Not the Post I Hoped to Write

 Gents,

I find nothing but depression in typing this out, and it won't subside for awhile I'm sure. I mean it when I say this is one of toughest decisions I've dealt with in quite some time.

I cannot attend PCTI XI: The Rebrand. Damn that hurt to type. I do thank Dan for sitting on that for a couple days so I could address the group myself. And hopefully, a replacement can be lined up. But I assure you, I will be back next year better than ever if I am not voted off the island. Please don't do that to me.

I won't lie and say there aren't several things weighing on me (Covid can forever fuck off) in making this decision. First and foremost, losing OG status. But the main deciding factor is the physical aspect. I ran into some knee/back issues all at the same time about 4-5 months ago. I thought some rest/self rehab would eventually take care of it, but the ailments never went away. After trying some injections/chiro/ortho to no avail, I did 6 weeks of PT that ended 9/23. I felt a little improvement, albeit minimal...I was disappointed/frustrated at the slowness of the recovery. But we decided I could push it a little bit to see how the body would respond to basketball.

So, I played for the first time since March 2020 last week. I shot it way better than I thought I would, and displayed all other motor skills as poorly as I thought I would. But in the 3rd game (3 games to 50 by 2's and 3's), I had no burst to jump/cut and felt like I was just jogging up/down in straight lines. One knee and the back just didn't have much to give me (not as bad as Abe's back it sounds like, get a white collar job for Pete's sake) and I spent the majority of that third game protecting my overall being. I did emerge un-injured from the session, which was positive. But there is no way I would have been able to play the next 2 days after that, and don't feel I could make the necessary improvement before XI tip to compete.

If I'm attending a PCTI, I'm attending with the notion I'm giving everything I have - but I just can't give that to this year's edition. I feel like I would be doing a disservice to my team to play the first 2 games (Lord willing) and then be done for the weekend. Plus, I still want to compete too badly to let myself be OK in doing that. Additionally I don't want to run the GD scoreboard again. My hope is that the Dallas locale will afford the Bored an opportunity to find a local fill-in if there isn't already another replacement in the wings.

At the end of the day, I felt the best decision was to bow out than to not be able to give what I wanted to the competition.

What I'll miss most are the non-ball hangs with all of you idiots, and I hope you all do not hold a grudge against me or alienate me based on this decision. I hope I stay on the group chat. I hope I'll have an invite for next year. And most of all, I hope I can still be a part of the brotherhood.

If you made it this far, thanks for listening - I felt compelled to lay it all out there on where I'm coming from. I hope to be seen at XII.

Yours truly, BenWilson.