I just got word that we have agreed on a date with UAB which is donating the use of the UAB Recreation Center for 3-on-3 basketball games (and other hijinx) for charity.
We are raising money to fight this brain disorder that I have, along with more than 1 million other people.
It has no cure, no known cause and is fatal. It is the second leading cause of dementia behind Alzheimer’s disease. But few people are aware of Lewy, which physiologically is a cousin to Parkinson’s disease with symptoms similar to both PD and AD.
Trent Richardson drives like the football player he is at Mike Madness charity basketball tournament last year. The tournament is back again for its third year on July 20. More details to come. Photo — Trish Crain
In two years we have raised a total of more than $25,000 for research and awareness of Lewy body dementia. We started humbly with a $5,000 goal the first year and took in about $13,000. Last year we raised $12,000. (These numbers are coming from my math memory department in my brain which is currently under siege from rogue proteins, but I think they are about right.) I would love to raise $25,000 this year to push our total to $50,000.
I think we can do it. I think this will be the most successful one yet.
Details of the tournament will be coming but mark the date: July 20, UAB Recreation Center. We have the gym all day and will start pretty early in the morning. Again stay tuned.
. Last year we had surprise visitors. Former NBA and UA basketball star Buck Johnson and former UA running back Trent Richardson joined us and even participated in a game or two
Best known for the book taken from his teen journal, Carroll turned to music after his poetic writings began making noise outside of New York.
His fame came from the book called The Basketball Diaries. Leonardo DiCaprio played Carroll in the movie of the same name.
The album Catholic Boy had on it the underground hit ‘People Who Died,” which chronicled a list of friends who died.
Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room Bobby hung himself from a cell in The Tombs Judy jumped in front of a subway train Eddie got slit in the jugular vein And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others And I salute you brother
His music on Catholic Boy is pretty straightforward hard rock, new wave with a darkness that seemed to shade his life. There’s a Lou Reed, Patti Smith, New York vibe here for sure.
Carroll was apparently a promising New York City basketball player until he got into the heroin, an addiction he battled much of his life.
Carroll died at 60 in 2009 on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. His photo tells the story.
Ha ha. Funny for a minute there I thought I said I would dunk by our next March Madness.
Funk. Yeah that’s what I meant. I would add more funk to my listening list and this blog.
Ha ha. Dunk.
Sandwiched between great athletes Buck Johnson and Trent RIchardson at MikeMadness 2018. Hoping their talent rubs off on me.
Well it’s the morning (or two) after and you can see my state of mind about my vow to dunk. AL.com colleague John Archibald said if I do it — dunk, that is, — he will donate $1,000 to Lewy body disease research. I have unofficially heard three other colleagues say they would do the same thing.
Before I get too many pledges let me continue with more research. It’s not encouraging so far.
The $1,000 checks seem pretty safe. The more research I do, the more questions and doubts I have. I’m 58 and losing brain cells and muscle tone as we speak.
Then I read a long story in Sports Illustrated about a guy at 42 who never dunked but embarked at a rigorous training expedition to dunk. And he did, eventually. His method? Four or five workouts per week — and it took him nearly a year. Not what I want to hear. A well-meaning commenter said that Spud Webb at 5-feet-7 inches can still dunk at 47.
Great.
Mike points to his defender John Talty where he is going to shoot from. That’s called swag.
Webb, who WON FIRST PLACE WITH A 360 DEGREE DUNK IN AN NBA DUNK CONTEST, can still dunk.
The closest model I have so far is this 42 year-old Sports Illustrated guy who at 6-feet-2 dunked for the first time. Did, did I mention, it took him a year of excruciating exercises?
I started today on my training nonetheless. I went to hot yoga with colleague John Archibald. It was great and I’m going to do it again — if they let me.
As I was preparing to go I realized I lost my glasses. I went back in the yoga room where it was now wall-to-wall people.
Excuse me I lost my glasses I said as I stepped over people in twisted poses and contorted faces. Their eyes expressed disapproval. All that and we ended up finding my glasses elsewhere — in the locker.
I have learned something in my research. I need to have ‘swag.’
I think that’s short for ‘swagger.’ That’s a place of supreme confidence that my YouTube watching has taught me that dunkers have swag. Mac McClung, a viral video sensation in High School, has swag. The phenomenon of McClung is at least partly a racial thing. He’s white and ‘White Men Can’t Dunk,” as the Wesley Snipes-Woody Harrelson movie pointed out to America.
To make it all the more interesting McClung, who played for a small high school called Gate City in Virginia, is going to Georgetown where white basketball players over the past few decades have been more rare than a yellow cardinals.
But that’s a whole different topic and suffice it to say I am white and I can’t jump. I’m also 58. I also have Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disease that will likely end my life earlier than I was planning on. So, besides counting down my vinyl records on this website, I will now train to dunk.
