For Flick himself, the glory days of basketball have passed. Once, he was the best the county had ever seen, scoring three hundred ninety points in a single season. Today, he is an employee at a gas station, because "he never learned a trade." The author also modifies his employment with an understated comment:

he just sells gas,
Checks oil, and changes flats. (Bold added for emphasis.)

For all his talents, Flick's glories never surpassed his high school efforts, and there is a sort of sad resignation in the life he lives. He dribbles an inner tube at the gas station "as a gag." He hangs around Mae's Luncheonette when he's not working. Flick is now described as "grease-gray" and smokes thin cigars. He rarely speaks to Mae but looks past her at the shelves of candy, seeking the applause that he no longer receives. Flick knows that his glory lies behind him and that the present is a dismal remnant of the respect that he earned as a teenager in high school.

Yet the speaker of the poem is clearly in awe of all Flick once achieved. He knows Flick's stats and his best year. He notes that Flick wasn't just a "good" basketball player—he was "the best." The speaker went to the home games, watching Flick rack up points; he remembers how the ball "loved" Flick. And although the only dribbling Flick does anymore is with an inner tube, the speaker notes that "most of us remember" the player that Flick once was on the court.

While Flick has left basketball in the past, the speaker still admires all that Flick once accomplished and applauds his successes.