On a Personal Note

We're down to the last game of the 2007 regular season, so there's not much to talk about that hasn't already been beaten to death. The playoff match ups have yet to be set, and I feel that this is the perfect time to take a step back and reflect on my personal history, giving myself a break before I dive head first into playoff basketball - a moment of reflection, if you will.

It is no secret that, despite the long odds against it, I would very much like to write officially for the Phoenix Suns. My derision for professional sports writers is well documented on the azcentral Suns article message boards, and I fancy myself as the antidote to the bland, repetitive reporting contained therein. I prefer the more rich, wry, personal story-telling style of writers such as Bill Simmons to the dry and lifeless commentary found in most sports journalism. Writing shouldn't be a job, rather a recording of history and personal perception that gives the story of the day a life of its own, allowing a reader 20 years from now to relive the emotion and relevance of the events, if only through the heart and eyes of someone who was there.

I have been a writer since the second grade, when the assignment was to make up a story involving a space ship landing in the school's playground. Now, to be honest, I have never been able to create fantasy, even as a child with an overactive imagination. Everything I did then always had to be grounded in reality in some significant manner because I wanted to believe that "this could happen," and that quality holds to this day. So I wrote a story about the space shuttle landing (I never said the reality was absolute), and the astronauts giving us all an individual tour. All the other kids told about Martians and flying saucers, and I came up with humans and the space shuttle. To be fair, this was during the early days of the shuttle program, so it's safe to say that my creativity was, always has been, and always will be shaped by actual events in some way.

I never saw myself as a professional writer in my early days, nor was I ever really encouraged to be one. It just seemed like a novelty act, I guess. So my interests turned elsewhere.

I was small for my age growing up. Under-sized and underweight, people thought I was in fourth grade even as I transitioned into junior high. Not surprisingly, I was the stereotypically last kid chosen for team sports. But many a sixth grader was embarrassed to see a ball sailing over their heads during kick ball after the chorus of "easy out! easy out!" when it was my turn at the plate. Same thing with soft ball. I didn't always make contact, but when I did, there were plenty of kids hauling ass to the outfield to retrieve an unexpectedly well-hit line drive while I was running as fast as my little legs would carry me to second base.

Then there was basketball. God, I loved playing basketball, even if I didn't understand why. The ball was so big in my hands, I became a master of the "granny shot," which again yielded results that left bigger kids stunned. I just seemed always to have a knack of accomplishing feats beyond my apparent capabilities. And I was the king of hustle. I was the kid racing out of bounds for a loose ball, jumping in the air to catch it and toss it back to a teammate in one quick motion. I surprised myself on several occasions because these were the kinds of acts that the little guy wasn't supposed to do. I've always been an athlete, I've just never had the body.

So when high school came, I didn't even think about sports. I didn't even want to take regular P.E. because I always ended up in the class with the jocks, and they just lifted the curve well beyond my reach. I finally grew to a normal height my junior year (I didn't hit 5' until the end of my freshman year), but by that time the lines were drawn, and I was on the outside looking for something of my own. That's when I found dance. To this day, I don't know how my sister convinced me to do it, but I had to take one more year of P.E., and I wasn't about to run the track in 110 degree weather. So to dance I went, and in dance I stayed - for the next 16 years.

I won't get into all the gory details, but I turned out to be really good at it. So good that I eventually became a teacher and assistant director of the studio I attended. I learned more about the human body and how it works than anyone outside of professional medicine should ever know.

Somewhere in the middle of all this learning, though, the Suns had an incredible postseason run in which they made it to the NBA Finals for the first time in 17 years. I had never gotten into watching sports on television back then, but the whole Valley got swept up in Suns fever that year, and I was one of the hapless victims. I've been a die hard fan ever since, so much so that I decided that I wanted to learn how to play again. The funny thing about being a dancer is that it gave me an insight to the nuances of the game that a lot of people don't seem to appreciate. To me, there is nothing more beautiful in all of sports than a well-executed fast break (except maybe a split-finger fastball with a hard bite).

So to basketball I returned. February 1995, I bought myself a backyard hoop and new Spalding outdoor ball, and I went to work on my jump shot. I studied the best - Dan Majerle, Kevin Johnson, Charles Barkley, Danny Ainge - so I had no shortage of learning tools to nail down my mechanics. After two months of taking dozens, if not HUNDREDS, of jumpers every day, I could hit from anywhere, wing to wing up to 20 feet out. I practiced coming off screens, bouncing the ball to myself for a quick catch-and-shoot. I worked on a right handed baby hook, flashing across the lane and banking it in every time. I even worked on my version of Michael Jordan's falling-away-sideways shot that was so hard to time, but so satisfying to nail.