I figure I have a good two years before I finish my records. I credit my blog with being therapeutic, keeping my mind active. The dunk training will be a way to keep my body active.
I’d be lying if I said the disease hasn’t affected my memory and my muscle strength and stamina.
So here am searching for my swag and my glasses.
And I’ve always got the ‘out’ when I show up at Mike’s Madness next year and people start calling my name and asking me when I’m going to show the dunk.
Dunk? I don’t remember anything about a dunk.
Really?
It occurred to me the other day that I’ve always wanted to dunk a basketball.
So I’ve decided that by mid-July, about the time of our next Mike Madness basketball tournament to raise money for Lewy body disease awareness, I will dunk.
Bucket list item.
That’s right, I will throw it down on a 10-foot goal. This 58-year-old white man with a brain disease who has never dunked in his life, will SLAM.
Hah!
Colleague John Archibald heard me thinking out loud about this scheme and said, No, you can’t dunk. He laughed. Then he put his money where his mouth is: He said he will donate $1,000 toward Lewy body research and awareness.
$1,000. Wow.
This man who plays basketball with me –and has half of my 4-inch vertical leap– must have some inside information. Oh yeah, he’s seen me play. My philosophy as I’ve aged is playing basketball without jumping because too much can go wrong when you’re in the air. But this won’t be in a game.
There’ll be no big players ready to swat it away. I just rise up and BAM. I can visualize it. I can do it if I try hard and believe in myself. You can tell I just saw the Mr. Rogers bio-pic. Can you see Fred Rogers on the court? Soft blue sweater. He might be good. Never judge a book by the cover he used to say.
Despite Mr. Rogers’ well-intentioned philosophy, I have doubts bigger than Shaquille O’Neal,
This is where I need help.
I have several questions:
Does anybody know of anyone over 55 years old who can dunk?
Does anybody know of anyone who trained to dunk, especially later in life and accomplished it?
Does anyone know of someone with Parkinson’s or Lewy body dementia who can dunk. The muscles in my arms are getting weaker from the disease, I can tell. My outside shot has diminished some. But I still have bad days and good days. My legs, I don’t think have been affected strength-wise.
I hear there are machines today that target specific muscles that can help. I don’t want to buy a super expensive machine though especially if it has dubious outcomes. I always have the Y.
I want to dunk. I want to rise u p 8 inches above the rim palming the ball and slam it through.
Dear readers please respond but remember it’s not official yet, until I do a little more research.
Archibald Googled ‘who is the oldest dunker?’ The first answer was 63-year-old Julius Dr. J Erviing can still dunk.
Not sure that gives me much comfort. The best dunker in NBA history can still dunk.
Here’s how I break it down:
Against me: Disease and age.
Favorable to me: I used to be able to grab the rim (about 30 years ago). I am 6 feet and one-half inch tall.
I weigh about 185, having gained about 20 pounds over the course of a year.
I think I need to drop about 15 pounds or more to get to my old playing weight.
I know the odds are long, but if nothing else I’ll get in shape and it will give me another deadline – like counting down my 678 vinyl records at MyVinylCountdown.com .
Speaking of records, it should be a record of some type if I do indeed dunk.
Onward to research. (Typing, typing Into Google.): ‘Was Mr. Rogers ever able to dunk.’
Last year we raised more than $13,000 for the Lewy Body Dementia Association to help support research and awareness of this often misdiagnosed disease. Behind Alzheimer’s, it is the second leading form of dementia, affecting 1.3 million people nationwide.
I have the disease. So, I have a personal interest in any research that will help. This year we hope to raise more money and we will again be giving to LBDA but also are going to support UAB research of Lewy body dementia.
(Not related: But the UAB team, also, happened to win last year’s tourney with a roster of Division 1 talent. This year we’ll have two divisions– see rules.)
The average lifespan after Lewy body diagnosis is roughly 4 to 7 years. I’m 58 and was diagnosed a little less than two years ago. I’m not going to lie, the disease has noticeably affected my game. My stamina has lessened. My right arm has weakened, affecting arguably the best part of my game -3-point shooting. I’m using my left hand more because it is less affected.
But I still have my ‘elbow’ pass, which sometimes actually finds its target.
Why me? And why basketball?
I’ve been playing pick-up basketball in my 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. In fact, I was probably playing the best basketball of my life in my 40s when I lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area. I played full court 3 to 4 times a week. In Oakland I even played in some games with Warriors players (this was pre-Curry and NBA championships). But I played a few games with Chris Gatlin, a retired Warrior. And I had some fun playing with Adonal Foyle, 6′ 10″ center who in pick-up games fired away from the 3-point line – something Coach Chris Mullin would never allow him to do in a real game.
So, this disease, as I wrote last year, is pissing me off: It’s messing up my brain and it’s messing up my game.
