In September of 1977, I had commenced my first year studies at Scarborough College, the University of Toronto’s less fashionable eastern outpost. At 18, my self-assessment as to my talents had not yet been hammered into final form by the grim blacksmith of experience – I confidently believed that most things were not only possible, they were entirely achievable.

The fresh oyster of my world was a mass of poured concrete, a somber six floors of sterile, new age academia. The College’s architects appeared to have cut their teeth on the Hoover Dam project, for their creation was a stark wall fortress perched high above the Rouge River.

The posters appeared in the latter part of September, tacked up throughout the SC athletic facility – “Mens BBALL Tryouts Sept 25 week” – the awkward grammar reinforced the sporting element, not higher learning. No practice time was listed and no contact person or sign up sheet was evident. Everything seemed rather presumed in the terse, verb free announcement – if you had to ask for details, who were you?

A helpful assistant in the Athletics office made enquiries when I attended in the early morning of September 25 – 4 pm was the practice time with three tryouts in total. I returned at the appointed hour, armed with new Converse low cuts and excited by the prospect of making an impression. The gym was filled with at least 20 young men, testosterone fueled energy radiating from them like heat from a stove. They seemed so easy and so familiar with one another, as they fired up shots and carried on high paced conversations. I felt the first stab of anxiety; it was the first time that a basketball court had seemed a foreign place to me. The snippets of jokes I could hear as I loosened up along the gym wall; past conquests, real or imagined, sporting or otherwise, guffaws and taunts, ritualized cursing and high spirits.

A student manager with a safety pin neatly fixed through her left eye brow – evidence that the punk rock whirlwind had touched Scarborough – took everyone’s name. The coach was a young Phys Ed professor named Laaniste, who lead off the work out with a short, witty, and exceedingly profane introduction, and we were away.

I had fancied myself as a basketball player before I arrived at Scarborough. I was determined to show off my game, all hustle and drive. I was never a leaper – my height at 6′4″, in 1977, created a credible basketball first impression, one that quickly evaporated when the genetics of my short Welsh coal mining ancestors kicked in. “Six four? You play like you’re 5′ 8″!!”– a phrase I had heard many times in high school. In those first three practices I ran the floor like a mad thing, all out, often misdirected energy, like Stephen Leacock’s famous man riding off in all directions. I committed any number of stupendously bad fouls, I made ill timed passes, and I kept running. When I would look over at Laaniste, I saw his eyes roll. I sensed that my tenure with the Scarborough College men would be brief.

It happened on the last day of tryouts.

Three days of anonymity, other than my name called out by the manager with a hint of disdain in her voice.  I felt that I was playing out a string and that I was on the outside looking in. As the last scrimmage wound down, my group ran down the floor to run a final offensive set. Two passes, a quick screen, and I took a pass just inside the foul line, wide open – anyone could stick this one. One last chance to make an impression! As I prepared to deliver the ball a voice floated from the bench. Its mock sardonic tone, carried with a dismissive edge – “Let that Ray Charles shoot…”.

The hooted laughter from the players both on and off the floor was so loud that the scrimmage collapsed for a moment. I was flummoxed. I looked towards the direction of the voice – coach Laaniste, grinning at the results of his own humour. I passed the ball and I felt myself melting into the floor.

I sat by the bench as the practice broke up. Laaniste approached, still grinning. He had not uttered a word to me since the tryouts began. Laaniste had been a great star at Waterloo, a university scoring champion. “Davies – I gotta tell you, you are the worst shooter I have ever seen. I never should have insulted Ray Charles with any comparison to your shooting game!” He paused and laughed, “But you looked like you could take it. See you Monday.” It took me a few moments to realize that I had made the team.

As I left the gym, two or three of the other players called out, “See you, Ray!” The manager, resplendent with a green Mohawk haircut in honour of it being Friday, I supposed, asked me what size uniform I would wear and changed my name to Ray on her team form.

There are a multitude of regulations in place today with respect to workplace or institutional conduct, and for compelling reasons. Harassment of any sort, ill considered jokes, taunting and bullying are all badges of misused personal authority – the creeping, insidious cancers that ultimately destroy both the people and the corporate organism of which they are a part.

The humours were believed by the ancient Greeks to be one of the four chief fluids of the body, the proportions of which determined a person’s physical and mental qualities. Humour is a part of our essential humanity, the greatest instrument we possess to bring people together. The right kind of humour, directed without malice, is a badge of acceptance and inclusivity.

Great humour builds and it does not destroy.

When we are funny with one another, we draw the social and workplace circles closer. Teams in both the sports world and our broader life never function when the grease of good humour is dry.

Sporting humour may not always be the ticket to work place harmony – good humour knows its place – and what is riotously funny in the locker room may not sit so easily in the boardroom. I believe that even humour that is slightly unsanitary has its place, after all, some forms of bacteria are healthy and make a body stronger, so long as there is no poison.

In 1980, the comedy movie “The Blues Brothers” was a smash hit. Ray Charles played himself and his blindness used as a humorous foil in various scenes, an example of a human condition, not as a tool for meanness. Coach Laaniste knew where to find that boundary, too.