Dr. J at Harlem’s famed Rucker Park. YouTube.
On Tuesday morning, I attended my first class at school. It was Psychology 101. The professor spoke with a thick European accent. To understand him, I had to replay every word out of his mouth inside my mind. Only at a much slower speed. It was like attending the class twice in a single sitting.
“We will study many different kinds of thought processes and personalities,” the professor lectured. “Some of them you will be familiar with. Others not. Some you’ll recognize as belonging to your family and friends. A few you may recognize as your own.”
A student asked, “Will there be a final exam or a term paper?”
“Both,” answered the professor. “The term paper is normally on an alternative society. One with different mores and goals.”
Right away, I thought of the Proving Ground.
“How many creative writers do we have in the class? Musicians? Artists? Actors? Athletes?” he asked the students.
By the end of that list, almost everybody had their hand in the air, including me.
The professor said, “Look around the room at each other. Believe it or not, you all share a lot in common. Similar motivations. Rewards and disappointments. And the few of you who don’t have your hands raised, it’s possible you haven’t looked deep enough inside yourselves yet.”
I was taking notes, writing furiously to keep up. And I didn’t stop until the class ended.
Fifteen minutes later and one floor below, I was searching for my English classroom. Up ahead in the distance, I spotted Mia. She was standing still with her back to me. Then a guy, who’d been drinking water at a fountain, grabbed her hand and the two of them walked down the corridor together.
It was that same guy from her balcony.
They were leaning into one another with every step forward. Then they turned into a classroom.
As I passed that same door, I glanced inside. They were sitting side by side in the first row, laughing and looking into each other’s eyes. Up on the board, a dozen or so complicated math problems awaited them.
But I had just solved mine.
I wasn’t mad at Mia at all. I was actually relieved.
Then I went off searching for my English class, pondering that mystery phone number, which I already knew by heart.
* * *
The next day, after my last class on Wednesday afternoon, I headed over to an armory a handful of blocks from the school, which didn’t have a gym of its own. The sign posted outside the physical education office had read, “Opening Basketball Tryouts. Bring Your Game!”
I’d been to that armory before as a senior in high school. I’d competed in a one-mile race there, running laps around an oval laid out with cones during indoor track season. I walked through the main door and passed several olive green army Jeeps parked inside. There was even a soldier there in fatigues. But I followed the sounds of the bouncing basketballs to where they’d erected a court with baskets and backboards on wheels.
I looked over the crowd of players and understood why it had been billed as “opening” tryouts. The talent on the court didn’t appear overwhelming, and I knew instantly that the players from last year’s squad probably weren’t going to be involved.
A couple of players, though, were wearing their high school uniforms, undoubtedly freshman like myself. They were wearing those uniforms to make a statement to the coaching staff.
Maybe I should have worn my hand lettered Those Five Guys jersey, I thought to myself.
The thing about tryouts is that everybody is there for himself. Only someone looking to impress the coach as a pure point guard will pass the rock to you. Everyone else on the court is basically interested in creating his own shot and scoring.
My best chance to impress the coach was to play defense and rebound. To totally shut down one of those guys in a high school uniform.
Thirty-five players were there, so the coach broke us up into seven teams of five. When my grouping was called onto the court, the other squad had a uniformed dude who was probably six foot three.
My eyes lit up as I walked right over to him.
An instant later, the coach called the guy over for a quick chat. Since he was my man on defense, and I wasn’t about to let him out of my sights, I walked over with him.
“Remember what we talked about, Damon,” said Coach. “Play with your back to the basket. I want to see you use a drop-step to get your shot off.”
For me, hearing that information was like playing poker against somebody and getting to see their cards in advance. Besides, if the coach was watching that guy, that meant he’d be watching me too.
We had the ball on offense first and turned it over coming to half-court. I immediately sprinted back on defense, as a wave of their players came at me three-on-one. I forced the guy with the rock into a bad shot. But that dude Damon grabbed the rebound and slammed home an uncontested dunk.
There were a few oohs and ahs from the crowd.
Now I was doubly determined to prove to everyone that I could put Damon inside my pocket and walk away with him.
On offense, I set picks and passed the ball. I even scored our first basket after I fought my way to the rim and tapped in a loose rebound with my left hand.
