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- What Weekend Basketball Taught Me: Friendship 🏀
What Weekend Basketball Taught Me: Friendship 🏀
Also, I'm throwing a party 🍹
Red Young
August 24, 2025 • Reading time: 6 minutes
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It’s not often that you casually befriend a pro basketball player during a pickup game, but that’s exactly what ended up happening with me and my guy Pablo Calderon.
I’ll paint the picture.
Imagine two musclebound guys, taller than average and faster than most, trading blows in a full-court basketball game.
Both players are tenacious, full of grit and fierce competition.
And … just a little prideful.
Naturally, they turn up that intensity when there’s another dawg In the game.
There’s just no stopping the explosion.
Pretty much how we met.
So, Pablo and I clash for a little over 25 minutes in this crowded gym of riled-up, dribbling hoopers.
They can’t wait to take on whoever emerges from this matchup, smirking with delight at the showdown.
Hip-Hop music is blasting from a speaker the size of a refrigerator.
Bodies clash, shots are made, and the barking is rampant, but no clear victor is separating from the pack.
This main event would clearly be coming down to the wire.
Pablo in action during a pro game.
With one point to go, I lock into my defensive stance, expecting Pablo to make his routine bulldoze downhill to the basket, just like he’d been punishing us with all game.
Not quite.
Instead, Pablo jabs, slams two rhythmic dribbles, and leaps upward.
It’s slow-mo, cinematic basketball in real life.
He fades away into a jump-shot, knocking down the game-winner, right in my grill.
Swish. Game over.
I knew the win felt great for Pablo.
It must have, because the loss scalded me for several minutes after.
I’m no professional, but my effort clearly woke something up in the baller across from me.
My madman efforts had made the hard-earned win so much sweeter for Pablo.
In the midst of the hazy aftershock, Pablo walked over to dap me up.
It was one of those moments where smoldering intensity melts into gleeful release in an instant.
One competitive maniac had recognized the other, and after our brief battle of ego, laughter was the only logical conclusion.
Pablo in the Down to Earth studios.
Over the months, Pablo and I became good friends.
With similar backgrounds, (both of our Mother’s emigrated from Honduras to New York) and hungry appetites for success, Pablo and I found that we could work together on building something great.
When he hopped on the Red in Black Podcast, it quickly became clear how valuable his story would be for the world.
I’m excited for you to link with Pablo’s energetic soul in this episode, and to listen in on two good New Yorkers chopping it up.
Happy Watching! 📺
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