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In 1973 when the University of Alabama headed north to play in the NIT the Tide had several Black Americans on their team. As hard as it is to believe but such a journey wasn't just to a basketball tournament, but it was a trip that took the Crimson Tide into modern America. At lot of us were going to make that trip one way or another. I was lucky. My parents gave me a head start.
I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. My family was poor. We lived on the last "white" street before the black neighborhood was started. I was already a white kid who shot basketball for hours at a time. The problem was that there were no other white kids around who played the best game in the world. My Mississippi brothers a block away adopted me. The first summer that the black kids let me play in their games was an evolution to me. It wasn't just about basketball. My parents, liberal whites, in a land of hatred had taught me that everyone wasn't just created equal but everyone is equal in the eyes of God. As my mother used to tell me that God saw right through the color of our skin and into our souls. Ready or not I was going to see what my parents taught me was true or not.
If you grew up in the era I am writing about you can relate. If you are younger I am sure a lot of this is going to seem almost impossible to assimilate. I'm talking about young blacks as well as whites. My world changed that one eventful summer in hot and sticky Mississippi. That summer would open my open my eyes and effect my life forever. Not many people are presented with the opportunity I was given. It made me a better person. Even to this day I feel that God put me in a place he wanted me to be, to learn firsthand the lessons of racial hatred, and to allow me to become someone I would not have become otherwise. My basketball world went from two hand set shots to jump shots, behind the back passes, between the leg dribbles, and no look passes. My real world went from being one of the white kids to being a "nigger lover". I disdain that word, but it accurately conveys the feelings of the time. All of sudden, in less time than it takes to in bound a pass, I had no white friends. In less time you have to cross have court with the ball my life had changed forever.
I cried about all this. I prayed to God to help me understand what it was that I had done wrong. My parents, country people who grew up in rural Alabama tried to put things into a perspective that I could understand. No amount of explanation could ever put the mental illness that gripped our society at that time into terms that made sense. My mother just kept telling me that I should do what is right and things would be okay. Looking back I am sure she meant the long term outlook. The short term result was painful. And it was terrifying, but most of all it was necessary...
My black friends understood all too well what was happening in my world. They rallied round me and protected me and showed me genuine concern. At that time I couldn't understand or even appreciate the life lessons which were being taught to me when most people in the South couldn't or wouldn't address. Many didn't acknowledge a problem existed. I even talked with my pastor. In his office I learned that even the godly could be ungodly. "You are getting what you deserve," was what the pastor said. I realize now that the continued questions about "why" in my life was making him uncomfortable because of a demon he was unable to let go of himself.
Look, I'm not sharing this with you because I am a better person than anyone else. Heck, I may not even be a good person. All I know is that tumultuous summer changed my life. It caused me to evaluate my life. It caused me to question my life and my world. It caused me to try to figure out where I fit in all this. More than a half a decade later I'm still trying to figure out all that stuff. I'm still trying to become a better person. I'm certainly not trying to preach or teach anyone anything. I am just remembering what that trip to NYC in 1973 meant.
A lot of people ask me why I love basketball so much. Well, first I love the fundamentals of the game. The teamwork. I love the wonderful beauty of watching player dribble down the floor and see him figuring out exactly where he fits in the microcosm of life that occurs on the basketball court. But more than any of those things basketball is place where we are truly equal. It is a place where the rancor of life can be set aside for just an hour or so, and I can sit back and feel that things can truly be okay in our world. Basketball has also become a tribute to my parents who raised me 'up right' as we say in Blount County. It is also about one particular black man who taught me the game of basketball and a lot of other fundamentals of life in a turbulent period. Basketball is a game that teaches us about life its ownself on a manageble scale. In basketball the weather is always perfect. The rest rooms are nearby and hot dogs are cookin' on the grill. And if you are lucky enough you can close your eyes and imagine yourself as a young kid growing up in Mississippi with a life so hard that all the ingredients for a better life were in place because up was the only option left. It also reaffirms that God created something special for me, a not so very special person. To me basketball is a reaffirmation of life and second chances. It is about missing a free throw to lose a game, but knowing you might knock down a three to win the next one. Like life, basketball is about all the endless possibilities that await us. In 1973 Alabama brought some black players. In 2011 Alabama brings a black head coach. Change is possible.
And so in the early spring of 1973 a lot of us took that trip to the NIT. None of us had to sit on the back of the bus either.
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