The Best American Sports Writing 2014 (12 page)

“It was 1982,” he begins, and then proceeds to tell me about the moment when modern streetball, as we know it—the marriage of hip-hop and outdoor basketball—really started. It's his creation myth, and happened seven years before he was born, but as far as he's concerned, it's the beginning of time.

During a 2:00
A.M.
broadcast of the legendary Mr. Magic and Marley Marl radio show on WHBI in New York City (which Notorious B.I.G. later immortalized in the song “Juicy”), the local rap group the Crash Crew issued a live on-air challenge to another up-and-coming rap group, the Disco Four, to play a basketball game.

At the time, the show was the only strictly hip-hop broadcast in the nation, and a must listen for many of the youth in Harlem. Word spread fast and the next day hundreds of people turned up to watch as the Disco Four destroyed the Crash Crew by 59 points in the impromptu game.

Over the next few weeks, other pioneers of the genre, like the Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Flash, wanted to join in, so Greg Marius of the Disco Four organized a round-robin tournament of rappers.

To up the stakes, some of the best ballplayers in New York City were brought in as ringers to compete alongside the musicians and rappers. Soon, as the quality of play went up, the rappers were forced to the sideline (Nas and Rick Ross coached teams this year). By 1987, crowds were so large that the EBC found a permanent home at Rucker Park.

TJ smiles proudly when he finishes the story. I could see his white teeth through the dimness.

I feel my stomach grumbling and I reach into my bag for a granola bar. Despite being on a bus with 45 other people crammed together for endless hours across the American landscape, there's a distinct sense of isolation hovering over each of us. As the miles pass and you're pushed further away from home, your thoughts become more powerful; your dreams get bigger, and your fears start to scream at you.

Minutes lapse in silence, maybe even hours. My red eyes flickered shut, then back open. TJ, who never seemed to sleep more than a few minutes, leans over and taps me on the shoulder. “You know what my goal is?” he says through the darkness. “Kevin Durant scored 66 points one game at Rucker. That would be cool if I beat that.” His voice trails off. “There's a chance I could do that shit. There's a chance.”

I finish my granola bar, and stash the wrapper back in my bag. Maybe, I wonder, it's better if he gets off the bus in Denver and turns back home, never attempts to play at Rucker, and just lives inside his own innocence, his own version of reality.

I felt as if I was escorting him to his own wake.

A couple of days before, he took me from his place to Roosevelt Park on 10th and P Street, a quiet, well-manicured playground just south of downtown. Right away, he asked again if I wanted to play one-on-one. I had on jeans and low-top sneakers and hadn't planned on playing, but he needed to prove to me he had game, so I agreed. He showed off his turnaround jumper, quick hops, and sharp lateral quickness. The hours of hard work had paid off and we split two games to 11. But when more players showed up for the noontime run, the crater-sized holes in his game became obvious.

He had never been coached, and had no understanding of the subtleties of basketball. When he didn't have the ball, he would shuffle toward the dribbler with his hands out, unaware of spacing, or search for steals on nearly every play. You could almost see the gears turning over in his head as he planned out each move. Nothing was natural.

He tried hard, and hustled, but overall he wasn't remarkable. Maybe if he had been relentlessly drilled from the age of 10 onward, things would be different, but he hadn't. Nobody had ever taken his hand and walked him into a gym. Instead, he was just a 24-year-old, stuck in a time that had already passed.

“Don't you think . . .”—I try to find the right way to say it—“Do you think maybe you should put your energy into something else? Maybe have some other options in case you don't make it at Rucker Park? Do you have a backup plan?” I ask. “Have you thought about going back to school?”

“No,” he says. His headphones, which he rarely takes off, jiggle audibly as he shakes his head from side to side. “This basketball thing is all I got,” he says, almost pleading. “I'm 110 percent focused on this. People ask me if I have a Plan B. To be honest, I don't. I think, like, nine out of 10 people with backup plans don't succeed at their first plan because that backup plan is constantly in the back of their head, and they lose focus on Plan A.”

