The Best American Sports Writing 2014

by Glenn Stout

  I walk past his uncle’s old Camaro parked across the front lawn. TJ greets me and shakes my hand with an unconvincing flip of the wrist. His cutoff T-shirt shows off sleeves of colorful, cartoonish tattoos that start at his wrist and work their way up.

  ’80’S BABY, his left arm shouts; a Roc-A-Fella Records logo with the lines from a verse in Jay-Z’s “Lost One”: “Time don’t go back, it goes forward / Can’t run from the pain, go towards it”; a boom box animation with HIP-HOP tagged above it; a Wu-Tang Clan symbol near his right wrist; a large inscription of the ’80s rap group Audio Two (“Milk is chillin’”); an array of colorful dollar signs and tiger-striped stars; and his self-anointed moniker, UPTOWN FINEST.

  I wasn’t quite sure what to make of his tattoos, and stared at them a few moments longer before I noticed his grandfather, hunched over on the blue cloth couch across the room, waving at me. He began to say something before picking up a glass marijuana pipe. He lit it up and took one long toke before turning back toward me and groaning some barely audible greeting.

  After a lifetime of chronic back pain, he’s usually stuck in a wheelchair and has spent most of the last few years under a haze of smoke and reruns of Judge Judy. At night, he simply curls up on the couch while TJ’s older cousin sleeps on the love seat.

  The house itself is crumbling. The bathroom is decaying and full of mold, and the kitchen floor seems to be rotting completely on one side. The only well-cared-for items in the entire place are two large cannabis plants on a circular plastic kitchen table, surrounded by bleach bottles, glowing under fierce HID lighting.

  TJ has lived here almost six years, after homesickness brought him back from Mississippi. Born in Sacramento, starting in eighth grade when his father moved him to Reno, he had a nomadic childhood. He was there for a year before his dad abandoned him and his sister for another family—he hasn’t spoken to him since. His mother remarried and took TJ to Oxford, Mississippi, during his high school years. He tried to adapt, but struggled in school, cutting classes to shoot hoops or just roam the streets with his new friends. He dropped out before graduation to help his family pay the bills. Eventually, one day when he’d had enough of the South, he walked to the bus station and headed back to Sacramento.

  When he came home, after searching for months, he found the only job he could get in Sacramento’s harsh, collapsed economy—cleaning bathrooms, part-time, at the local Greyhound station. In three years, he’s never had a promotion or a pay raise.

  Standing in TJ’s kitchen, the inescapable smell of weed and beer drifts in from the yard. I walk through the back door and see 20 to 30 smaller marijuana plants lined up in neat rows, empty beer cans strewn across the concrete patio. The family pit bull lies in the sun, tongue out, and takes in the sweet smell of freshly grown weed.

  TJ, who seems to be weary, ushers me back inside. We pass his uncle’s bedroom. He’s counting piles of green Ziploc bags, and shoving them into a box.

  I walk behind TJ into his room, then freeze and look around. His bed is immaculately made, his sneakers lined up perfectly. A clothes iron is placed on the floor. There is the tidiness of a well-groomed man, but also innocence, the naïveté of a 14-year-old boy who still views the world in terms of heroes and candy money.

  As he talks to me, he fiddles with his white headphones and moves them off his ears. I can hear the faint sounds of Mobb Deep’s “The Infamous” eke into the air.

  On his desk sits a large plastic jar filled to the brim with nickels, dimes, quarters, and pennies. Mostly pennies. It’s money he’s saving for food in New York. Next to the jar are spray cans and black markers for tags he’s working on—“Brooklyn” and “Uptown Finest.”

  In the confines of his room, it’s as if he’s trying to live out his own fantasy of what he imagines an early-’90s childhood to be during the golden age of hip-hop on the streets of New York. A time that must seem romantic and authentic, in a way that his life now seems difficult and mundane.

  On his desk, stacked neatly in two piles, seem to be every DVD or VHS tape ever produced about street basketball. Above the Rim, Heaven Is a Playground, a documentary about streetballer Earl “The Goat” Manigault.

  These are the tapes he grew up with. “I was like, in the second grade watching a show with my dad and this commercial come on about streetball,” he says. “I can’t remember what it was, but the footage was fuckin’ crazy. I was hypnotized, I couldn’t get enough. Ever since that, that’s all I want to do.”

  The rest of his room is a homage to his idols: quotes and pictures of Jay-Z over his window, an awkward life-size cutout of Michael Jordan leaned against the wall, a framed photograph he took with streetball legend Joe Hammond the first time he went to Rucker. “Joe didn’t have to go to class, he was a legend,” he says. “The entire Lakers flew to Rucker to see him play.” He holds the picture in his hands, then puts it down and stares at it in admiration.

  And above his bed, glaring down on him each night, is a mini-shrine to the fiery Boston Celtics playmaker Rajon Rondo. It’s almost an unhealthy love. His entire bedroom is sprinkled with odes to Rondo—a jersey, his pictures, a warm-up shirt, and all types of assorted Boston Celtics paraphernalia.

  When I ask him to name five players to comprise an all-time team, he mentions Jordan, then almost gushes with admiration just to say Rondo’s name. He identifies with the antiauthoritarian point guard, who views the game through the lens of love, loyalty, and heart, and who shuns standardized versions of fundamentals and statistical analysis. A streetballer’s baller.

  “Rondo plays because he loves basketball,” TJ says. “Basketball players in the NBA right now, like LeBron James, they’re all about money. Like, Rondo dislocated his elbow and he still played.”

  Finally, he picks up his basketball off the carpeted floor, and tosses it to me. “You wanna play one-on-one?” he asks.

  Seventy-four hours, 12 states, and eight bus changes. The distance from Sacramento to New York can be measured in many ways—hours wearing the same underwear, times stepping over a poor, passed-out soul in a bus station bathroom, centimeters of your swollen ankles, vending machine Snickers bars for lunch or dinner—but as the hours pass and sleep deprivation takes hold of you, your actual destination seems less and less important. It’s almost as if you begin to just float alongside the bus in a sort of zombie-fied state, watching yourself through glossy eyes.

  Still days away from New York, falling forward through the night across I-80, somewhere east of Utah, I looked over in TJ’s direction and wondered what he was thinking. The lights inside the bus were off completely except for the thin strip across the roof that acted as a night-light.

  Maybe he could sense me looking at him and he turned toward me. “You know how the EBC started?” he offered, as if he’s been waiting for this moment to tell me. I say nothing. “You don’t know?” He leans in as if we’re around a campfire. I can make out the outline of his face across the aisle.

  “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-rob
in 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.