But here’s what I’m doing to fight it:
For one, I started a blog at www.myvinylcountdown.com, counting down and telling stories about my 678 vinyl records I collected in the 1970s and 1980s. I’ve done more than 170 records with about 500 to go. Again, it’s about raising awareness of Lewy body dementia, and I have vowed to finish them all, so LBD get outta my way.
And second, the reason for this column: I’m asking you to play in Mike Madness, get someone else to play, contribute through the website, or all of the above. Not just for me, but for the 1.3 million Americans who are losing their games for the same reason I am
Oh yes, and lastly, I want to inform you of a rule of pick-up basketball.
No trash talking (unless you are good at it.)
For more of my informal and totally nonbinding rules see this post.
For the real rules go to the website.
My Team: Nephew Joe Oliver, brother/coach David Oliver, nephew Jake Vissers, nephew Zack Cohen, me/
tact and passed a lot so I could live to play another day.
Playing right field, I reacted to the crack of the bat. This was big time Little League baseball in Athens, Ga.
“Please don’t let it come to me” went through my head like 1,000 times in a millisecond. Everything slowed down. My adrenaline was surging through my body. Everything slowed waaaay down. People were shouting 33-1/3 rpm when they should have been 45 rpm:
“Dooon’t Drop The Ball,” a horde of deep bass Lurches were yelling . I was moving in slow motion like I was underwater. I thought about my dog, Lucy. Lucy had died recently. Oh my gosh, Lucy is dead. I grieved in a millisecond. I thought about my Dad in the stands, won’t he be proud of me if I catch this. i thought about my Aunt Velma in Idaho, wait a minute, I don’t have an Aunt Velma in Idaho.
Then things sped up triple speed. Whoooooooooosh! Bat crack. Baseball is tiny dot in earth’s upper atmosphere. Falling, falling, getting bigger. Smacks my leather glove. Rolls out.
I dropped the ball.
In three seconds, I lived a lifetime.
The bases– which seemed pretty well occupied by other team baseball kids — cleared . I’m not sure, but I think all nine of their players touched home plate in the frenzy afterward.
The game, or life as they like to call it in Athens, Ga., was over.
Just like in the Johnny Cash song , ‘I hung my head and cried.’
Flash forward to just a few weeks ago, I was playing basketball in my Old Man Hoops League here in Birmingham. Good friends we all are. They helped organize a basketball fund-raiser for Lewy body dementia last year which we are looking to reprise (stay tuned for details).
So these are very good friends. They know my game and have an extensive scouting report on me. Boiled down the report is: He used to be good, now he’s not.
Fair enough. Good bulletin board material. (Smiley face insert here).
It was a next-bucket-wins the game thing. I had the ball. Most of the time I’d take a shot in that situation. But out of the corner of my eye I saw Paul in an area where he is comfortable and accurate with his sweet little jumper. My faithful and often painful worship of my childhood hero Pete Maravich possessed me to swing a behind-the-back pass to Paul which was rather easily picked off by Clay.
There commenced a race down the court which my 58-year-old legs denied me permission to participate in. They scored, they won.
My team avoided eye contact with me.
I know this is a long way to getting to the J.R. Smith headline. J.R, a good longtime NBA sharpshooter now with Cleveland Cavaliers, famously made a boo boo last week in an extremely important NBA Playoff game. The consensus is that he thought his team was ahead when he rebounded the ball with seconds left. But it was tied. Instead of putting it back up for a score and a win, he dribbled the ball out. Tied, the clock ran out and the game went into overtime.
Guess who won in overtime.
I’ll bet the world slowed down and sped up for him.
National headlines. A public shaming.
Few thoughts. First he needs to come clean and apologize to his teammates. And maybe he has. If so good for him! I sought forgiveness and it was good. “Don’t do that ever again,” my teammates said.
Thanks for your forgiveness, I said. (That’s how we usually say we forgive each other: Don’t ever let it happen again.
Secondly, J.R. needs to seek therapy.
This isn’t the first high level boneheaded play for him. For goodness sakes there’s a YouTube video chronicling his mistakes. Maybe there’s something from childhood that is stopping him from being all he can be.
I have a friend, yeah that’s right, a friend, who was having recurring nightmares about dropping a baseball and then after therapy he had a dream that he caught it. Yaaaaaay. He ran around with ball in hand triumphantly.
But everybody was pointing and laughing.
Because he had no clothes on.
AAAARGH. Just a dream. Just a friend’s dream. Sometimes therapy doesn’t work.
Jerry Sloan never won a title either as a player or a coach but he is considered one of the top NBA coaches of all time.
The Salt Lake Tribune has a great profile of the 76-year-old man struggling with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia. As a basketball loving Lewy body patient myself, this story sent me looking for tissues.