“But . . .” I began to say, shaking my head. I wanted to scold him, tell him that he's wasting his time, and teach him, as I'd been taught, to plan your life. The words, however, never came. I turned away, back toward the desolate road, and breathed out.

For me, this trip was nothing more than an adventure, a story I could tell my friends, a chance to laugh about the time I spent half a week on a bus.

But for TJ, this trip wasn't his Kerouac novel, and didn't emerge from Steinbeck's “virus of restlessness.” It wasn't a modern-day vagabond's romantic jaunt around the country seeking to understand the ills of America. This trip came from a deeper place. It was his calling: he
had
to travel 3,000 miles from home on his own. He had to believe in himself and that this lifelong fantasy to be a basketball star was, in fact, his reality. No one else would. To him, this was all there was.

Perhaps he wasn't wrong to stake everything on this. He'd chosen a different path—a journey deep into the unknown to confront his self-doubts and fears head-on. He had to walk fearlessly inside the gates of Rucker Park and believe it was all worth it . . . then play the game of his life.

His choice to put everything on the line was rare, but it's not unique. Nearly every culture and tradition has a similar story, real or imagined. When a young man starts his journey, he must be brave enough to take a metaphysical leap of faith. He must be willing to step foot on the bus and travel straight into the labyrinth of his fears, toward whatever awaits him on the other end, even if it may rip him to shreds.

It's the ultimate gamble. If the young man is successful, he comes home a hero, and becomes important. His life has meaning and purpose. But in order to succeed, he must first completely open up his soul to the consequences of failure, knowing there may be no way back out. This, above all else, is the hardest thing to do.

TJ's quest reminded me of that of the Athenian warrior Theseus, who journeyed down into the impenetrable labyrinth, leaving only the slimmest thread to mark his path, and then, armed with only a shield and a small dagger, defeated the terrifying Minotaur. He was then able to follow the thread back out of the labyrinth to become king of Athens. He risked all, and gained all.

Or, maybe we all simply live within the confines of our own fears and TJ was just running away from his, afraid of slowly rotting inside a weed den in the Deepest Part of Hell. At least he was on the bus. And at 5:00
A.M.
, three days after we left, as we passed through Weehawken, New Jersey, and the Manhattan horizon came into view, I leaned over as a ripple of excitement rushed through the entire bus.

“So, are you ready?” I asked TJ.

He smiled from ear to ear. “Hell yeah,” he said. “This summer at Rucker, I think no one's gonna be fuckin' with me. Think about it. I've been on a bus three days. No sleep. Just think when I go to Queens and get some rest. I'm gonna feel even better. No one's touching me.”

As the bus hurtled toward New York, there was no turning back. He was going to Rucker Park almost bare, exposed, armed only with his hopes and his overconfidence. His abrasive arrogance—and his 38-inch vertical leap—were his only weapons. It was all he had, and, really, all he had left.

 

TJ got off the D train two hours early and sat down in the adjacent playground, and waited. There was no selection process or online registration for the open run; if you wanted to play, you just walked onto the court at 3:00
P.M.
with a pair of sneakers.

A few minutes before his game was due to start, TJ's airtight ego was deflating. “I hope it works out,” he said meekly. I peered inside the gate as a few players began warming up. I'd imagined a collection of ripped six-eight high jumpers and burly New York City point guards with lightning-quick handles. Instead, many of the players trying out struggled with basic dribbling skills, or would jump to dunk but fall short and tap the glass backboard furiously with their palm. Few, if any, looked as if they had ever played college ball. TJ saw what I saw and his eyes lit up, the hopefulness returned.

But as soon as he corralled the opening tip, the nerves began to show. He started to press. He'd pick up his dribble after only a few bounces, or guard too tightly on defense.

The third or fourth time down the floor, he got the ball at the top of the key. Before making a move, before even thinking about a move, he rose up and launched it at the hoop, missing everything. The ball bounced up and over the small fence into the empty steel bleachers behind the basket. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, then jogged back on defense.

