FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 66

I have seen players bring their girlfriends to the Y before and have them sit while they play. I had never done that – I just didn’t see the point of a girl sitting over on the bleachers for two hours while a bunch of sweaty boys and men duked it out on the basketball court. I guess romance and ballplaying never mixed all that well, in my book.

It had nothing to do with the fact I never really had a real ‘girlfriend’ before. I wasn’t the jealous type, no sir – what if some ballplayer had a beauty queen sitting over on the side clapping every time he made a shot? As Doocy would say, “Naw sir, don’t need thet.” And he’d say it seven times to make sure you got it. But don’t think Doocy or I ever protested too much, you’d be all wrong, no, not us, not at all, not Doocy Dew and the Pup, better look ‘somewheres’ else, naw sir ...

I wasn’t sure why Corrina wanted to come to the Y with me after church that morning, except maybe because she wanted to learn as much about my world as possible. She was that way from the very first time I saw her.

She had already gone behind three of the doors of our life.

It wasn’t a pretty sight behind the sweaty, getting-hollered-at-every-last-minute brick-job door.

The “church” door had some amazing views with all the singing and hearing Preacher Harvey describe heaven as if he were looking over into it as he spoke.

And what Corrina saw when she walked through the door to Mama and my Juniper home was a little piece of heaven, too, just heaven on earth. The “Mama” door showed that we were roll-your-sleeves-up people who came from gold but didn’t come from money. The funny thing is I didn’t realize that we were more on the poor side then, so it didn’t bother me that we lived in a house worth about ten thousand dollars, while Corrina’s mom and dad were building a half-a-million-dollar home with land worth that much again.

Going to the YMCA – the fourth mysterious door – was certainly a big part of my world, and if you wanted to know the Pup you probably needed to take that trip over to the hot part of the Y, which was the gym. I say “the Pup,” not that I am not prone to speak of myself in the third person, but it’s just that my close association with Doocy all summer hearing him talk about “the Breeze,” the “Cool Breeze,” and “Doocy Dew” when the whole time he’s talking about himself has the tendency to rub off on you, which is all a scary thought.

I played ball at the Y occasionally on a Sunday, but not usually. But I wanted to on that particular day. With the brick job zapping every ounce of energy out of me for over a month, I only made it over to the Y once or twice a week; and I missed getting on the floor. My week seemed incomplete without it. What I know now is that it helped me cope. I needed to vent with all the emotions building up day by day.

I realize that now, although I am not sure I realized it then. Mama’s decline was wearing on me, and, before Corrina, the gym was my best sanctuary. While Doocy and the job gave me one outlet, Corrina Belle was the best thing to happen to me up to that point in life. But I still needed to feel the leather ball in my hands and go to work, love or no love. Sorry, Corrina, a man’s got to be a man and can’t always be a sissy.

Of the thousand games I played at the Y from the time I was six, that Sunday was one of the most remarkable occasions. I think it was the best day I ever had at the Y. A year later, in a high school league game in a city far from there, I had an unbelievable day and scored 32, all of that with being sick with some kind of a virus and having to lay down behind the bench when I came out of the game. I still don’t know how I played that game, but I did. It was my best day ever, but this day took the cake, until then.

That hot, summer Sunday afternoon at the Y was more than I – it was a team of three. Three on three. Corrina and I got to the Y right at 1 p.m. when it opened on Sunday and only stayed open for two hours on those days. We were two of the first ones there, and by the time I got my Converses on, two more players came, both of whom I knew well. 

One was a sophomore friend of mine, Grant Taylor, whose dad was the most well-known doctor in town and doctored, they say, as many as 50 people a day at the Clark and Holden Clinic, a place I had frequented a few times but only when I couldn’t avoid it. Dr. Taylor tended to me and all of my family for decades.

Grant and I had become friends in school, would hang out together, and he was one of the few friends I had who ever got to ride in my first ever car, a 1962 convertible Grand Prix, one my Uncle Jim, Daddy’s older brother, gave me right before I turned 16.

Grant would become a doctor, too, but I still think his best day, like mine, was that day at the Y.

Grant came into the gym while I was just getting a few shots up, and he and I shot together for a few minutes. He was a skinny kid, skinnier than I was, but maybe an inch taller. A few minutes later, an older man, Mike Tommy, a five-foot-six fella who had played at LaGrange High in the late 1960s, came in.

Tommy, as we all called him, later became a fishing guide when they unleashed the dam and formed the backwaters that covered a good part of the northern side of town, including the land south of Roanoke. Tommy had that personality where he could talk to anybody. He could talk a grizzly out of eating him even if he had honey dripping off of him. That unique motivational skill helped make the day what it was.

The three of us shot for a few minutes before anybody else came, but several others came at once, mainly older players who had played high school ball two or three years before and some current players from LaGrange College. Tommy, Grant, and I had shot around and visited, so when the others came, we challenged the first three to the first game and started playing a game of three-on-three, which was how we played it back then.

Seldom did we ever play four-on-four, which became more popular later. Nor did we play make-it-take-it, which would come along later, too. It was straight games to 24, win by four, by twos only, because the three-point line was still almost a decade away.

What Tommy, Grant, and I had going for us was chemistry. We were overmatched from the first game with bigger, older guys. But chemistry is a great thing. I mean, walk over and ask Corrina, she’ll tell you the same.

Grant was just solid – nothing fancy, just a player who would do all the little things big.

Tommy, besides enormous leadership skills, could handle the ball like Pistol Pete and shoot ten feet from half-court on in.

I didn’t consider myself to have many skills back then, but one thing I could do was shoot the basketball from anywhere, no matter where, and I could get into the paint when I wanted and make some dippy-doodle moves around the basket if needed, too.

Most of those skills came along because I lacked the more popular skill of knowing how to talk to a young lady like Tommy could talk to a grizzly. Most of my friends had that latter skill, and on Saturday nights they’d all be over at Lookout Point counting every last star in the sky, and they had help doing it, too. But I’m not the jealous type, not me, not me and Doocy, naw sir. I was more than happy, trust me on this, even thrilled to be all alone twirling that brown leather sphere on my finger down at the Y and dreaming of one day being a super shining star myself that the girls would drool over.

Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a writer and preacher of the gospel. And, after a ten-year hiatus, he’s also returned to work with students at Ferris High School as well.

In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text (972) 824-5197.