So who is Sloan? Tribune says:
Sloan is an icon, a reminder of the franchise’s glory days when they made back-to-back trips to the NBA Finals in the late ’90s, back when Hall of Famers John Stockton and Karl Malone pick-and-rolled opponents to death seemingly every night.
I remember those Jazz teams well, often had or were close to having the best won-lost records in the league.
My own pick-up game with my Old Man Hoops League is waning but I’m still doing it. Sloan, though slowly losing brain function, is still going to Utah Jazz games. In fact it’s the centerpiece of his life.
Stockton and Malone pick and rolls should be required viewing for every aspiring basketball player. If I was a hoops coach, I’d put together a tape with dozens of Stockton-to-Malone P&R’s for my players.
We even use picks in our Old Man Basketball League. We are especially fond of the illegal picks that resemble downhill blocking in football. (Some of us have even called illegal picks. Ha. Funny.)
Seriously, a legal pick is simple and efficient and still works after all these years.
Oliver shooting form John Archibald on defense. \TRISH CRAIN photo.
Our knowledge of Parkinson’s and its mean younger cousin, Lewy Body dementia, is limited. Our treatments don’t work all the time. There is no cure. Both Parkinson’s and Lewy are the result of excess proteins in the brain, but no one has figured out why the protein’s are there, smothering the brain cells.
As the Tribune article says, the disease strips your mind and your motor skills, but not overnight. There is time to exercise, be with loved ones, keep the mind active and hope your brain’s neurons are setting good picks. Jerry’s wife Tammy Sloan keeps Jerry’s schedule very busy with activities and social functions.
I used basketball to describe my situation earlier in a column for AL.com
Here’s part of what I wrote: There are cases in the scientific literature of people who upon autopsy were found to have brains that indicated Alzheimer’s disease yet during their lives they showed no symptoms. Researchers say their brains apparently found “work-arounds” to the plaques and tangles that are believed to be the root of Alzheimer’s.
So that has me hopeful and encouraging my neurons: Come on you lightning quick neurons, put the Stephen Curry crossover on those proteins and get to the hoop.
I’m still playing, but I can relate to what Sloan is feeling. I just found my glasses before writing this Sunday afternoon. They’ve been missing for a week and a day. (I’d love to joke and say they were on my head but, thankfully, I’m not that bad yet.)
If Sloan wants to play a little 3-on-3 for charity this summer, we might be able to arrange that. Or, maybe just one-on-one, Lewy Jerry against Lewy Mike. What am I saying? He’s 6’5” and was a smashmouth player for the Chicago Bulls before his long-term coaching stint in Salt Lake.
Here’s an excerpt from Aaron Falk writer at Salt Lake City Tribune:
Before each game, Shawn Brown and his staff go over the list of VIPs and scan the crowd for people to highlight on the 24-foot-tall video board that hangs over the court at Vivint Smart Home Arena. It doesn’t matter who shows up, though. After four years of directing the Utah Jazz’s in-game video operations from the scorer’s table, Brown knows the man in Row 11 will get the loudest cheer.
“The reaction for him is bigger than any celebrity,” Brown says. “Everybody loves him.”
The crowd of 18,000-plus will erupt, maybe even stand in ovation. Tammy Sloan will tap her husband lightly. This, predictably, is his least favorite moment of the best part of his day.
“I always try to avoid that as much as possible,” Jerry Sloan says. “That’s not who I am, and that’s not what I’m about. I just love the great game of basketball. I’ve been involved with it my whole life. I enjoy that. I still enjoy the game.”
Friday morning started with a visit to, at least by Tammy Sloan’s estimation, the only man in Utah who hasn’t been following the Jazz’s first-round playoff series: her husband’s doctor. It has been just more than two years since Jerry Sloan revealed to the world that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia, diseases that have begun to strip the mind and motor skills of one of the greatest coaches in NBA history.
That was about LBD awareness but also about basketball, one of my passions and one of the subjects I want to write about more in this blog. (You can read my other basketball-oriented posts by clicking on the basketball category on the right side of your screen.)
So here we go. I want to discuss playground or street basketball: the unspoken rules, the etiquette or lack thereof, the cautions and how to keep yourself from getting punked. A street word, punked or punk. You hear it a lot on the court. It basically means you get embarrassed by your opponent.
I currently play weekly with a great group of about 15 men from various walks of life. We’ve had loud arguments, we have had hard fouls, we have had some questionable calls. But we’re not really playing street ball here. A Baptist church gym in Irondale is a long way from the famed Ruckers Park in New York City.
These rules can apply to all of this range but probably applies to street games moreso than church games. (Though the church games may surprise you).
These rules come from my observations, not just ringside but in the games. I have played with NBA players (just a few times), college players, YMCA stars and playground legends. And just plain folk trying to get their hoop on.
