Flashback AAU, 1984
I had just finished the basketball season as a junior at Monroe Hall Country Day School when my buddy/teammate Willie Tyson urged me to play for Adrian Hill Boys Club in Fremont. It was the only game in town during the off-season. The team was jacked with the best high school talent in the area. Several of the kids were DI players, including Jonnie James (who ended up playing for the Longview University Rams). Besides those two guys, the rest of the kids on the team were nameless athletic giants on the court. They played for perennial powerhouses like Goldcreek and Henry Peat. They had several things in common. They were ridiculously huge or fast. They all could ball, they were from the inner city of Fremont, they all could jump out of the gym, and every one of them was African American. I was the only white kid on the team.
Mr. A was the coach. He was a legendary local icon whose career ended years later with allegations of sexual abuse and other inappropriate behavior with his players. I never saw any of that bad shit happen, nor was he ever inappropriate with me. I’m just not surprised given the news about coaches these days. I played for him during his coaching prime. He was fat and slovenly and didn’t speak much. I was warned about his practices. They consisted of three sections, the warm-up, scrimmaging, and strength training. They were brutal.
The first section was the warm-up, which was essentially an acrobatic display of dunking. The second section was hardcore scrimmaging, which was a nonstop, all-out, full-contact war on the court with no rules, no out of bounds, and no calling fouls. The third section was some kind of strength training, which consisted of either 250 push-ups or incessant stomach work. During any of the sections in the practice, if you came up short in any way, he literally kicked you off the team on the spot. You were gone—no conversation, no second chances. It happened more than once that year. You had no chances with Mr. A. You either play his way or get the fuck out of his gym.
The guys were ruthless with each other off the court as well. If you weren’t paying attention in the shower, or you shut your eyes to wash your hair, they literally pissed on you while you were not looking. They thought that was funny. I didn’t. At night, when we were on the road, they gambled with each other. They cheated at cards, usually victimizing players who could not add up the cards fast enough. If you cannot add, you cannot win at cards. With that said, I knew I was safe among the team. The guys treated me well for a number of reasons. First of all, I didn’t play cards, and if I did, I could count. Second, I never, EVER shut my eyes or turned around in the shower. Third, I could dunk pretty well, and for a white dude, that was a big deal. Fourth, I could breakdance on demand like Michael Jackson. And fifth, perhaps the most important qualification of all, I knew every word to early hip-hop jams from Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Whodini, and The Sugarhill Gang. I felt like I belonged, on and off the court. I was at home with the bass kicking funky-fresh jams on the wheels of steel.
Mr. A liked me too. I was tough and fearless. I was certainly neither the most talented nor the most athletic. But I believed in myself, and I was smart on the court. By the time we were in summer league at Canton Street in Fremont, I was getting some playing time. That was, until I went away for two weeks with my family. Until then, I had demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the team. By leaving, that broke my unwritten promise to the team. I suffered the consequences. I never saw the court again. Not for a second. I was done.
I remember a game at night in the Canton Street league. My dad was in the stands sitting next to a mom who was telling him that she carried a pistol to the games, just in case. The stench of marijuana was putrid in the air as my ass rotted on the bench. Dozens of people were hanging around in the summer evening, watching hoops. Everyone on the team was getting playing time, even this one kid who was awful and did not even belong on the same court as me. He got so confused on the court that twice during the same game, he went in the wrong direction with the ball. One of those times, he even shot and scored at the wrong basket. Even then, I didn’t get tapped to get in the game. At that moment, my dad stood up and motioned to me to go with his arms flailing. He wanted to leave right then, in the middle of the game! I did no such thing. That may have been my last game with the Adrian Hill Boys Club and the last time I saw Mr. A, but I was not going to walk off the court in the middle of the game. That was not my style.
