The Final Four (17 page)
Authors: Paul Volponi
Michael Jordan
Sociology Q205
Reaction Paper: Basketball Is Life!
(The Social Order of Street Ball)
Go anywhere that you’ll find an iron hoop attached to a backboard. It could be in a crowded city park or a sweat-filled gymnasium. You probably won’t have to stand around too long until you hear somebody say, “Basketball is life!”
The comparison is really not an overexaggeration, or the blind passion of some teenager who believes
he is going to be a pro player and cash in on a multimillion-dollar contract one day.
Pickup or street basketball, which is almost always played without a coach or referee to enforce rules and regulations, is a social game that helps to build many of the qualities you need to excel in life.
How are those qualities developed in the players?
Because there is no power structure (coaches or refs), it is the players who build their own society and social order, establishing the rules, rewards, and punishments themselves on a 94-by-50-foot rectangular territory they’ve claimed.
Of course, if you’re already part of one of these self-governing pickup basketball packs, you know what I’m talking about. You understand that I purposely choose the word
pack
because each park, gym, or ballyard across the country has its own pecking order of perceived winners and losers, somebodies and nobodies, and every caliber of player in between.
Whether you play half-court (one-on-one, two-on-two, three-on-three) or full-court (five-on-five), you also understand that basketball skills are only a part of what you need to improve your position in the pack. You’ll need to hone other skills as well, including the ability to communicate and negotiate in a world where the sides can completely change every twenty minutes.
Here is just a partial list of the important skills you’ll need to develop:
If you asked me where I was born, I’d answer, in the city of Dearborn, Michigan. However, if you asked me where I grew up, I’d answer, on a Grindley Park basketball court. It was there I learned to be the person that I am.
I endured many trials during pickup games, and the accompanying lessons weren’t always the easiest ones. But I made it, and I benefited greatly from the experience.
For example, what would you do if the basketball nicked
off of your fingertips and went out of bounds, but no one else noticed but you?
Plenty of times I’ve stepped up and said, “That ball is off of me—it belongs to the other team.” But did the players on the other team respect me enough to speak up and give my team possession when the ball nicked off of them? I can’t say for sure, but I’d like to think that my honesty made a difference.
Of course, the players on my own team were really annoyed when my honesty once caused us to lose by a single point and we had to sit on the sidelines for close to an hour waiting to play again.
These types of situations come up all the time.
How about when a player purposely hits you with an elbow? When a player on the other team, or your team, cheats on every call or changes the score? When you’re choosing sides, do you pick a better player over a close friend? When someone you barely know isn’t pulling his weight or is taking too many bad shots, do you say something to him about it?
I’m proud to say that in my time as a pickup player I was able to negotiate all of these tough situations and grow from them.
But the pressure that comes with these situations isn’t always easy. Players do fail at finding a place in this social order. I’ve witnessed hundreds of them run out of the park, and run off from the pack.
All of them weren’t literally chased through the gates, though. Rather, they were shamed, ignored, or chastised into leaving. It was either that or accept their assigned roles as bottom-feeders—something they couldn’t do.
What did those players who were run off really lose, if anything? It’s a question that is nearly impossible to
answer, because there is no way of measuring what they might have gained through success in street basketball. And what they might have applied that growing skill set to next—maybe the classroom, a career, relationships, or family.
Someone who did benefit from decoding the social order of street basketball is the forty-fourth president of the United States, Barack Obama, who grew up playing pickup games in Hawaii.
In his book
Dreams from My Father
(1995), President Obama credits his experience as a teenage pickup player with teaching him an “attitude” and “respect” that translated beyond the court.
Back then, the local players called him “Barry O’Bomber” because of the young left-hander’s penchant for shooting long jumpers.
President Obama, who is viewed as one of our greatest public speakers, also learned about trash-talking on the courts. He learned that you could “talk stuff” to the opposition, but that you should “shut the hell up if you couldn’t back it up.”
That was probably a very good lesson for someone who is now commander in chief of the United States Armed Forces.
But even if you don’t grow up to be president, participating in the social order of street ball can have a positive effect on you. Perhaps at this very moment, a future policeman is calling a foul on another pickup
player. Or a future teacher is explaining to somebody why his or her move was a traveling violation. Or someone destined to become a judge is negotiating a dispute between two rival players who see the same action on the court differently.
As for myself, I hope to one day become a broadcaster. Basketball has a huge oral tradition, whether it is describing incredible moves, trash-talking, or communicating with other players on the court. I know that the language skills I’ve sharpened through years of playing street ball and participating in its society will serve me well in achieving my broadcasting dream.
“There is nothing wrong with dedication and goals, but if you focus on yourself, all the lights fade away and you become a fleeting moment in life.”
—“Pistol Pete” Maravich, college basketball’s all-time leading scorer, who averaged 44.2 points per game
MALCOLM McBRIDE
7:58 P.M. [CT]
O
n defense, Malcolm is hounding the Trojans’ substitute point guard, harassing him as he tries to advance the ball over half-court.
“You can’t deal with this kind of heat,” says Malcolm, chasing him into a corner. “I know you want to be back on that bench, not out here with me.”
Malcolm can read the frustration in his opponent’s eyes, and he knows a pass is coming, just to escape all of the pressure.
A fraction of a second before the ball leaves the opposing point guard’s hands, Malcolm leaps into a passing lane to intercept it. His anticipation is perfect. But Malcolm’s legs are already in high
gear, streaking towards the opposite hoop before he even secures the ball. And Malcolm fumbles it away out of bounds.
After a few more strides, he punches his open left hand with his right fist in response.
Then Malcolm scolds the hand, as if it were a teammate who’d let him down.
“That was going to be steal number seven tonight, my most in any game. You really blew that shit,” he snaps at it.