Oliver dribbles by Chris Harress. Mike’s Madness. Trish Crain photol
In my younger days, I used to go to pick-up games just about anywhere I could find them. I’d take my ball and shoes on vacation. When we lived in Orlando I don’t know how many times I played on the St. Petersburg beachside court while we were on vacation. (Catherine is a saint).
I’ve played in pick-up games in my 20s, 30s, 40s, and still going a little bit in my 50s. I’ve played on the roof of the Orlando Sentinel newspaper production center, which I’ll write more about in a later post. According to the previous Commissioner Gene Kruckemyer, I was (at least at one time) the all time leading scorer in that twice – a –week game. I played about 10 years there. I’m pretty sure there is no actual written documentation of Kruck’s assessment. And mind you, he’s not talking about the best all time player up there, he’s talking about a survivor who developed lizard skin to play in such conditions. (Get on a roof in the middle of an Orlando August and just sit there. You’ll have a puddle working in about five minutes. We had big athletic long distance runners come and fold in the heat b/c they ran outside before dawn or trained inside during summer months. They didn’t have that heat stamina like a few of us regulars had developed, a stamina fueled by lots of hydration mind you.
After all these years, I’ve only been to the emergency room three times from playing hoops. Once in Orlando, at a park playground, for scratching my retina after getting poked in the eyeball. I had to wear a patch over my eye. Once at Drake HS in Marin for scratching/gouging my head on a chain link fence above my eye: 33 stitches for that. And once in Leesburg, Fla., for breaking my leg so badly the bone came out of my skin (compound fracture).
The dozens of knee and ankle sprains have left me with tendons that are sort of like busted guitar strings. They are so loose they don’t really sprain any more.
Here’s the rules, which like legs, are meant to be broken.
And then argued about.
Don’t Say Sorry
Remember what Ali McGraw said to Ryan O’Neal: “Love is never having to say you’re sorry.” For the love of basketball never say you are sorry. Never say you are sorry about a bump or a foul or an accidental trip. I know this goes against a lot of people’s natural inclination to be, well, nice. But don’t do it. Unless the dude is leaving the court in an ambulance, do not say that word. Your guys will think you are weak and quit throwing it to you. Their team will get an extra boost by sensing weakness. I don’t know the physiology or psychology behind it, just don’t do it. Many pick-up games include a guy who goes around apologizing for a foul, his missed lay-up or bad defensive play. Sorry means you’re sorry. If you must say something, pat your chest and say ‘My bad,’ (it kind of sounds like ‘I’m bad.’)
2) Don’t Trash Talk (Unless You are good at it)
In the San Geronimo Valley west of Fairfax, Calif., I played for years. New faces weren’t uncommon in this part of the Bay Area , and one guy I remember on my team thought he was all that. He was rather large and a fair ball player, but nothing more than some of the talent I played with in that area. He turns to me and says, ‘I thought you Valley boys were supposed to be so good.’ He spat out a profanity. And he was on my team! Trash talking his own teammate. Later in the game I put up a shot deep in the corner that rimmed out and he yells out, ‘Come on man take good shots. Jeeezus.’ Walking back on defense I got close to him and said, ‘ Look, man you don’t know me.’ In that short phrase, i’m sending a message that he’s never seen me before. How do you know that shot is out of range? It wasn’t.
And the other players on the court knew. Because they knew me.
We locked eyes and I knew the words I used had an effect. I was using words often heard in other street games. I continued to shoot because the other teammates — kept finding me with a pass. Made a few in a row and he got quiet.
3) Don’t Fight (but give every indication you will)
I’ve played in 100s of pick-up games and have seen maybe 3 or 4 real fights. Most of it is a ‘hold me back’ sort of fight where two guys start pushing and shoving and teammates hold them off before it escalates. I lost my temper once — this was in Oakland –when somebody fouled me hard in the back of my head with their elbow as I was going for a layup. I turned around. He was walking away and I bounced the ball off the back of his head. Little bounce. He turned around. “Did you throw the ball at me? His voice was escalating as he started quickly to charge me. I squared myself and he bumped chests with me and continued his lack of respect for my personal space by touching noses with me. I don’t really want to word-for-word the exchange but it had to do with him saying he was going to mess me up, or words to that effect. I responded with equal force by saying, then let’s go you big bad doo doo head or something perhaps a little more ‘street.’ He looked hard at me and I looked hard back, and it ended as most of these do with nothing. But I did see in a run-down recreation center in Apopka, Fla. an interesting nose to nose confrontation gone bad. Two guys were in each other’s face. One guy grabs the other by the neck and squeezes, which is no fun for the victim. But the squeez-ee knew something about defensive fighting: He snapped his head forward, head-butted him, splattering the squeezer’s nose like an overripe cherry tomato. Fight over.
4) Don’t Bring a Ball (but keep one in your trunk for emergencies.)