Damon wanted to post me down low. He had three inches and probably thirty-five pounds on me. I ran the length of the court with him, nearly face-to-face. He smirked, as if he was preparing to swat me away like an annoying fly. When we reached the top of our circle, I drove my hips into his and made him fight for every inch of ground after that. He was stronger. But I had all the leverage and positively stonewalled him fifteen feet from the hoop.
On another trip, Damon received the pass, maybe twelve feet out, with his back to me. I waited for that drop-step the coach had asked for. It arrived right on cue. I faded back with it, like we were dancing a waltz together. Then when Damon, a right-handed player, tried to spin right, I was already there waiting for him. With nowhere left to turn, he passed the rock away.
Finally, Damon tried to bull-rush me. Only I had a hand on his waist and could feel that explosion of power coming in his legs. So I stepped slightly off to the side as he pushed through thin air. Then I slid a leg between his two, taking the superior angle. He didn’t have the math in his stance to stop me from coming forward, and I shoved him six feet in the opposite direction.
That was the type of algebra I knew.
Then Damon flew back at me. We were in a chest-to-chest standoff when the coach blew his whistle.
“Next group of ten on the floor,” said Coach, carefully watching the interplay between Damon and me.
I walked off the court three feet from Damon, never taking my eyes off him.
Within earshot of the coach, Damon turned to me in anger and asked, “You got some kind of problem with me?”
“No, I’ve got nothing but respect for you,” I replied. “That’s why I played you so damn hard.”
But as big as Damon stood, I could feel him firmly inside my pocket.
My group didn’t get called back onto the court. I didn’t know exactly how to interpret that. But an hour later, I was one of the eight players the coach asked to remain behind, after he thanked and dismissed the rest.
Damon was among the eight too.
Coach pulled us together in a tight circle and said, “Two players graduated from last year’s squad. That’s all the room I have—two spots. Those two new players are likely to never get into a game. At least, not this season. Now I also have a need for several practice dummies. Players to stand around and give the team something to look at. To scheme against. Any questions so far?”
“What’s the practice schedule look like?” Damon asked.
“Saturdays, 8 a.m. till whenever. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, from 4 p.m. till about 7:30 or so,” answered Coach. “No in-and-outers. You must be there every practice or you’re gone.”
That would stop me cold from playing at the Proving Ground. Even through the winter, when the regulars had told me they were going to get the local junior high gym and still play every Saturday and Wednesday.
“You have to want this bad to make it. If you want to be part of our team. Our family. There has to be nothing you want more, except maybe an education. Obviously you need to pass your classes to play,” said Coach. “But if there’s something else on your mind, someplace else you’d rather be, don’t waste my time and yours. Be truthful to yourself.”
That’s when I realized, I already had a basketball family of my own. It may have been a dysfunctional one, coexisting in a house where the walls and foundation got rattled constantly. But it was a family nonetheless.
I didn’t want to insult that coach by walking out before he’d finished speaking. But in my mind and in my heart, I wasn’t about to walk away from being a streetballer, especially to sit on the bench or be one of his team’s dummies. I might still have been standing in front of him, but in reality I was already gone. There wasn’t even a shred of doubt for me.
A few minutes later, an assistant handed out contact forms to write our names, phone numbers, and addresses. While everyone else was filling out that paper, I changed my clothes and eyed a clock on the wall. It was almost 5:15. I still had an outside chance of making the last Wednesday night game at the Proving Ground.
Just before I walked out of the armory, I balled up that contact form and sank it into an open trash can.
“Swish,” I said to myself in a low voice.
All the way back to Queens, the subway was super slow, coming to a complete stop between several stations for nearly ten minutes at a time. Those delays ended my chances of making it to ball.
“Passengers, we apologize for any inconvenience,” announced the conductor over a loudspeaker. “There are major signal troubles ahead. I’m afraid it’s going to stay this way for a while.”
I decided to get off at the Broadway station and walk home the three extra stops from there, probably about a mile. I came down the stairs from the elevated platform with a crowd of others. I’d gone almost two blocks when I spotted five junior high–aged kids on a basketball court beside a small school.
One of those kids was looking longingly down the street, waiting for another player, any player, to arrive.
“Guys, you looking to make three-on-three?” I asked, entering the yard and putting down my books. “I’m that player. Come on. Let’s do this thing.”
“Even when I’m old and gray, I won’t be able to play it,
but I’ll still love the game.” —Michael Jordan