The Greatest Game I Ever Played In (March Madness Edition)

I don’t know if anything before or since has ever been as exciting as those days back in high school when my friends and I would get the keys to the gym and gun the rock for hours and hours. During Christmas break, or on a snow day (funny – school would be canceled, but we would somehow make it to the school to play ball. hmmm. A mystery), my brother would make the call to our athletic director and I would hover around, waiting for my brother’s nod while on the phone for the go-ahead. I would hyperventilate throughout the ensuing phone calls to our friends telling us to meet there in half an hour. It was like opening up our own private Disneyland: flip the switch and hear the hum of the lights starting up, slowly turning brighter by the minute. Didn’t matter, we’d start shooting while it was still dark. After about 5 minutes the gym was fully lit and it was all ours. Not gym class, not practice, not a game where it belonged not even to us but the whole town. OURS. We’d spend the first 20 minutes sprinting around like retarded colts, laughing and shooting and fucking with each other. Kinda like any class we had in high school, now that I think about it. I guess the scientific word for this is “frolicking”, although there was no meadow involved. Eventually we’d beak up into 3 on 3 (half court) or 4 on 4 (full court.) This being the mid-80’s we were all in love with Bird, so the goal was to drain a 20-footer and then make an amazing no-look pass (usually off someone’s head.)

I was a gunner. A shooter; if I get the ball and you’re on my team, get your ass back on defense cause you ain’t getting the ball back (unless of course I saw an opening for an “oooooooooh!” Bird-esque pass.) My disinterest in playing defense was such that even in three on three I’d somehow insist on playing zone. If forced to play man, I’d teach my teammates a lesson in the first few minutes by letting my man blow by me for an easy layup, during which I’d yell at a teammate “switch!” and collapse on the ground in laughter. And hell, thinking of the group we’d play with during these games, I was definitely in the top 2 or 3 athletic-wise, I certainly could’ve dominated on defense. But why waste my energy on defense???!!

Anyway. Our games would become fierce, four-hour marathons that got quieter by the hour as we got more serious and checks from trash-talking got cashed. I remember one time I was on fire, hitting everything I threw up and laughing, talking shit, and my brother decided he was gonna dedicate the whole game to not only shutting me down, but seeing to it that I literally didn’t touch the ball the whole game. Which I laughed at, of course. But after about three minutes, I wasn’t laughing anymore. He wasn’t on me like white on rice, he was on me like white on rice glued on by ugly on your mama. Or sumpin like that. Now, as I said, I was a shooter, a gunner, I needed the ball. I ran and ran and ran to get open, but my brother would not allow it. After 5 minutes I tried begging, after 10 minutes I tried cheating, after 15 minutes I tried violence. By 20 minutes I was trying cash. For naught. Miserable!!!!

I also remember one time my brother had attempted a court-long pass that got away and hit one of the big lights hanging from the ceiling. I can still see it slooooooooooooowly descending to the floor like Apollo 13 into the ocean before it broke into a thousand pieces. We were like oh shit, Mr. Jones was gonna KILL us and we’d never get to have the keys to the gym again. Jones was known to generations of students at the school for pretty much having the worst temper in the world; his blowups in Sociology class were the stuff of legend, so you can imagine how much he’d lose his shit over something like this. So we go to his house to give him the gym key and we tell him oh by the way we broke a light. We brace ourselves for about 50 minutes of screaming, but after a minute we look up and his face had turned ashen. Finally he speaks “well, thank god you guys got outta there right afterwards. Those things are loaded to the gills with mercury. Whew.” Of course we didn’t tell him we broke it about 3 minutes upon walking into the gym and had played on for about 5 hours. Mercury, eh?…so THAT’S why I made out with that guy at Macadoos in ’94!! Shew! Thank god. Makes sense now. Fucking mercury, DAMN you!!!!

My brother and I were never really allowed to be on the same team, both because we hated each other’s guts at any moment and were by far the two best players there. Certainly the only two who played on the high school team. But we had a blast playing with everyoine, running free up and down for hours, hitting “big” shots, making “incredible” passes, yada yada. I miss it.