In Eustis, Fla. I played in a game with strangers. We had some good games. They nicknamed me Pistol Pete after I did a double clutch layup ending with a finger-roll bucket. I played and I left.Then I remembered. I forgot my basketball. I went back, about 30 minutes later some were still playing a few were missing. Where’s my ball? I asked. What ball? That was just one time. It took at least three or four sacrificial 25-dollar balls before I created the rule.
5) Don’t call wimpy fouls (or other non street-ball violations.)
A real foul must alter a shot that potentially would have gone in. A real foul moves bodies; the slapping in a real foul echoes through the gymnasium. Blood is evidence that a real foul has occurred. A corollary to this rule is to refrain from calling violations that frankly are written in invisible ink on the street/pick-up ball circuit. For example never call 3 seconds in the lane. If I or anyone else wants to get in the lane, spread out a blanket, bring a sandwich and Grapico, let them do it and suffer the consequences. Also, never call an illegal or moving pick. I know I know, some will disagree with this but 50 percent of game time would be wasted due to arguing if illegal picks are called. By the same token, rarely call traveling, double dribble, or palming. And please if you touched it last before going out, own up to it. We don’t have replay camera. Flip a coin but do it fast, the game is waiting.
6) Cease, stop, desist:Don’t say ‘And one’ as soon as the ball leaves your hands. And-one means you made the bucket and were fouled which in some leagues means that you get a free throw shot. ‘And-one’ means bucket (two points) and another shot at one point from the foul line. Let me in on a little secret you ‘And One dolts. There is no free throw shooting in a pick-up game. Duh! There is no AND ONE. It’s just another way to say FOUL. In street ball if you make the bucket and are fouled that’s it. You get the bucket. If you miss, your team gets the ball back again because of that foul. AND-ONE lunkheads just heave it up say the magic words and hope it goes in. Like a broken clock, its right at least twice a day. When it finally does go in, they run around the court pumping their fists. Remember they are celebrating nothing. They may as well say And-Nothing. DISCLAIMER: I am in no way dissing And 1 street ball organizers (that sounds funny) that brought us Skip 2 My Lou, the Professor and Hotsauce. Different topic altogether. Iove those guys.
7) Have fun. Seriously. Do I have to write this? Yes because the above rules I just wrote make it sound like it would be better to go ahead and get that root canal without anesthetic than show up at the park. But we ballers are driven by this. I used to stand in rain with several others waiting for enough for a game. I once went to a game in unfamiliar territory where a guy who had a 40-ounce malt liquor in his hand at 9 a.m. reminded everyone that he had a gun in his car.
I watched him closely for several games to be prepared to run if he went to the car. The guy actually was assigned to cover me. He had a scowl on his face. I never made eye contact and passed a lot so I could live to play another day.
POSTSCRIPT FOR TV B-ball announcers. Don’t say”Score the ball.”
As in this kid can really score the ball baby.
What else is there to score with? A Frisbee’?
Redundancy much Vitale and your minions.
Isn’t it enough to say this kid can score. No, apparently, this kid is exceptional at scoring the ball. Overheard, one player complaining to his coach: Gosh coach, I didn’t know we’re supposed to score the ball. Another player: do you mean I need to cut it like when scoring steaks and vegetables. Maybe we are supposed to take it and carve it like a pumpkin?
Yesterday, Saturday Nov. 4, 2017, I was playing in my weekly Old Man Hoops game and I did a wrap-around-the-back fake pass on the way to a left-handed layup attempt. That’s right attempt. I blew the layup.
Million dollar move, 10-cent finish as they used to tell me on the playground.
My basketball buddies, however, are used to seeing my wrap-arounds, and my elbow passes, and my nutmeg dribbles through the defender’s legs.
Showing these ‘trick’ plays too many times, as I certainly have, diminishes the surprise factor and thus the play’s effectiveness. My percentage effectiveness is about 50/50 and that may be way generous to myself.
In real coached basketball if you did a move like an elbow pass and it flies off into the bleachers, the coach would give you some bench time for sure.
But in the relatively uncoached version of Old Man Hoops, of which I am the oldest player at 57, I’ve got the senior citizen greenlight card that allows me 100 percent interest free validation for anything I do, stupid or not. Of course the ‘playground’ consequences of failing to complete a trick play or two means your teammates may quit throwing you the ball.
Winner Mike’sMadness to raise money forthe Lew Body Dementia Associationn was UAB’s team. Average height was, oh, 6’8”. Me out front in the middle (the short guy) am 6 feet tall so you can see that height estimate was no exaggeration. My team never played UAB though, guess they heard about my wraparound.
But back to yesterday’s around the back wrap. I can’t even remember who was guarding the play, a fast break, whether it was James the doctor or Owens the DJ or Justin who works with me at Alabama Media Group. (Or Dan or Dennis or or Rodney), I can’t even remember who was on the other team sometimes.