Left-handed, right-handed...you name it, I could splash the net. I used my knowledge of the human body to perfect my mechanics, releasing softly at the peak of a 24-inch standing vertical that left me hanging in the air for what seemed like ten seconds at a time. In two months, I had turned myself into one hell of an accurate shooter...then I moved to Chicago. It seems that I took the predictable weather and stagnant air for granted, because once I got to the WINDY city, I couldn't hit the broad side of a fat lady.

Nonetheless, my basketball education continued on the playgrounds of Chicago's south side (in the white neighborhoods, of course). I learned that having a defender in your grill sure does make getting a shot off more difficult, and the wind played cruel tricks on the rare occasions I found myself open. So I did what I always did when I couldn't do what I wanted to do. I learned how to do something else. I started playing a new position. I went from shooting guard to point guard in one afternoon of humiliation and frustration.

My friend, Tony, his 14 year old brother-in-law, Ricky, and I made it a point to play ball three or four times a month, depending on the weather. We played on good days, of which there were few, and even on some wet and windy days just to get out of the house. Our usual playground was a park about a mile and a half from U.S. Cellular field, where the White Sox play. It was everything that I was not used to - uneven court that held the rain water in the most inappropriate places, tight rims with chain-linked nets, one of which was hanging precariously off half the rim, and the good backboard stood directly between us and the sun...when it shown.

It was tough, physical east coast style basketball, and the fact that their Bulls beat my Suns in the 1993 Finals was always a point of emphasis during every contest. "You're playing like the Suns in game 6, J!" "If that's how they play in Phoenix, it's no wonder we kicked your asses!" Ha ha ha.

It was spirited and intense, and the no-blood-no-foul rule applied. But it was fun, especially when I was the first to 21 after making five free throws in a row. Yes, I can still shoot. I never gained the quickness or explosiveness to blow by either one of them, but my dance background still made me the superior athlete. I was fast, agile, and in control, and my steady stream of soaring under-the-basket reverse lay ins were a constant source of ridicule as I "look like a dancer" whenever I flew from one side of the lane to the other, pausing in mid-air to turn and shoot. "CHINK!" That's how we play in Phoenix.

One particularly humid, partly cloudy day, we were shooting around preparing for our last game of cut throat when a group of kids showed up wanting to use the court. "We'll play you for the court," one of the older ones said. "That's OK," was Tony's reply, "we're just going to play one more, then we're outta here." Depending on the perspective, common sense either prevailed or failed as we decided that we may as well just play them, since we were leaving anyway. So it was the three of us, who had never played as a team before, playing three of them. By the looks of it, they were in high school, and I figured that we might show them a thing or two.

Five minutes later, they were up ten zip. Though we never asked, it was clear that these guys played together on their high school basketball team. Great. Their friends were laughing, they were just breezing by us, and Tony and I were too busy giving each other harsh looks for trying to shoot contested jumpers to get back on defense.

When I watched professional games on TV, I never could figure out why defenders never turned and ran or tried to grab a ball that flew over their heads on a fast break. Watching pass after pass sail effortlessly over my head before ending in a lay up, I thought to myself, "Why am I not reaching up to grab that ball? It's going right over me!" Then I realized how difficult it truly is to jump straight up while back pedalling at a near sprint.

We were getting our asses handed to us, and I had had enough. To the opposition's surprise, I called time out and gathered my troops. I heard them tell their friends on the baseline, mockingly, "They're probably calling a play."

No. I simply told Tony and Ricky that we were NOT going to get shut out. We were on the broken net, but the sun wasn't in our eyes, so there was going to be no excuse not to hit at least one shot. "I'm playing point. When I give you the ball, shoot it!" Time in.

I checked the ball at half court and walked it to the right wing. Tony and one of the kids were fighting for position at the free throw line, while Ricky and another kid were moving back and forth in the left corner behind them. My defender slacked off, practically daring me to shoot from 15 feet. So I did. "Chink."

"Nice shot," he said with genuine surprise and admiration. Now it was a different game. The three of us breathed a collective sigh of relief, comforted by the fact that we weren't going down without a fight. We relaxed, and suddenly we played as a team. I brought the ball up court, and when one of my guys broke free, I got them the ball. When they didn't, they screened for me and I shot it. We missed some, and we made some. So did the other team. I think the final score was 21-10, but we had certainly saved face and earned a little respect.

On the drive home, Tony said with a certain reverence, "THAT'S how we play ball in Chicago!"

And I said, "Yeah, but it was Phoenix that kept us from being shut out."

Touche.

It doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of the world and all its intricacies, I suppose. But a sweetly satisfying dignity accompanies an event that highlights an individual's hidden skills, regardless of the meaning the circumstance holds for anyone else. The talent has always been there, waiting for an opportunity to break free and prove its worth...for whatever it's worth. And it feels good to know that others got a chance to see it, however briefly, and recognize that there is more to this under-sized, underweight closet athlete than meets the untrained eye. Given the opportunity, I could do whatever I damn well want.

Maybe I should become a writer for the Phoenix Suns.