By John W. Fountain
Basketball
was god. With an orange-red sun kissing the horizon, we dribbled—dripping with sweat
in the summer heat as boys, playing on concrete courts the game we loved. Back then, even
the least talented whispered college or NBA dreams. Basketball was god. It gave a poor ghetto
boy hope. It was glorious, like Dr. J’s cotton candy Afro as he glided in thin
air to a thunderous dunk. Basketball was cool, like a pair of white Chuck
Taylors. Graceful—like a George Gervin finger roll.
Exhilarating—like
the thrill of nailing a shot from deep with a defender in your face. Like the joy
of winning a hard-fought game—just for bragging rights.
Basketball gave
us status. It was our stairway to heaven. Our worship. Our escape.
In the early ‘70s,
on the West Side, we played all day. Sometimes, at night, we shot hoops underneath
the stars and a glowing street lamp. Intoxicating was basketball’s lure: glory,
fame and the potential promise of NBA contracts someday for some.
Except playing
basketball was never really about money. There was a certain wonder in witnessing
skill meet talent and talent meet hard work—coming together in basketball
perfection.
Once upon a time,
we played baseball. In the ‘60s, we had Big League dreams. I hurried home from elementary
school to catch the end of the Cubs games. Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Fergie
Jenkins and Ron Santo were my heroes along with Stargell, Cardenal, Bench and
Charlie Hustle.
Back then every
kid owned a baseball glove. Between us, we had a few Louisville Sluggers. We sometimes
pooled our pennies to buy a rubber baseball. We took turns inhaling the scent
of a fresh rubber baseball before we christened it with a good smack off the
bat on a hot summer’s day filled with frozen Kool-Aid cups, bubblegum and
baseball on a vacant lot. Baseball was good. But basketball became god.
I can’t remember exactly
when it happened, or why I became more transfixed with developing a jump shot
and ball-handling skills than with hitting and fielding. I do know it had a lot
to do with Julius Erving, with the fusion of the ABA and the NBA in 1976, and
basketball’s ascension to a seemingly new and glorious level.
But here lately, I am reminded of
all that is inglorious about the game. Reminded that basketball is big business
and that some apparently still resort to winning at all cost.
I’m
not naïve. I suspect that for as long as some coaches, parents and other adults
see in a young star a potential cash cow, basketball will always have a certain
potential for taint.
In some cases, it amounts to the bending, or
breaking, of rules—by coaches, teachers and school administrators willing to look
the other way when a kid is academically ineligible. Or perhaps it’s that a kid
manages to get a passing grade, even when he fails in the classroom—as long as
he can soar on the court.
Here lately, I am
also reminded that most kids would be better served putting all that time they
put into basketball—and football—into reading, writing and arithmetic.
I was lucky
enough to have a high school principal and a coach to give me this truth. For
them, basketball was always just a game. Never a god.