But anyway I wrapped it around the back, which makes the ball invisible to the defender for a nanosecond. The hope is to make the defender think you are throwing a behind-the-back pass and force the defender to commit to another player who is hopefully streaking down the court beside you (hopefully 2 teammates, one on each side for options.)
Anyway, as I have said, I cleared some space with the fake, put it up with my left off the backboard, but it bounced off the front of the rim, no score.
A play that was very forgettable.
But it led to me today to thinking about another play long ago that I still remember in vivid detail. Probably because it replays in my head all of the time.
It was the time I juked Chris Gatling, a former NBA player who was in the league for more than a decade.
The first round pick in 1991 of the Golden State Warriors, he averaged about 10 points and 5 boards over his career. One year in Dallas he was 19 and 8.
So I’m living in the San Francisco Bay Area and working in Oakland. The date is fuzzy but probably 2004-ish. I was working at the Oakland Tribune, which as a benefit helped subsidize a membership to Club One Fitness. It was a really nice gym a short two blocks away from work. I saw Danny Glover there a few times and Billy Joe Armstrong with Green Day. But not on the basketball court.
There was a game every noon hour during the week. Occasionally you would see current and former Golden State Warriors players like Jason Richardson, Chris Mullin, Adonal Foyle or Chris Gatling. Most like Mullin and Richardson were working on shooting or other drills. Others like Foyle and Gatling would come play in the pickup games, which were at times very high level from my perspective.
Foyle was a Colgate graduate and an NBA center, whom I talked to several times. He was intelligent and fun to play with as he would do all the things his Warriors coach would never let him do, like shoot three-pointers and dribble the length of the floor. Always laughing it up. In reality he could have just stood under the rim and dunked the whole time.
Gatling on the other hand was kind of aloof, didn’t talk much. I remembered him from when he played as the guy who had a steel plate in his head, apparently from a childhood accident.
OK, that’s a lot of build-up for a play that happened more than a decade ago and lasted all of 3 seconds.
I do have to say here that I was in my mid to late 40’s and probably in the best basketball shape of my life as I played full-court basketball outside and inside about 3 or 4 times a week. I also could shoot fairly well which made up for other deficiencies and got me into games I didn’t have any business being in.
Anyway I got in a game and Gatling was playing on the other team. I had the ball on a fast break, a teammate of mine filling the lane on the right but no one is on the left. Gatling, somehow, had beaten us down court and was basically waiting for us, looking to swat whatever ‘weak ass shit’ I was going to throw up. (That’s what he looked like he was thinking anyway, I’m not sure he actually verbalized those words. He didn’t have to.)
Did I mention that he was 6’ 10” tall?
I was dribbling with my left, watching my teammate to the right out of the corner of my eye.
I turned my head to look at my teammate while simultaneously picking the ball up and going around my back. Gatling bit and committed to the guy he thought I was throwing a behind-the-back pass to. That split second the ball goes behind your back, the defender is confused. Where is the ball? Did he just throw it to his teammate behind his back?
So still with my head turned to look at the guy I was using as a decoy, I kept the ball. It went from left hand, around the back to my right hand which touched it to my left hand for a lefty lay-up. Gatling’s ball swatting arms never really got close.
Some of the small crowd of ballers waiting for next game fell out laughing and whooping. I snuck a peek at Gatling jogging back down to the other end. He seemed unperturbed as was his demeanor, thankfully.
Did I mention he was 6’10”?
And that was it, one of my hoops dream memories. I will post more here from time to time.
It was difficult for everyone watching the NBA game last night between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Boston Celtics to see the devastating leg injury suffered by new Celtic, Gordon Hayward.
I winced and touched the screw that protrudes under my skin on my shin bone (tibia).
A multimillion dollar elite professional athlete, Hayward will be treated well and getting advice from the best in the business, doctors, physical therapists and trainers.
But it might be important as well for Gordon to talk to some folks who have been through it.
Gordon could seek out other athletes such as Joe Theismann, Sam Bowie, Paul George or Kevin Ware for insight into their devastating leg injuries.
Or , you could ask me for advice..
Mike Oliver driving at Mike’s Challenge which raised $13,000 for Lewy Body Dementia Associationn (Photo by Trish Crain)
In fact I’ll offer it right now, no charge. And my experience, although gruesome had a positive effect on my game, and my life.
First off, I’m no elite athlete. I’m just a big fan of the game and started playing pick-up 35 years ago, hooping it everywhere from neighborhood playground ball, to the Y, to an occasional league here and there in Alabama, Florida and California.
So I divide my ‘career’ into two phases:
1) Before the break. 2) After the break.
But, first, let me tell you about the break.
I was in a church gymnasium in Leesburg, FL,in 1989. I was a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel. It was lunchtime basketball. We had folks from all strata of life, from lawyers to store clerks to truck drivers to folks you didn’t ask what they did.
