, all adults in Arizona were eligible. On the very first day of April, he texted the group chat.

They had discussed resuming their game at different points in the pandemic before deciding it didn’t feel appropriate. They generally behaved similarly based on a similar risk tolerance, and they believed their basketball game could wait. They continued to wait.

But the extraordinary development of highly effective vaccines has been a miraculous turning point for mediocre basketball players around the world. The likelihood of being infected with the coronavirus after vaccination and suffering the symptoms of Covid-19 during a basketball game – especially away from home – was suddenly lower than the chances of twisting your ankle , breaking your back, or inflicting predictable forms of body pain better known as exercise. .

Roussas has kept himself in shape throughout the pandemic by walking around his neighborhood, doing push-ups on the swing in his local park and filling a backpack with his medicine books to lift weights.

Then he woke up in the morning after playing three hours of basketball with such nasty blisters on his feet that he asked his girlfriend to bring home 18 gauge needles from his lab.

“Don’t let them sit down,” he said. “You just have to empty them.”

This kind of pain is a sign of a good pickup match. Another is the eclectic mix of people. A basketball court is perhaps the only place in the world where a high school student, a future doctor, and their pastor can’t wait to destroy each other for a few hours each week.

Like most pickup games, some of the players in this one are better than others, and none of them are particularly good. They had their shots. Then they missed a lot of shots.

“I would say I’m Lance Stephenson-esque,” ​​Reid said. “Sometimes the best player you’ve ever seen in your life. Other times, even I’m confused with what I’m doing.

“I’m like the basketball dogecoin,” Almeroth said. “I’m either your best performing asset or I’m a liability, but I’m not taking myself too seriously anyway.”

But not everyone compares to NBA players and cryptocurrencies. The reconnaissance report on Roussas?

“Most people describe me as a water buffalo,” he says.

Their games are different now, if only because everything in life is different now. They would play indoors if they could, but their gym remains closed, so they found themselves on an outdoor court battling unfamiliar elements. Wind. The sun. The heat. Double rims on the hoops and training classes for older women across the court. And they’re still not ready for the most beloved pickup basketball routine: the post-game burrito.

Just being with each other was enough. In the early days of the pandemic, Littleton rode his bicycle past the court and wondered if it was safe to play. But his wife is a nurse in the hospital and his 82-year-old mother lived with them, and he decided it was more responsible to be careful. “I have to do my best to be a good example to others,” the pastor remembers thinking.

In fact, if you want to understand human behavior during the pandemic, there are worse places to study than a basketball game. A year ago it was important to be careful and not to gamble. It is important now to be resilient and start playing again.

“I’m really proud of our group for standing up,” Littleton said, “but also for pulling together.”

Write to Ben Cohen at [email protected]