One day (it was during Christmas break of ’86-87, I distinctly remember being a freshman) while playing there was a BANG BANG BANG! on the door…which had never happened before. Our game was halted and somebody went to the door to open it for what must’ve been a wayward janitor and in walked five black guys. Who proceeded to rob us at gunpoint. HIYYYYYOOOOOOOOOO! I’m kidding. Obviously, it was five wayward janitors BOOOYAH!!! YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!! No, it was five guys from the basketball team that had somehow found out we were in the gym. Of course, one might ask why my friends and I were given the keys to the gym and not the guys from the basketball team, but these aren’t things that I in particular thought of 20 years ago at the age of 14. Though it is a reason I will be fairly shocked if Obama wins. These were not, however, just 5 guys – they were, what do you know, the varsity team's starting five; including 3 who would be all-district - one of whom would be recruited by Virginia Union a year later. Of course this being the size school it was, everybody knew each other; my brother being on the team and me being on the junior varsity at the time meant we were a lot closer to the black guys than the other guys in the gym were. But still, nobody was a stranger to nobody. After high-fives/goofing around, it was decided we’d play best outta three games, black v. white. This was a time and place you could do such things without it showing up on YouTube and being labeled a racist forever. Again, we were all friends to one degree or another anyways, it seemed the natural and somehow funny thing to do at the time. So let me give you the rosters of each team:

THE WHITE GUYS:
Brothatime! 10th grade. Backup guard on varsity; would start the next year at the point for district championship team (tho would finish career captaining senior squad to 0-21 year.)
Xmastime: 9th grade. Scrawny, less than 160lbs. Tall, could board, worshipped Jeff Lamp and, as stated, could shoot the lights out (or go stone cold.)
Brian: 10th grade. math-lete. Short pudgy and slow, but would drive you crazy playing a game of H-O-R-S-E cause he’d beat you somehow using geometry and hitting inane half-court shots. But in a game of one-on-one against Sistatime!, I’d bet the farm on her every time and twice on Sunday. Brian was name-dropped on Xmastime before, and to get an idea of what a basketball player he was, here's what I wrote about him:

We had a guy in our trig class Brian, who was a math whiz. Every time there was a test or a quiz Brian would be the first to turn his in, and we’d all take a break and watch Coach grading Brian’s paper at his desk. He’d get out his answer key and start checking Brian’s answers. You could see him going down the page with each problem: number one, check, number two, check, number three…now his head would go from Brian’s paper to his answer key, then back to Brian’s paper, then he’d take his eraser out, change the answer he had in his answer key to whatever answer Brian had, and move on. Unreal.

Pretty intimidating, right?

Travis: 10th grade. Great athlete, really good football/baseball player. But no, NONE, ZERO sense of basketball. A good bruiser to have under the boards. Tho once he got a rebound you’d hafta go take the ball from him.
Duane: 10th grade. A complete ramshackle mess of bones. Could not catch the ball with a tuna net. Again, tuff under the boards, knew his role was to throw elbows. But if you threw the ball to him he’d somehow look like Bill the Cat getting a Louisville Slugger to the gut; it would sound like the ball hit a pile of broomsticks and come rolling back to you (if you were lucky.)

THE BLACK GUYS:
Alfred: 11th grade. starting varsity shooting guard, would be the Region A Player of the Year the next season, averaging 25/game and getting an offer to play at Virginia Union. Could dunk in traffic, beyond unstoppable.
Timmy: 12th grade. starting varsity point guard. Wasn’t a scorer, but a real leader. Consummate point guard.
William: 11th grade. 2-time All-District center. Was about 6’6” with arms that reached up to about 17 feet. Coulda scored 40/game but had broken a leg as a kid and it never healed right so he was always slow. Unstoppable once he got the ball down low.
Keith: 11th grade. 2-year starter. Silky smooth small forward. Would disappear for a spell, then throw down a bone-rattling dunk before draining a three in your face.
Marvin: 12th grade. Runner-up for District Player of the Year that season. Must’ve set the record for dunks in a game that year. Tho I can still close my eyes and watch a few years before when he had shot the ball into the wrong basket for the other team. Christ. Not the brightest light in the tree, but could play like a mf.

So obviously we were, as they say, up against it. We pretty much knew we were gonna get CRUSHED, but what the fuck, it was more exciting than playing against each other. Games are to 15, gotta win by two, 2 games outta 3 wins. So the first game starts and everyone’s kinda clowning around, but before the black guys have really started paying attention I’ve caught RIDICULOUS fire and we’re up about 10-1 and go on to win the first game. An upset, to say the least. Well now the black guys are pissed and get serious the next game and fucking bury us; I mean it must’ve been like 15-1. It was definitely a “hope you enjoyed the first game motherfuckers, cause this is how it’s gonna be from now on” showcase.