I was an unsophisticated player with little coaching but had a good stroke and could run a bit at age 29.
So this one day, halfway into a game, a guy on the other team steals the ball and streaks for a fast break layup.
I turn on the jets in pursuit and leapt as high as I can, which frankly isn’t that high, but at 6’ and lanky I managed to bat the ball off the backboard from behind. It was a legal blocked shot because I hit the ball before it hit the backboard. When I landed on the indoor-outdoor carpet that covered the floor of the gym, my sneaker stuck like it hit a glue spill.. My leg bent but my shoe was intent on sticking the landing.
Whether it was torque, the angle, the hold of the carpeted floor, or simply a lack of vitamin D in my diet, there was no denying the loud sickening ‘crack’ as my leg bones snapped.
I went down but instinctually popped up and tried to walk. Everybody in the gym, including me, heard the crack, but in my confusion I thought I could just pop up and shake it off.
I suddenly realized that my left leg was wobbling and bending in the wrong places. When I tried to walk, I believe, the bone tore the skin.
I laid down.
First thing my adrenaline accelerated brain was telling me: Don’t look at my leg. Keep your head. As we had no doctors in the house, someone motioned the dentist over. Hell, he had a Dr. before his name.
I later learned the dentist knelt down, looked at the bone protruding from my leg and walked outside where he threw up in the bushes.
I stayed calm at the scene, telling folks to call my wife, Catherine, who was 7 months pregnant and caring for our 2-year-old. Tell her it’s a minor injury, I stressed, knowing that Catherine with a nursing degree will quickly figure out otherwise.
I told someone to call my boss and tell him I won’t be in for a while.
I was rushed by ambulance to surgery where they installed an external fixation device. It was made up of a bunch of steel rods (six or eight) half of them were screwed into the bone above the wound, half under the wound with cross beams to apply the pressure.
Like the reverse of some Medieval torture device which stretched your bones until they broke, this device pulled the bones together.
Diagnosis: compound fracture of the tibia – fibula , also called open fracture. That means the bone popped through the skin.
Mike Oliver with daughter Hannah, 2. Mike was in the hospital following surgery to fix a compound tibia-fibula fracture. See broken leg with external fixation device in foreground.
The first few weeks were torture. My leg really hurt. I couldn’t find a comfortable way to sleep. Catherine was a kind but busy caretaker as I could do much of nothing. I was worried I would never play again, or for that matter, even walk or walk right again.
After a number of weeks at home, I went back to work using crutches. The erector set looking contraption stuck out of the side of my left shin. I couldn’t put any weight on that leg. And that was the instruction for about four months. Crutches, no weight.
Then I got a walking cast and it was awesome to get rid off the crutches and start walking.
An aside, the doctor who took my pins out couldn’t find the proper tools when I went in that day to have the external fixation device dismantled and unscrewed from my bones.
I knew I was in trouble when he asked his nurse to bring his toolbox from his pick-up truck..
“Aren’t you going to give me some pain medication?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “There’s nothing really that works on this kind of thing.
Ok,, I said, sitting up on the table as he took out a pair of toolbox pliers.
The first turn is the only one that hurts, he said.
“Yeah, but there are six first turns ” I said.
It took a full year from time of injury to get back on the court again. I still carry around a 1-inch screw underneath a patch of skin with no feeling anymore.
When I did resume playing, I found my left leg very weak. In basketball, for a right-hander, the left leg is the most used. So to preserve my leg, I taught myself to go to my left hand, going up on my stronger right leg..
It opened up a whole new game for me. My left-hand coordination improved through use. I could shoot sweeping lefty hooks and even short jumpers with my left, which meant defenders had to be careful not to overplay one side.
What I did was find a workaround.
Now I don’t mean that Gordon Hayward needs this injury to work on his left hand. He’s already, I’m sure, pretty good with it.
But for me there’s a bigger lesson in my experience.
It’s a progressive brain disease which has symptoms like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. I wrote in an earlier piece on AL.com that there was an Alzheimer’s study of nuns who lived in isolation, which made them good study prospects because it limited the variables. While some nuns got Alzheimer’s there were other nuns who upon autopsy were found to have a lot of the plaques and tangles in the brain that would indicate Alzheimer’s. Yet they didn’t show any signs of the disease in life.
Researchers suggested their brains must have found ‘workarounds,’ physiological fixes.
The thread of this blog is counting down my record collection as a means of telling my story and ultimately bringing more awareness to Lewy body dementia.
The disease has affected my game. For the second time I am challenged to work with a physical deficit in my game. The only thing was that last time I could always limp away from the table, no harm no foul, “take up swimming,” my doctor would say.
The dozens of knee and ankle sprains have left me with tendons that are sort of like busted guitar strings. They are so loose they don’t really sprain any more.
