The Foul Shot Made Me Famous - Dr. Ed Iannuccilli

Monday, January 30, 2023

Dr. Ed Iannuccilli, Contributor

I uncoiled the free throw, supporting the basketball between my legs with two hands, cradling it while I rocked. The underhanded free throw gave me confidence as I oozed it in a rainbow-like arc so as to settle it just over the front of the rim. I tried to emulate the early successful NBA players. Little did I know it would become my legacy.

“Bend your legs on a foul shot,” was my mantra. And that I did, bent so deep that I assumed what looked like an amusing, you-know-what position. And from that point, I let it float. My shooting percentage was 80%. I rolled my eyes, and snickered, “Goah’head. Match that. Laugh all you want.”

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My classmate and good friend, Bob, was the photographer for the yearbook and took the picture. He was not an athlete and likely thought that he was doing me a favor by making that picture so renowned.  I like to think that he was unaware that he played the ultimate joke, controlling my sketchy basketball fate forever to this day. When my grandchildren ask to see the 1957 Classical High School yearbook, they turn to the page and go off in a corner bent over in laughter.

Posterity? Baloney. Well, maybe not. The ‘granny’ shot may be a bit embarrassing, but in retrospect, I loved it then, and so love it today. Nobody remembers those guys who took foul shots one-handed while standing tall. Nobody remembers my scoring average or our team’s record. But they all remember my shot!

It was not a technique exclusive to me. In later years, the great Rick Barry, in his fourteen seasons as a professional basketball player, shot 89% from the free throw line, underhanded. Wilt Chamberlain was a terrible foul shooter until he went underhand. The night he scored 100 points, he made 28 out of 32 free throws. Without the free throws, there would be no 100-point game.

The story doesn’t end here. What do you think happened to Chamberlain in the following season? Yup. He stopped shooting underhanded and went back to being a terrible foul shooter notwithstanding having every incentive to stick with his unconventional approach. But the social pressure of standing out from the crowd was too much to handle. In his autobiography, Chamberlain wrote: “I felt silly, like a sissy, shooting underhanded. I know I was wrong.”

That’s where you and I separate, Will. It remained my shot forever. No sissy I.

And what of our 1957 Classical team? Well, having a center who was only six feet one inch and the biggest guy on the team made things a bit difficult. We had a perfect league record, failing to record a win in twelve games. We won two non-league games against Scituate in the first year they opened their high school. I’m guessing not many Scituate players started their basketball in early leagues.

I love peering through the foggy lens of nostalgia. Granny shot, hell. It made me an all-time great.

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