ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, September 27, 1996 TAG: 9609270013
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STANDROD T. CARMICHAEL
DURING FOUR of my Chicago years, as vice president/administrator of a foundation, I collaborated with Chicago Bulls great Bob Love; Leon Hillard, a Globetrotter; and an English teacher colleague, a former teammate of Sen. Bill Bradley in his All-American years at Princeton. Athletes for Better Education offered athletic-academic-college counseling resources to 250 or so high school basketball players.
We cheered them on as often quite remarkable athletes, of course. But our game was to slide a basic literacy foundation under those who needed it; to help then screw their heads on right, that they might use their college years to acquire a serviceable education.
What happened to some of these young men, such as Mark Aguirre, Isiah Thomas, Terry Cummings, Doc Rivers and Darryl Walker, for instance, doesn't require the telling of it.
What happened to Robert Sharp, only a fair-to-middling player, who grew up in a far less than favored section of black, deep South Side Chicago in the '60s and '70s, does.
He's now a practicing, legal-defender sort of attorney in Washington, D.C. A few years ago, he tracked me down through a newspaper article. He sent me $100 in support of the Hostel of the Good Shepherd.
There were others like him. They came to play. Others took the court with something else in mind.
Basketball is a team game, which is usually won when all of the players on the team work together to put points on the scoreboard. Then they work equally hard to keep the opposition from putting points on the scoreboard.
You don't hog the ball. You give it up in the interest of scoring points, not for your personal stats, but for the team. You will give up some of your skin diving for the ball, so the team can score some points. You'll crash the boards through flying elbows and solid body checks at both ends of the floor, to help the team score points.
At the next game you watch, see if you can tell those who came to play from those who seem to be on the court with some other purpose in mind.
While you're at it, take a good look at the players in the current political arena. Take a good look at the candidates. Take a good look at the political parties they represent. Who came to play? And who seems to be on the court with some other purpose in mind?
You'll be assisted in your selection if you're pretty well set in your heart and mind about what the political game is, or is supposed to be. That way you'll be helped in figuring out who's closest to playing your game.
I confess my own prejudices about the game are derived from my longtime experience with my Coach. He makes it pretty plain that the team - His team - wins:
1. when the hungry are fed, and then helped to feed themselves;
2. when the thirsty for a different life and a better deal find that the political pumps offer something that will quench that thirst;
3. when the stranger is welcomed and made a member of the team, as has long been the case in these United States;
4. when those who are naked in the winter of their old age and penury are clothed;
5. when the sick are visited with needed medical care;
6. when those who otherwise would be captive to an inherited, burdensome, national debt are set free by the continuation of its reduction;
7. when the poor hear the good news that there is work for them to do and a living wage to be paid for the doing of it.
True, such is not the only game in town these days, but I pray God it's the one the electorate will choose to play, come Nov. 5.
Standrod T. Carmichael of Galax is a retired priest of the Episcopal Church.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB