Stan “Shakes” Fletcher at the tryouts in ’02 (photo. Patrick Ecclesine)

Day 1 of life as an extreme sports athlete was everything you’d expect and more. I got those amazing little pretzels on the flights down to Bradenton, Florida. They must have known who I was, as they also gave me all the soda I wanted – first class treatment.

But it wasn’t just me. There was a guy next to me in the super-leg-room emergency row also getting the works – he was headed to the tryouts. And by the most ridiculous coincidence, he’s also a card-carrying member of the Dime faithful who goes by the alias ‘Bron 42.’ The ride down ended up as a Dime love-fest. Amazing coincidence. We made it to our new home at IMG Academies – for some of us, it will be two days, for others, two months.

IMG is Disneyland for jocks. It’s basically the best place in the free world to train for tennis and golf, and there are amazing facilities for every sport under the sun. The fact that we’ve come here to “slamball” supports that argument quite strongly.

But our slamballing doesn’t start until today. Yesterday served as an introduction to some of the famous faces of the sport. For those of you who don’t know the Mount Rushmore of slamballers, here’s a crash course: Sean “Inches” Jackson, a 5-10 170 lbs. is a “handler,” or point guard, and is the mind behind the legendary “McNasty” 360-between-the-legs dunk. Stan “Shakes” Fletcher, a 6-3 “gunner,” which is the equivalent to a slasher, was one of the first guys to throw self-lobs while bouncing on the trampoline for easy dunks. Ten-year international pro Rob Wilson was the first pick in the original Slamball draft in 2002, and is now on board as one of the League’s directors.

Wilson and the Slamball jedi, Mason Gordon have created an amazingly structured program for the guys who make it past the next two cuts – one this Saturday and one the following Friday. If players are drafted on Friday, April 25th, they’ll enter into some serious training. Don’t fool yourself thinking that these guys just go out and jump up and down on trampolines. Players will spend upwards of six hours a day in the weight room, working on cardio, learning proper nutrition, studying film and even seeing a sports psychologist.

Hopefully we can get to that point. Actually, I hope that I can make it to the point where I’m looking down on the rim from 20-feet in the air like the photo of “Shakes” above. That day just might be today.