THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 13, 1995 TAG: 9503110029
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
I REMEMBER THE games in my back yard after school, books and sweaters scattered behind the backboard.
An all-rubber ball. A Voit. It had to be dribbled faster and harder outdoors. Controlling the ball was half the game. For it never bounced true in the shoe-worn scab of black dirt framed by grass.
The walnut tree near the fence was a natural hazard for the teams, one of its bare branches clawing like arthritic fingers at the backboard. On drives to the basket a player sometimes turned an ankle on one of the unseen walnuts, limping from the field of play on one foot, crying aloud: ``Awww!. . . Awww!.
We played hard, no net on the rim, with young eyes so keen there was rarely an argument over whether the shot was good when the blurred sphere whipped through the hoop opening. It cannot be said that we played well. Just a clutch of 13 and 14-year-old honkys who couldn't jump and flailed arms on defense as though flagging down a train.
Shirt tails out, socks sneaking their way down into shoes, we played for hours, breathing heavily by the time the sun, a fiery red ball itself, lowered behind the walnut tree and the slanting roof of the house next door.
Although play was ragged - air balls were frequent and we often booted the Voit out of bounds - there were sublime moments: risky shots, taken when the game was tied that won for your side.
The shot was fired with shoulders squared when the heavy street shoes or stockinged feet were 4 inches off the dirt. And you knew it was going in the moment the ball brushed off your fingertips. Spinning with the seams straight, it arched toward the rim, a dusky orb against the clouded sky. The parabola of the inflated rubber mass began its descent inches above the backboard's near corner before plummeting - as though in a pre-ordained state of grace - through the hoop. The great shots like that always ended in a swan's head and neck - like the shadow made on a wall with the hand, thumb down, wrist bent, fingers joined.
Ball under his arm, an opposing player standing directly underneath, looked up to the rim. ``It was good,'' he muttered. End of game.
We all played a little in high school. Then I graduated from the University of North Carolina where the sport was a religion: The chancel was center court at Carmichael Auditorium. The Rev. Smith presided at ceremonies and the acolytes were students who would in later years see Michael Jordan hit what is still referred to as ``The Shot'' - a nothing-but-net bomber that beat Georgetown for the national championship.
What will forever distinguish Jordan has nothing to do with the three consecutive national championships he brought to the Chicago Bulls. It was the love-of-the-game clause in his professional contract. The clause stipulated that Jordan could play a game of pick-up basketball on a dead-end street, schoolyard, or crackerbox gym any time he wished.
The love of the game. That's something difficult to explain to those who have put away childish things. And particularly hard to justify to those who see March madness as nothing more than 10 tall guys jumping up in the air every 20 seconds as Dick Vitale screams profundities such as: ``It's a Diaper Dandy Dunkeroo, Ba-bee!''
``You're not planning to watch every NCAA game surely?'' the princess asked me a few days back. Does The Worm (Dennis Rodman) have a colorful perm? I rarely see any of my old pals from those backyard games any more. But I know we are linked in our love of the game that began many years ago.
I'm confident they are watching the televised tournament, too. Even those games with lesser known teams playing in remote places like Utah or Colorado where the fans dress strangely and snow covers the coliseum roof. We'll follow it all the way to Seattle, popcorn in laps, shoes off.
We'll be waiting for those times when a kid who has no business being a hero will hit a last-second, God-only-knows-how-he-did-that shot to win one. The camera will focus on his young, smiling, wild-eyed face as he's smothered under the bodies of his teammates.
And, in that fleeting but special moment, we will all be back where we started. . . on the scabby dirt with that old Voit. Young again. by CNB