FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 69
The entrance to the gym was on the south side of the Y and led down a long hallway with nice lime-green blocks filled with tiny holes for soundproofing on both sides. The hallway dead-ended and gave you the choice of turning left and going to the air-conditioned section or turning right and going to the gym. If you went to the gym – which I almost always did – you would come immediately to the opening on the left where Sonny worked the equipment and was adjacent to the door into the gym.
To the right were the water fountains and the dressing rooms. I seldom checked out equipment, but sometimes I’d get a towel if I wanted to shower, and many of the older men would leave their valuables with Sonny, who would put them in baskets in the room. The only valuables I carried with me was the leather ball under my arm, at least until that Sunday afternoon when I came in with the lovely dark-haired girl on my arm. I understand that every dog has his day, but if that day was good enough, as in my book, it was enough to give me some swagger with the boys at the Y for a long time. Swagger was a big thing. You couldn’t buy it, beg for it, demand it. You had to earn it. That particular day, I earned it with the play on the hardwood floor, and I double-earned it with who it was sitting over in the bleachers anxiously watching the unfolding of my greatest hour.
One of the fellas, an older gentleman named Carl, walked up to me after our trio beat them in one game. I was what we call “unconscious” that game, which means you didn’t miss a shot. Meanwhile, everybody else might as well have stayed home and played dominoes because they didn’t have a chance on that floor on that day.
I was shooting a few shots from near the top of the key when Carl walked over to me before taking his seat on the bleachers, where the losers sit.
“Sugar Ray,” he said, sincerely, “It doesn’t matter what you do the rest of your life on this court; I want you to know that today you were the man. No other way to say it. You were the man.”
I smiled. I liked the way he said that. It sounded a great deal like something Doocy himself would say. As he walked away, I casually threw another shot up, and the result was nothing but net, like most of the other shots I took that day. Carl looked back at me and shook his head, then took his place on the bleachers.
After I hit the last big shot that knocked Carl’s team out, I tried not to look over at Corrina as I made my way to the water fountain. But I couldn’t help but throw her a little grin and a wink, and her face lit up. That was about as much showboating as I ever did. Back in that day, we thought we should let our game do our talking, we didn’t need to tell anybody that we had made a shot. We figured they could see it as well as we could. Acting like we’d made a shot before was our creed back then.
After each win, the three of us – the great surgeon-to-be, the famous fishing guide of the South, and Pup – calmly congratulated each other, grabbed a swig of water under the direction of Tommy, who cautioned, “Not too much water, it’ll slow ya down.”
That motley crew of three won game after game. In one game, the older players would overcompensate for trying to stop Tommy, and I’d get open looks and knock down five or six shots in a game. Tommy would get his two and Grant would get a bucket when we needed it the most. I guess that’s how a doctor is. When you need him, you need him, you need him more than silver or gold or a big boat underneath the shed.
After a while, although I didn’t have a dry stitch on me, I would go sit by Corrina, lean back against the bleachers, and she’d brag about a shot I’d made or a move that she’d “never seen anything like it before.” Tommy would catch me over there and say, “Come on, Sugar Ray, you can romance when the sun’s down.”
Being a gentleman, he would turn back and say to Corrina, “Thanks, ma’am; I’ll get him back to you after we win a couple more games.”
I smiled at Corrina as I jumped up and hustled over to Tommy. There’s something about our generation the next few generations need to know. We had respect for the older folks back then. I would no more backtalk Mike Tommy than I would Grandma. It’s just not something that you do. When Tommy spoke, Grant and I jumped. He was the same age as Pee Wee, and you already know what would’ve happened if I got smart-mouth with Pee Wee. When Tommy said, “Come on, the sun ain’t gone down yet,” or something like that, I thought of Jim Croce’s song again. He was right. You don’t pull on Superman’s cape, and you don’t spit in the wind unless you want to be spitting in it through missing teeth.
Maybe the respect the doctor and I showed Tommy gave us the cohesion we needed to excel that fateful day. Of the thousands of days I sharpened my teeth there at the Y, I do not remember ever playing a day when we owned the court that way. It was classic.
But 4:30 came before we knew it, and Sonny hollered out that the next game would be the last. We would’ve been okay if the last one had been because we had played non-stop for three hours, undefeated. But we had one more to go.
Since we won, we got the ball first. That’s when Tommy said something I’ve never forgotten, nor ever will.
As always, the three of us gathered up at the circle mid-court. Tommy rubbed the ball like a genie trying to summon some magic and looked at the two young boys or men on his team. I say men because young Grant and I had grown up a great deal since one o’clock that day. Tommy gave us a look that infused confidence, then he said the quote heard around the world, or so it seemed.
“Remember, boys, there’s no pressure on us,” he said, rubbing that black leather ball, “We’re not supposed to win anyway.”
