TPB SPRING TOURNAMENT (EDITOR SUBMISSION/NOT ELIGIBLE)

Hoops Has Always Had a Special Place in My Heart

Pivotal points in my life, basketball has been a best friend

Dear grandson,

I want to share with you something very near and dear to my heart. A friend. A close friend. It’s something amazing. Exciting. Inspirational. Something that has always been there for me.

It’s basketball.

My first love.

June 4, 1976: Welcome baby basketball

The romance was born on June 4, 1976. I was an impressionable nine-year-old.

Glued to the tube.

It was Game 5 of the NBA finals. The hated Boston Celtics versus the underdog Phoenix Suns, who just happen to be also a nine-year-old franchise.

A three-overtime thriller. Arguably, the greatest NBA Final game ever played. Phoenix took a temporary lead with four seconds left in the second overtime, but Boston’s John Havlicek appeared to sink a game-winning 15-foot bank shot with no time left.

Sea of green

Green-clad Boston fans poured on the parquet court. The referees cleared the chaos. One second was added to the clock. The Suns’ Paul Westpaul, later to become a head coach, calls a timeout. Phoenix had none and is assessed a technical. Boston hits the technical to go up by two.

It was still a smart move. Phoenix was able to inbounds the ball at half court. Garfield Heard caught the inbounds pass and turned, and nailed the jumper, sending the game into a third overtime. However, seldom-used Celtic Glenn McDonald scored six, helping Boston prevail, 128–126, and eventually win the NBA title.

Wow. Just wow. I’ll never forget that first game. Nor will I forget my reaction.

I grabbed my worn red-white-and-blue basketball and replayed that last play over and over and over. Along with my younger brother Scot, we practiced buzzer-beaters, reverse layups, bank shots, and last-second free throws. We create clever basketball scenarios with little time on the clock. We shot for hours with no light until the familiar cry signaled our imaginary arena was closing.

I fell in love with the joy, excitement, and mystery of basketball that day.

Blue Devils of my boyhood

My relationship with both basketball and my dad developed to a deeper level when my dad would ask me — even on a school night — if I was interested in going to the local SUNY Fredonia Blue Devil basketball game.

Heck, yeah!

Ah, the crackerjack-sized Dodds Hall gymnasium and the delicious smell of buttery popcorn creeping in from the lobby, the theme song from SWAT playing as Fredonia’s finest Jeff Beal and Danny Tramuda raced onto the court, enthusiastically dribbling the perfectly round bouncing ball.

I was in heaven. Blue Devil heaven.

Truth be told, the Blue Devils were not very good and played a very bland brand of basketball. Coach Bill Hughes instilled a deliberate four-corners offense with players — yawn — passing six, seven, or even eight passes before shooting. There was no shot clock and often the halftime score sounded like a football game like 17–14.

I didn’t care. I loved spending time with my dad and watching basketball. It was like time froze. Any problems at school were in another stratosphere.

It was also my first dabbling into sports writing. Well, at least the notetaking part. I had to keep score. It was an obsession. A yearning. A desire. I had to know how many points each and every player scored.

It was like a young boy’s first crush. It fulfilled me scribbling a two when a swished basketball was made. It made me feel like I was part of the game.

That Magic moment

If the Blue Devils were that fifth-grade crush, then Earvin “Magic” Johnson was my teenage love. My first man crush.

Just like Larry Bird’s Indiana State vs. Magic’s Michigan State in the NCAA tournament championship turned college basketball into March Madness, I also was enamored with it. I popped off the couch every move Magic made. Every opponent Magic faked. Even when I didn’t have the ball, I’d be watching him.

I became an instant Magic fan that night.

Magic more than earned his nickname that March 26, 1979. He did things with a basketball I didn’t even know were possible. And that contagious smile. Who knew basketball could be so fun? I wanted the basketball in a game. I wanted to dribble between my legs, spin the ball on my finger, and do behind-the-back no-look passes to teammates.

Back out to the court with my brother Scot for more homemade magic moments.

But that was just the beginning. The tease. Then he took it to a new level.

May 15, 1980

The day Magic Johnson became my all-time favorite, and I became a Laker fan for life.

Legendary center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is out with an injury in the NBA Finals’Game 6, so Magic — normally a point guard, does something unheard of and plays center. Center. Yes, the 6-foot-9 wonder-all played a position normally reserved for Shaq, Wilt, and Bill Russell.

He was beyond amazing, pouring in 42 points to help the Lakers win their first of five 80s NBA championships, topping the fazed-out Philadephia 76ers, 123–107.

Magic had it all. Charm, talent, passion, enthusiasm, the desire to be the best, and the ability to elevate his teamwork. All with a dazzling smile.

I realized whatever I did in life, I wanted to be the best at it, truly enjoy it, and inspire others.

Forty years later, I’m teaching and (hopefully) inspiring 12-year-old minds as an English teacher, and coaching volleyball, soccer, and, of course, basketball.

Writer on a storm

When older sports fans hear Jim Valvano, Cinderella, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Phil Slamma Jamma, they instantly think of the 1983 NCAA men’s basketball championship when NC State’s Derek Whittenburg shoots an airball with time running out, but Lorenzo Charles grabs the ball and stuffs it home in possibly the biggest upset in championship history.

Then the iconic image of Valvano running around the court in euphoria, looking aimlessly for someone to hug, and in a state of shock.

Oh, I remember that, too.

But not as much as the fact it was the first sports story I ever wrote.

An application for the high-school sports editor position with no experience. My dad was my copy editor. I got the position and later was blessed to get to write high-school sports as a teenager for the weekly Plain Talk in Vermillion, South Dakota.

And fall deeper in love.

Thanks, Dad and basketball for encouraging, and inspiring me to write that crazy April 4, 1983 night.

Those first stories might have been, well, cheesy, and overdone with gobs of play-by-play and a bevy of meaningless stats, but they developed my love for writing and deepen my passion for basketball.

It kept the three of us close: my dad, writing, and basketball.

‘I love you, Dad’

Basketball is also connected to my last memory of my dad.

It was December 28, 1986, when my dad, my mom, my brother Scot, and myself ventured to Hollywood’s famous Chinese Mann Theater to see the movie Hoosiers, my favorite movie of all time.

I cried. I laughed. I felt chills throughout the movie.

Basketball was never closer to my heart. The deeply embedded message of fulfilling a dream, getting a second chance, overcoming odds, and building relationships. These were lessons for life.

“I love you, guys,” Gene Hackman says at the very end of the movie.

I watched this movie religiously every October and March. Every time I hear that impactful, emotionally-filled line, a tear emerges from my eye and rolls down my cheek as I think of my father, who passed of a heart attack a few short months later, leaving me devasted and lost.

At least I still had basketball.

I love you, Dad

And these basketball memories remind me of how much he loved me. I hope you are able to find your special love in life. Basketball has always been mine.

Love,

Papa Mike

Thanks for reading my story.

Tagging my sports buddies: Ginger Cook, Scott Younkin, Lu Skerdoo, Klara Jane Holloway, MarkfromBoston 🌻Ukraine, Gerald Sturgill, Sreese, KL Simmons, Evon, The Sober Vegan Yogi, Darryl Ventura, Keyshawn Shaahid, PJ Kaplan, Deborah Camp, Jordan Pagkalinawan, Belcairn, Susan Wheelock, brian g gilmore (bumpyjonas), Ning Choi, Linda Ng, Kirby Workes.

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