Hoop Dreams

The basketball court of Littleton’s Grant Junior High School was formerly the school’s swimming pool. The court was undersized, the bleachers at the floor and balcony level came right up to the edge of the court, the backboards at each end were affixed directly to the walls. Our uniforms were old, worn out, and - - purple. I rode the bench during a home game in which our team was being routed, but the bleachers were still full. Toward the end of the debacle my coach put me into the game. I got the ball at about mid-court, took the ball just inside of where the 3-point one would be today, let the ball fly, and hit nothing but net. The home crowd erupted in cheers, certainly asking themselves why this player had not been put in the game earlier. I soon had the ball again, got to the same spot from which I had shot the ball before, let the ball fly, and hit - - nothing. It was an air ball! The fans had their answer . . . This is one of the memories that was triggered as a result of my visit with my younger brother tonight. As we ate dinner in a Chili's restaurant in Salt Lake City we recalled our time at the Federal Youth Detention Center just west of Denver. Well, we were there just once or twice to participate in a sports competition hosted at the facility. Our all-white Church basketball team from suburbia encountered an all-black team of detainees in a memorable matchup. We had some pretty good athletes on our team, but the detainee team was formidable. Early in the game I got the ball on the wing, to the right of the top of the key, and saw an opening to the basket. I drove toward the basket, and a couple of opposing players closed in on me. I jumped toward the basket, rotated in midair to avoid getting my shot blocked, and with my back to the basket banked in a two-handed shot. I’m sure our opponents concluded they needed to keep an eye on me. We were routed, and I don’t believe I made another shot. This same Church team would play its Church league games on Saturday mornings, and from time to time would have a practice during the week. We had a number of non-LDS friends from school that would play on the team with us. These cross-cultural exchanges were fruitful in several ways. Our friends would make some humorous, at times irreverent, observations about our fellow Church members or even our religion. At times we got to learn about their religions. While riding in the car of one of my friends, I came across some printed lyrics for songs he would sing with his church group: “Give me gas in my Ford, keep me trucking for the Lord . . . Give me gumption in my unction, let me function, function, function!” These friends were typically some of our best players as well. My younger brother was on the team. In Junior High School or so, he began to part his hair down the middle, and he wore his hair that way for quite some time. One day, as I observed the pronounced nature of the part in his hair, I told him it looked as if he had parted his hair with a blowtorch. He thus acquired the nickname of “Blowtorch,” which was often shortened to “Torch.” During games, when Doug was on the floor, teammates would call out “Blow Torch” or “Torch” to him, which must have sounded somewhat odd to our opponents. Doug had grown quite tall (6' 3" or so) during High School, and had developed a rather unusual jump shot. At the time the Denver Nuggets had a player named Anthony “Woosie” Roberts, who had won the NCAA scoring title while at Oral Roberts (sadly, Woosie died at a young age after his NBA career). Doug’s shot was similar to that of Woosie in that it involved an unorthodox windup in which the ball is taken back by the right side of head, but I’m not sure how far the similarities went beyond that. Paul, one of our non-LDS teammates and an excellent player, had somewhat of a crackly voice that he often used to whine when lamenting one irritation or another - - we nicknamed him “Froggy” after a frog-voiced character from the Our Gang or Little Rascals series. From time to time, when Blowtorch would rise for one of his unorthodox jump shots, Froggy would plead “Don’t Torch-er me!” The term "unorthodox" could be applied to certain aspects of my game as well. During one of our Saturday morning games I found myself at mid-court. I felt at home there, I could see all of the action in front of me, just like when I would play free safety in Little League or High School football. I was never really a basketball player, I suppose, but a football player trying to act like basketball player. This particular season our coach was Lance, a high school basketball player and only two years older than I. Lance lived and breathed sports, especially basketball. So there I was, at mid-court, an opposing player had gotten behind me, and he was streaking toward the basket. I heard Lance yell “Get him, Jones!” I turned, established my angle of pursuit, and intercepted the player just inside the key as he was preparing to shoot a lay-up. The ball never got anywhere near the basket - - I had plowed into the player, relying on a technique I had used to break up many a pass on the football field. My opponent was uninjured and amused, the officials were outraged, Lance was speechless, and I was ejected. Oops. I later learned that the next day, Sunday morning, the local Church leadership council (the High Council) had seriously considered kicking me out of Church sports. When one of our LDS teammates, Mark, was about 15 or 16 years old, he officiated a game in the deacon’s basketball tournament (deacon’s are typically young men who are 12 or 13). As a player, Mark had possibly earned a technical or two, and may have even been ejected from a game. Not surprisingly, the crowd at a deacon’s basketball game would be comprised primarily of parents and siblings, and during the course of this particular game Mark had made some calls that had some of the parents up in arms. As the LDS Church has a lay clergy, most of the parents held local Church positions of one sort or another. One of Mark’s most vocal critics during the game was a man who was in a local Church leadership position of some kind, possibly on the High Council. I was not present during the game, but the following day my friends and I were greatly amused to learn that Mark had ejected the man from the gym! Note: I had dinner with my brother on March 10, in which we spoke of some of our basketball memories, and I wrote this entry on March 24, 2006 and March 25, 2006.