It was another time-in-a-bottle moment.
I didn’t have time to ponder it all then, but later, I understood that what Tommy said defined a good bit of my life from that summer of ’73 for the next half-century. Sometimes, people underestimate you, but you don’t underestimate yourself, ever, and you don’t worry about the pressure because the only pressure you have is what’s inside you.
By that last game, the seven or eight others who took turns getting beat that day handpicked their final team, and the rest stood on the sideline, seeing if they could finally take the court away from us. It was an unfair fight as they had their three best players on the court and the rest on the sideline cheering for their buddies – all but one: Professor Paschal.
The professor taught at LaGrange College, and he was a Pee-Wee-like man, not only in that he was about the same size but also had the same genteel spirit about him. Years later, when we would return to the play at the noon-time league when most of these fellas had started turning gray, the Professor met me at the water fountain after a game, and he gave me a compliment that I never forgot. Regarding the column we had written for many years for the newspaper, he said,
“Sugar Ray, what I like about your writing is that it seems like you’re just sitting across the table talking to you the whole time you read. That’s a special gift.”
As I said, the professor was a gentleman, a gentleman’s gentleman, like Pee Wee. A gentleman sometimes forgets that the person at the water fountain and two of his comrades gave you and your boys a beatdown back years ago. The truth is that the professor admired what happened that day. That’s why he stood on the sideline off from the others watching that last game, quietly cheering for us.
“Cheyenne,” I said, turning to him for a brief color commentating, “I sure hope Professor Paschal is sittin’ right across the table right now reading this,” and Cheyenne chuckled and waited for me to finish the tale.
That last group of challengers came out and hit the three of us in the mouth right off the bat and took a 10-2 lead. Energy was sagging, and we knew this could be it. But Tommy – all five-feet-five of him but nothing but muscle and guts – would grab us after losing a point and before we checked the ball back in and say,
“We’ve come too far to lose now. Jus’ give it everything you have. You don’t wanna go home and think, ‘Aw man, I had a little more in me. Come on, now. Leave it all on the floor!” That was the first time I heard anybody say, “Leave it all on the floor,” but when Tommy said it, the doc and I immediately knew what he meant.
I know that generation was competitive, especially the boys down at the Y, who met regularly to try to beat one another. But it seems that Tommy knew that this was bigger than a game, bigger than a Sunday afternoon day at the Y, and more significant than just a moment – this was rare, it was special, it was something that may have never happened at the Y – three underdogs ruling the court over ex-high school stars and current college players. I think Tommy Mike instilled something in me and in Dr. Grant that day that we would carry with us.
We fought from behind – Tommy hit a deep shot, Tommy drove in and found me on the wing for a two, Tommy drove and found Grant on the backside for an easy layup – and we went up 22-20 and had the ball when I did something I hadn’t done all day. I told Tommy, “Let me have the ball; we’re goin’ home.”
I don’t know where that confidence came from, except that Tommy gave it to me. Tommy inbounded to me on the left wing. I caught it and, without hesitation, drove hard to the left baseline, where the guy guarding me, a backup point guard at LaGrange College, cut me off, then I reverse-pivoted toward the middle of the lane, faked a pass to Tommy, who was spotting up in the corner. I could see him, and I could see Sonny in the direct line of vision leaning on that half-door looking on, studying, and I faked a little five-foot hook shot, and when the college guard left his feet to block it, which he would’ve, I did an up-and-under, and I went up with the left hand to lay it off the glass. But Grant’s man came over when he saw the move, and when I went up with the left hand, he jumped, but he didn’t anticipate that I would switch to the right and thread the needle with an underhanded pass to Grant, all alone on the backside. He didn’t miss that pass. And he didn’t miss the dagger-through-the-heart layup to win it, either.
An assist on the basketball court never felt so good. It was better than hitting a three-pointer from three steps past halfcourt. Maybe, looking back, it was a tribute to the assist a small, powerful man gave us that day.
There we were, the doctor and I making that winning basket, while Tommy Mike, who led the whole way and made it all possible, stood in the corner watching it all happen. He had to be proud of that.
We hugged as we walked off the floor, and I walked over to Corrina, who congratulated me and said, “Pup, I was so nervous. Here, look at my nails, I about chewed them off. How did ya’ll do that?
I smiled.
“Ah,” I said, and for the first time, the Tommy-infused confidence oozed out of me, “really, Corrina Belle, it wasn’t as hard as it seemed. There was no pressure on us.”
“No pressure?” She was surprised.
“Oh no,” I said, “you see, Corrina, we weren’t supposed to win anyway.”
Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently spent two years teaching and coaching at Ferris. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) served many years with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, but now spend time evangelizing in several states in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the writing of the ongoing novel/memoir here in the Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, or email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, or see frontporchgospel.com.