Walking back into position to defend the point guard, Malcolm tells him, “Don’t worry, another steal’s coming. I can feel it.”
Within the next twenty seconds of game clock, Malcolm steps in front of a crosscourt pass intended for a Trojan. He makes the steal and bolts for the basket at the far end of the court. Up ahead of him is a wide-open Baby Bear Wilkins asking for the ball. But Malcolm keeps possession of the rock, rocketing past Baby Bear to score on the breakaway layup.
“Sorry, Double B, I just wanted to make sure it got done,” says Malcolm.
“So long as we beat these guys, Malc,” says Baby Bear. “That’s all I care about.”
The basket gives the Spartans an 86–82 lead with 1:55 remaining in triple overtime. And in Malcolm’s mind, he knows that bucket represents his thirty-second and thirty-third points of the game.
NOVEMBER, SIXTEEN MONTHS AGO
A few weeks after giving his verbal commitment to play for Coach Barker, Malcolm and his father went to Elmwood Cemetery to visit Trisha’s grave. It wasn’t something they had planned. It was Saturday on Thanksgiving weekend, Malcolm’s senior year of high school, and his mother had taken the car to go shopping with her sister.
“Son, I feel like going to see Trisha this morning,” said Malcolm’s father, looking out of their living room window. “It’s starting to snow outside, first of the season. Your sister loved to play in the snow when she was little. You both did. Made me pull the two of you around on that Flexible Flyer for hours, like I was some kind of workhorse. So it’s got me thinking about her. You want to tag along?”
“Sure, Pop, I’ll go. Give her the news about my scholarship in person,” answered Malcolm, turning off the TV, before he grabbed his good corduroy coat from the hall closet.
Malcolm and his father rode the city bus to Elmwood.
It let them off in front of the cemetery’s big iron gates, and just outside, Malcolm’s father bought a small wreath of flowers to take to Trisha.
There was hardly any wind. The snow fell straight down in big soft flakes that settled on their heads and shoulders.
“It’s this way, past that pair of oak trees,” said Malcolm, veering to the left, off of the paved path, and heading up a small hill.
Malcolm remembered from the last time he’d been there, with his parents about a month ago.
“I know where she is,” said his father, trailing a step or two behind. “I could find her grave in my sleep if I had to.”
But within a few moments, Malcolm and his father had walked nearly twenty yards too far, searching for the small gray headstone with Trisha’s name cut into it.
They both stopped in their tracks at the same time, looking at each other, and then at the headstones around them.
Malcolm’s father said, “Must be this frosting on the ground that’s got us confused. I can’t—”
“No, Pop, look there,” interrupted Malcolm, with his brown eyes opened as wide as they could be.
Trisha’s simple stone had been replaced by the biggest, most impressive one Malcolm and his father could see anywhere around them.
“Beloved daughter. Beloved sister,” Malcolm read out loud as the two of them moved closer to it.
There were two angels on top, blowing horns, and a girl playing the snare drum carved into the granite monument.
“Did you and Mom do this?” asked Malcolm. But as soon as he asked, he knew it didn’t make any sense. His parents had barely had enough money to pay for Trisha’s funeral and the original headstone.
“You’d have been the first to know,” his father said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Where do you think it came from, then?” asked Malcolm, pulling his gloves off to feel the polished stone with his bare fingers.
“I have no idea in this world,” answered his father, who brushed away the snow from the base of the headstone to lay the flowered wreath there.
“So somebody just took the old one away without telling us?” said Malcolm. “That’s crazy. Stuff like that just doesn’t happen, does it, Pop?”
“Not without somebody paying for it. And this headstone looks like it cost a bundle.”
Malcolm thought about what Coach Barker had said, about people wanting to buy things for him.
“You think it’s about basketball, about me going pro soon? Maybe somebody wants something in return?”
“I wouldn’t say that out loud again for no reason, son.”
“So you think it is?” Malcolm asked.
The coach had specifically told him not to take anything from anyone. But how could he return a headstone?
Malcolm’s father didn’t answer. He just brushed the now rapidly falling snow from his shoulders.
“What are we going to do?” Malcolm asked.
“I don’t truthfully know. But with God as my witness, if there’s one thing I’d hate more than seeing my baby’s grave disturbed, it would be seeing it done twice. So I’m not going to ask to have it removed. And I want to put one thing into your mind, son.”
“What’s that, Pop?”
“No matter who did it, this couldn’t be a gift to
you
. It’s to your sister. And she’s gone to heaven now.”
Malcolm nodded his head.
“There has to be an explanation. But it’s not on us to track down what it is. I don’t want to find out your sister’s memory is being manipulated. I don’t think your mama could live with the rage it would cause her. So let me be the one to tell her about this. We’ll put our faith in God for now, that this was done for the right reasons. We’ll keep it quiet and respectful.”
“I’m solid with you on all of that, Pop,” said Malcolm, taking his fingertips from the stone. “I won’t talk about it to nobody. I promise.”
“For a long time, I operated under the Chinese proverb that there are four kinds of leaders: those who you laugh at, those who you hate, those who you love, and those who you don’t even know that they’re leaders.”
—Bill Bradley, a Rhodes Scholar and two-time NBA Champion who was later elected to the U.S. Senate
ROKO BACIC
7:59 P.M. [CT]
With the game clock having run down inside of two minutes and the Trojans trailing by four points, Roko tugs at the back of Coach Kennedy’s suit jacket from his seat on the bench.
“Get me back into the game, Coach. I’m fine now,” pleads Roko.
Kennedy pulls away from him and paces the sideline.
“Prove it to me, Bull. Prove your head’s clear,” says Kennedy. “Give me a four.”
“Four.
Rocky IV
, with the Russian boxer.
Shrek Forever After
,” says Roko. “
Live Free or Die Hard. Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope
.”
