ll, last month my brother Dan and I went to watch Erin McCarty play basketball with her AAU team. With me and Dan there, that gym should have been filled with more cheer than Ballard Maggard on New Year's Eve! But as I watched those pampered kids play basketball, I got more depressed than Dennis Rodman outside a closed tattoo parlor!

These kids today play in a nice, happy, heated gymnasium. When I was a kid, we played basketball outside. And if it was cold out... TOO BAD!! We'd play until our hands were so cold that they'd turn blue and you couldn't feel them! And that's the way it was, and we loved it!

Kids today play on shiny wooden floors. POPPYCOCK! When I was a kid, we played on asphalt. And if you missed a shot or the ball went out of bounds, TOO BAD!! It would roll in some mud and you would have to dry it off on somebody's shirt. And that's the way it was.

And referees??? That would be the day that we would have somebody actually calling fouls at one of our games. When I was a kid, we didn't have fouls. If somebody hit you while you were making a lay-up, you'd hit 'em back! And if they did it again, you'd beat the crap out of them until they went home crying like a baby. And that's the way the rules were, and we loved it! And if you didn't love it, you left!

And these kids today have $50 leather basketballs, signed by some million dollar Prima Donna. When I was a kid, we played with an old beat-up hot water bottle! We'd fill it up with air and run around hollerin' "LOOK AT ME!!! I'M FREEZING MY BUTT OFF, DRIBBLING A MUDDY MEDICAL ACCESSORY!" And that's the way sports were, and they were better than they are now. And... We loved it!