TJ had, over the years, made a shield for himself. Carefully constructed out of every hope or fantasy he'd ever had of being a basketball star, it helped him endure and survive DPH and everything else. As long as he never really tried to play at Rucker and see whether he was good enough to share a court with Kevin Durant, or “A Butta” and “The Bone Collector,” the shield protected him.

But as he looked up at the scoreboard, maybe he was beginning to realize that once the fantasy starts to unravel, it can never come back. He missed another shot badly, and audible groans came from the stands.

As the minutes continued to pass and the players sprinted up and down the court, a set of clouds rolled by overhead, blanketing the sun. That seemingly innocent shift, however, changed TJ. As if the natural spotlight shining down on him had been turned off.

TJ still had a few skills he could showcase. He stole the ball near half-court and sped the other way, he stutter-stepped and readied himself for a dunk—his moment. Then, at the last second, he backed down and simply laid it in. Still, it was a start. It wasn't a dunk, but he had scored at Rucker Park.

On the next offensive possession, his confidence was soaring. He called for the ball. The small crowd seemed to sense something was about to happen and fell nearly silent in anticipation. TJ made a quick move right to left, skipped past his defender, then turned to make a no-look bounce pass through the key in between three defenders—the kind of out-of-nowhere, once-in-a-lifetime pass Rondo would have been proud of. The kind of pass that would earn you, by word of mouth, recognition in the streets, or, even better, a nickname.

In New York street basketball, your nickname is your identity. Once you're granted a nickname (and you can never give yourself one), it sticks with you for life. It's a sign you belong on the court. The nickname often comes from one of the announcers and it can be descriptive of your physical appearance (“Cabbie,” “Eddie Kane,” “Bodega”), your style of play (“Helicopter,” “Dribbling Machine,” “Cookie Monster”), something comical (“Clumsy Janitor”—“He does nothing but drop buckets!”), or simply your initials. But a streetball player hasn't arrived until he has a nickname.

TJ's pass didn't go as planned. Perhaps nothing ever does. It was half a second too late, knocked down inside the key, batted around, then picked up by the other team and tossed ahead for an easy layup.

Duke Tango, a childish grin on his face, squeezed his microphone tight. “That man's name isn't ‘Uptown Finest.' His name from now on is ‘Plastic Cup.' Because he
can't hold nothing.
That's ‘Plastic Cup' right there,” he said pointing at TJ. The entire crowd chuckled.

Every time TJ touched the ball, a chorus of “Plastic Cup” echoed from the bleachers to the project buildings across the street.

TJ heard the snickers and seemed to shrink, his shoulders hung low and his frail body slumped downward.

The shield that had protected him for so long was gone, disintegrated in his hand. He was completely naked, staring at the Minotaur, his deepest fears, flush in the eyes.

If I was his coach, I would have subbed him right there, spared him the humiliation, let him watch from the bench and just soak up the same Uptown air the legends once experienced.

Instead, I watched from four rows back, my hands at my side, and wished, like he wished, that life had been kinder; that he wasn't born a touch under six feet; that poverty isn't what it is; that he didn't have to clean up shit for a living; and that he didn't wrap so much of himself into a bouncing ball that was both his source of happiness and slowly strangling any hope of a future.

Still, as the minutes passed, there was a chance the basketball gods would smile down on him and the ball would bounce his way and this time he would dunk and the crowd could go crazy, and for a moment, or two, it would be different.

He shot another air ball, then another. The chuckles became laughs. “Plastic Cup! Plastic Cup!”

As the last few seconds ticked off the clock, TJ stood in the corner, away from the ball. The buzzer sounded, mercifully, and he shuffled back toward the bleachers. He sat down, alone, leaned forward, and dropped his head between his hands.

 

A couple weeks later TJ asked me to meet him at Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen, but he didn't tell me where exactly, so I wandered around the web of concrete, past the dull orange walls and narrow sloping walkways. The terminal is designed in such a cold, impersonal way that it's impossible to tell if you're standing two stories aboveground or two stories below it.

I finally found him standing by himself under a flight of stairs. He had lost some weight, and his eyes looked worn and tired.