Part of me thought that sending the emails was a good idea. Most of me thought it wasn’t. The odds were that it wasn’t going to make any difference. The only thing that was likely to happen was that people would get their hopes up again and then we’d be told no again. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to give up, but with some things, sometimes, it just made sense not to try. Really, if letters didn’t work, would emails work? Probably not…unless, maybe, the email went to the right person. And I had the email of the right person—a person who could help us.
When I arrived home, I went straight to my computer and opened up my Hotmail account. I was going to email Jerome Williams, the former Raptor fan favorite. Not many people had the email address of a former NBA player. I began typing away. Why hadn’t I thought of this earlier?
Hey JYD,
How are you doing? I bet it’s a lot hotter where you are than where I am.
Since he retired from the New York Knicks, Jerome and his family had moved to Las Vegas. It was a lot colder here than it was there, for sure.
Everybody in my class wrote letters a couple of weeks ago asking if a Raptor could come to our school, and they said no. Today everybody in grade 6 emailed them to ask the same thing.I know you’d come to visit if you lived here instead of so far away.
I wasn’t just saying that. I knew he would come if he could. Jerome was like that. He used to visit schools all the time when he was playing— he and his brother Johnnie—and since he retired, he did it even more. He liked visiting schools and talking to kids. My mother said that he was like a big kid himself— a really big kid. She said the same thing about my father, except he wasn’t nearly that big. My dad wasn’t small—he was six foot three—but compared to Jerome he was pretty short.
I was wondering if you could do me a favor— again. My grades are really good and Kia is doing well also and it’s for our whole school, not just for me.
Jerome had done me lots of favors before. He’d come and played ball with us when Kia and I were being bullied by some older guys on a playground court. He’d invited Kia and me to come down to be part of his summer basketball camp—his Boot Camp—in Washington, DC. He’d signed lots of stuff and, even when he was busy, he always answered my emails. Maybe I’d asked him for enough already… maybe I really shouldn’t ask him for anything else. Maybe, after this little favor, I wouldn’t ask for any more.
I was suddenly feeling guilty. How long had it been since I’d emailed JYD? It had been at least a month. I really didn’t like to bother him with lots of emails because I knew how busy he was, but still, now when I was writing I was asking him for something. That wasn’t right. But that’s what we kids did—we asked for stuff, lots of stuff.
I figured I better butter him up with some basketball talk.
Our team won its first game of the year. We’re not too good but we are going to try our best and who knows? If you are up this way, it would be great if you dropped by the school. And if you want to bring somebody along—like Johnnie or anybody else—that would be great.
Okay, maybe I was sort of suggesting that he could bring a Raptor along, but even if it was just him and Johnnie, that would be pretty amazing.
I suggest you guys come on Tuesdays. It’s our pizza day and we always have pizza left over… although I’ve seen you eat pizza and I don’t know if we’ll have enough left over to feed you.
Your friend,
Nick
P.S. Do you know Wayne Dawkins? If you do, could you get him to come for a visit?