AAU 2012
Michael played for Toledo Select as a fifth grader. Jerry Cramp, the coach who recruited him onto the team that year, along with his son, Trent, left for personal reasons, after one game. Michael played in a bunch of games during the weekends that spring, all of them close to home. Most of the time, it was challenging to get five boys there on time, so Michael was on the court often. It was really cute (that’s right, it was cute), and it was fun for Michael. I had achieved my goal of keeping basketball fun and accessible for him. I wanted it to be this way for as long as possible. Perhaps Michael would be able to ride his innate talent for a while and mature into a solid player. It is true that talent will take every athlete to a certain point, and then the only thing that will allow that athlete to move forward is hard work, dedication, and a lot of sweat. Who knew when that would happen for Michael. How long would Michael have the luxury of not working hard at improving his game?
As a sixth grader during the winter hoops season, Michael had been busy playing on three teams: Longview Country Day School, the Willcrest rec program, and Highridge rec basketball. He was playing lots of hoops. He was in tons of games and getting a lot of playing time. Neither of us had complaints. He was smiling a lot and loved being out there on the court. He was ready to take it up a notch, to the next level. It was time for him to try out for an AAU team and see if he could get into competitive basketball during the spring and into the summer season.
This was his personal “return,” two years after being cut from both travel teams in Highridge. Making an AAU team would be quite an accomplishment in and of itself. Tryouts were serious business if you wanted to make the Toledo Select AAU basketball team. Unlike most programs around town—and there were several AAU programs in Longview County—Toledo Select selected only one team for each age group. There were no “A” and “B” teams. Also, there were certainly no guarantees that he would make the team at all. During the two-day tryout about fifty players vied for eleven spots, and these athletes were from all over Longview County. The coaches were walking around evaluating; the video cameras were strategically stationed, recording everything; and the dads were positioning themselves around the gym, getting their all-important facetime with Coach C, Brian Caliper, the director and founder of the Toledo Select Program. The competition was fierce. And this was all happening to twelve-year-old boys, many of whom were not very good at basketball in the first place.
Michael was fortunate enough to make the team, and soon we were introduced to Coach Michael Owens, a twenty-something-year-old who definitely looked the part. He was about six feet tall and built like an all-American point guard. He was a little standoffish with the parents, but I was expecting that. I knew that coaches felt that most of the parents of these players were out of their minds and over the top. It was inevitable that I fit that standard.
Like all coaches, Mike Owens held the key to Michael’s immediate future. Once again, I had to push aside my historical view about coaches. I smiled and decided to give him a chance to demonstrate that he was not like the coaches I knew from the past. I decided to believe that he would become one of the “good guys.”
As it turned out, Mike was one of the very few coaches that led by example and did not take advantage of the power and influence his position held.
By the end of the first practice, I knew where Michael fit in. He was one of the big men (a “5”), a center on the team. He was certainly the tallest and biggest out there. It was time for him to play at a new level, around players with more talent. I had one simple rule for the season. If you commit to play, do not miss a practice or a game. It doesn’t matter that some other players had dual loyalties (many of the boys played both basketball and lacrosse) or chose to show up some of the time. I learned my lesson from my days in AAU. You are either “in” or you are “out.” Do not give the coach a reason to sit your ass on the bench. Michael needed to know that. It was as if Michael were playing for Mr. A back in 1984. Michael was either going to “play his way or get the fuck out of the gym.” From this point forward, for Mike and others throughout his journey, Michael would forgo trips, vacations, and other opportunities that took him away from his teams. Basketball came first, second, and third. He would not give his coaches any reason to sit his ass on the bench. They would seemingly come up with reasons on their own.
The commitment to play for Toledo Select AAU was about ten weekends’ worth of games spread out over three months. During each of those weekend tournaments, they played several games. And then, if the team was ranked as one of the best clubs in the state, they would qualify for the national tournament in Westville, Michigan. We talked about getting that invitation all spring. The Toledo Select team was very good. Every weekend, about eight of the boys showed up. Michael got a lot of playing time and performed well. My messaging to him prior to each game was consistent. I wanted him to be aggressive and try to log a double-double (ten points and ten rebounds) each game. I wanted him to have a memorable and positive impact. He worked hard, but I could tell he was a bit out of his comfort zone. He wasn’t terribly aggressive and generally made shots really close to the rim. The competition was a little better and a lot bigger, but Michael had heart. He didn’t give up. Toledo Select performed well enough in Ohio to qualify for nationals. The team was going.
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