So we start the third and deciding game, and you could hear a fucking pin drop in that gym. Nothing but Cons squeaking and sweat hitting the floor; the shit was serious. Every dribble was important, every pass was important, you’d let your heart explode if it meant tipping the ball away on defense to a teammate. There was no more laughing, no more yucks, just fucking ball. We clawed and clawed but after a while we were down 13-6. Two more points they win, we’re done. Surprise. I was busy cursing myself for not having done shit since my run during the first game, when it happened again: I caught fire. Left corner, right corner, top of the key, wherever; I drained everything. From the hip, from the shoulder, with one, two three hands in my face I knew every thing I launched was good as it kissed the fingertip of my middle finger goodbye. 13-7. 13-8. 13-9. 14-9. 14-10. Here we come, here we come. 14-11. At this point my brother, whose normal job was to shut me down on the court or to spend the ride home reminding me how awful a basketball player I was, gave the order: get the fucking ball to Xmastime. Top of the key, Alfred flying by me, 14-12. Outlet to me, pullup from the side, 14-13. So deep in the corner I end up falling on the bleachers, 14-14. This is the most pressure any of us had ever felt anywhere at that age, much less on the basketball court. You had one team made up not only of varsity starters, but black and facing the humiliation of losing not only to a team that wasn’t even made up of basketball players, but a bunch of white guys for fuck’s sake. Then you had a team of white guys that had fought too hard up to that point, who could smell the possibility of a greater upset than any of them had ever been a part of, a team playing with house money that had found themselves in the surprising position of not only pulling this off, but being upset if they didn't.

Fake jumper with a rocker step around Keith, I lay it in, now we’re up 15-14 - shut them down this one possession and score and we win. Soaked shirts dyed onto our skin, eyes bugging and shouting orders to each other. Alfred bring the ball up, slowing things down with a “you gotta be shitting me fellas, let’s end this” look to his team. I’m walking backwards at half-court, Brian trots by me to pick up Alfred. Now I hafta be honest: even at this point, there’s no way I thought we’d win. No way, no how, not gonna happen. They’ve dicked around long enough, they’re not gonna actually let themselves lose. Not today, not to us. We had a nice run, see you at the Dairy Queen.

And yet. That which made us weak (players that couldn’t actually ball) came into play at just the right moment. Alfred was bringing up the ball and looking ahead to everybody, seeing where guys were setting up a whole half-court in front of him. I don’t remember why I was just kinda standing there at half-court; I should’ve been back on defense but I was kinda moseying. I looked at Alfred and I looked at Brian, I looked at Brian and I looked at Alfred. And I saw that Alfred, who played against the best players in the whole region every week, knew that Brian was “on him” and didn’t really pay much attention to him. Hell, I wouldn’t have either. Meanwhile Brian was going after him, eyes locked on the ball while Alfred kinda mentally dismissed him. But for some reason I broke for Alfred, and as Alfred was looking down the court past Brian and ahead to what would surely be the game-tying basket, Brian somehow got a hand on the ball and flicked it away. Right into my waiting hands.

I don’t remember a lot of things I should. If I met you tonight, I prolly won’t remember your name. I don’t remember things people say, or things I’m supposed to do. But I remember every step I took once I got that ball. I remember, head down, dribbling past the half-court line. I remember seeing the metal plate thing that the volleyball poles go into. Top of the key I can see the shoe polish, free throw line all purple and dusty; I can see it. But more important than that - I can still hear Alfred breathing down my neck. Chasing me. Right behind me, closing in with every step and all I can think of is all the times I’ve seen him pin someone’s shit on the rack, players much greater than myself. I go in for the layup, stick my ass out a bit for a prayer of hope of blocking him out a bit, and let go. Closing my eyes and waiting for the *smack* sound of Alfred slapping the ball against the wall 10 feet away. Don’t worry, I remember thinking in slow-time, we get the ball back, maybe I can get off another jumper to win it.

But the sound didn’t come. I laid the ball up, Alfred came crashing down upon me and we both collapsed on each other underneath the basket, limbs and sweat as one. I looked up. There the ball was, slowly caressing itself down the net like an orange in a Christmas stocking. We had won. We had fucking won.

Both our hearts about to explode with exhaustion, Alfred and I lay there saying nothing. Finally he turned and looked at me. “Best 3 outta 5?” We both laughed as we helped each other up; we both knew that they’d win 100 out of the next 100. After that it was high fives/man-hugs all around. As furious as we all were to win during the game, the black guys in some weird way weren’t angry they had lost; I remember how bemused they were by the whole thing. Kinda shaking their shoulders like “ah well.” I wouldn’t say they were happy for us, but whenever I see the Russian team watching the Americans celebrate after their Olympic upset in 1980 I think of this game. The greatest game I ever played in.