FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 67

I’ve seen players with savvy on the basketball court before, but Tommy had a different kind of wiggle with the ball than anything I’d ever seen.

He could make your head spin. He could go one way and zig, and then when the defender took a big step in that direction, he’d zag before the fella got his foot in the ground, leaving his defender wondering where in the world he went.

Tommy was special. He could handle it, as we say. I’ve always figured he’d handle himself for the rest of his life just as he handled himself on the court.

With Grant, I figured out something I had never noticed until that day. While he was a skinny kid who looked as meek as a little-bitty baby lamb, he had guts.

It was something inside him that folks couldn’t see, reminding me of what the Lord said about David in the Bible: “The Lord doesn’t look at things the way we do, He sees way down deep where man can’t see.”

I’ve heard Preacher Harvey and my auburn-headed Uncle River say that a hundred times.

My Uncle River was as adept at handling the Old Testament as my grandfather was. He’d handle it like it was a first-grade reader. I guess you’d say he could handle the Old Testament the way Mike Tommy could handle the leather ball.

Being deeper on the inside than what you see on the outside is Grant's way. Down far beneath that bashful demeanor, he had a different kind of calmness, a steady hand, like Cool Hand Luke – I mean the Cool Hand Luke that starred on our basketball team on that revered Granger gym floor in those years, but the Paul-Newman “Cool Hand” would fit, too. 

Grant had a steady hand like that, which would come in handy, literally and figuratively, later when he followed in his father’s footsteps. He couldn’t shoot or handle the ball all that well, but he would fight for every rebound, and he seemed to get a basket or two – hardly any more – every game at the most critical time.

That left the other twenty points to Tommy and me, but his two to four points always seemed to be game-changers. He was a “quiet” player, which agreed with his personality, and I think he just started young at taking care of whatever a job put before him.

Our trio hung on and pulled out a 24-20 win in the first game. And, sure enough, at the end, the doctor’s son got a rebound from one of Tommy’s long shots that bounded off to the right wing, and Grant took a dribble and put a shot up just over the outreached hand of a player half a foot taller and five years older, and the ball rattled around the rim a time or two before sending a dagger into the hearts of our opponents.

One of the frills about playing and winning was that you could sprint to the water fountain just outside the gym door, and you would do so with a bit of swagger – that day especially because of the dark-haired young lady sitting over watching me play.

We won the first game with my hitting maybe four shots, Grant two, and Tommy covering the rest. We huddled at half-court before starting the second, and Tommy took the ball, rubbed it down good as he talked, and said, “All right Sugar Ray and Grant, I’m gonna need you to step up this game. I ‘magine they’re gonna try to shut me down.”

I took on the name “Sugar Ray” on that same court when I was seven or eight and considered myself a hot shot in the Callaway Basketball League.

That would have been as early as 1964, so it would have been before Sugar Ray Leonard started dancing across the boxing ring gracefully, but Sugar Ray Robinson had been around a long time before that.

I liked the name and always wished I could live up to something as big as that. Maybe I have, I don’t know.

Tommy was right about their trying to shut him down. They put a guard much bigger than Tommy – almost everybody was, for that matter – and they pressured him hard almost up to the half-court.

But Tommy was smart.  He’d use his ballhandling to get out of trouble, take advantage of the pressure and penetrate and draw the defense to him, then pitch the ball out to me spotting up on the wing or in the corner.

I hit three straight shots from assists just like that from Tommy, then on the fourth play, he faked the pass to me out high on the wing, and he gave a no-look pass to Grant under the basket all alone. But Grant wasn’t ready, and the ball hit him in the hands and went out of bounds.

Tommy had something else about him that was special, a passion you can’t measure. He slapped his hands together when the ball glanced off Grant’s hand and said, “Come on, son, be ready. You gotta catch that!” He jogged out of bounds to retrieve the ball, walked over to Grant before passing it back up top, hit him on the rump, and said, “You’re okay. You get the next one.” Grant didn’t respond, but you could tell that it stung him good and deep.

Grant’s miscue hurt us because there wasn’t much room for error. At 5'10", 5'9", and 5'6", we knew we would get killed on the boards, and that team did just that. My three shots gave us a little cushion, but it seemed we could never stop them after that. They’d go inside to a big boy, and he’d muscle his way for a score, or he’d miss and they’d rebound and put it back up.

They tied us up at 20, then Tommy inbounded to me, and I gave it right back to him 30 feet from the basket, and before they could react, Tommy had launched a shot that kissed off of the glass and put us two points from the win. The next play, our opponent overplayed its hand and tried to go inside once too many times, and Grant slid around him and got a hand on the pass.

Tommy was quick as lightning, dived onto the floor, and tapped it out to me, standing out at the top of the key. I picked it up and, in one motion, let it fly.

Shooting the ball is an art, and you know when you get your fingers lined up on the seams, and the ball is spinning symmetrically –not like the globe but perfectly even – that the shot is going in.

I had no doubt that it was good, as soon as it left my hand.

That shot didn’t make the other group happy, and their big boy grabbed the dark, black-leather ball (dark from sweat over time) and slammed it on the floor until it bounced up and almost hit a light in the ceiling. The other two let out some loud curse words, and Sonny Cosper, an older gentleman in his 30s who ran the gym, leaned in from the half-door where he could look out onto the floor, and said,  “Awright, any more of thet and we’ll be sendin’ you home, keep it clean. Besides, it’s Sunday.”

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.