More Adventures in Mexico

Many of the bus rides we took into the mountains and to nearby towns lasted for hours and sometimes we did not make it back to the hotel until very late. On one of these long trips we visited a large market up in the foothills. The air was cleaner and there was no sign of the large city buildings or even of city life. It was like we traveled through a time warp or something and came out into a village in a far distant land where pollution and the hustle and bustle of city life didn't exist. There were lots of people still, everywhere you looked there were vendors and shoppers and tourists and small shops. One thing that I noticed immediately was a man that looked like a manikin standing up on a stool or ladder or something dressed like a gypsy with a turban on his head and standing completely motionless like a statue. There was a little sign next to him that labeled and explained his actions (I couldn't read Spanish yet at that time). Apparently he was demonstrating against something. I stood a ways a way and watched him to see if he ever moved. He did change positions a couple of times but I never caught him actually doing it. Then later in the day like magic he was gone. Near where this man had been demonstrating in his own unique way there was a little store called the Taj Mahal. There was some very sweet incense burning in there and I kept going back in every so often, either to take a closer look or because one of my teammates dragged me in there to show me something. That memory has reminded me so much of a scene from one of my favorite movies, "Kelly's Heroes" with Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland. The scene from the WWII movie is the one where Sutherland's character named "Oddball" shows Kelly (played by Eastwood) his tank unit that he is in command of who happens to be laying low and taking advantage of R and R in a field behind the army's supply depot. The Taj Mahal store had a back door which I peaked out and the scene looked so similar to the "Kelly's Heroes" scene that I watch the movie sometimes just so I can sort of relive those feelings I had that day in that Mexican market. Big B had been taking a long hiatus from smoking the cactus but he mentioned to me on the bus after we left that market that he really felt like toking up for the first time in over a year. I knew what he meant. The mountain air and the ambiance of that market and of that town was as powerful a mind altering experience as any high from any drug I've ever ingested. Before leaving I bought a blue wool blanket that said 'Mexico' on it and a silver chain with a particular silver plant leaf charm attached to it from some street vendors. The silver chain I eventually lost and the blanket I ended up giving to my grandma Ruth (RIP).
We also went to another large market area in the center of the city during our stay. The smog was more severe and the area was much dirtier with more garbage everywhere. There were some sort of animal heads roasting in a big roaster and I asked what they were and one of the guys standing there responded in good English, "It's dog!" in a somewhat evil or thuggish sounding voice. We didn't stay to long at that market.
We went to a major tourist and pilgrimage sight that is well known but I can't remember for sure what it was called. Maybe "Guadalupe.." something or other? It is where a miracle was said to have happened and we got in a long line with hundreds of other people, Mexican families mostly, and traveled slowly down through the layers of the old city to what was now an underground very old hut and saw a lime deposit or something that looked like the standard image of the Virgin Mary. Seeing the layers and layers of the old city while going down into this dungeon like dwelling was as or more curious and interesting as the so called miracle itself. It is still unfathomable to me how a city over time grows up from sea level on top of itself like that. I still can't believe it. The old dwelling where the miracle occurred was like 40 feet down. It was like seeing an excavation sight at an Egyptian Tomb or at an archaeological dinosaur dig. That same day I was so thirsty I decided to buy a pop and a snack. They poured and then gave me pop in a plastic bag (they kept the bottle) and they wouldn't give me all the food I wanted which was just a taco like thing with veges on it. They wouldn't give me veges because they were trying to protect me from Montezuma's revenge, which I didn't realize at the time.
We met the ladies team one day at some nearby ancient Mayan temples. We climbed to the top of Temple of the Sun. The stairs were so small and it was easy to fall. G Money made a move on the cutest babe on the Scranton team (actually they made a move on each other simultaneously) and while the two frolicked about she ended up taking a spill and twisting her ankle while making her way down the Mayan pyramid. I purchased a Temple of the Sun clay pipe at the vendor's tables next to the parking lot. I had that pipe for a long time.
On New Years Eve day we played the Mexican National players again. The sports club we were at had visiting locker rooms that were very run down; it was not the same facility as where we played them the first time. There was water dripping everywhere and it was real dirty and old. The crowd was unruly that game. We heard that they had been waiting for hours to see the game. About the only play I remember from the JV game was on a missed free throw where I jumped in the lane as early as I could (we were getting more used to the lack of good officiating) and went up over the dunking machine from their junior team, missed grabbing the rebound with my right hand but caught it with my left and nearly lean in dunked on the missed free throw. White B talked about it after the game and had seen exactly what I had almost done. Just talking about the play got the both of us hyped and this was a basketball play that I would have loved to be a witness of (watching myself on that play on video tape would be and would have been so awesome, but no such tape exists as far as know). I played real well in both that JV and Varsity game, and I most certainly led the JV in scoring and probably the varsity again too. Both Zeke and G Money got a nice dunk each in games along the way, but this particular game would be a game and an experience that I think drew our team together and helped us go on an amazing run in conference play once we got back to the states and to our regular season play (as I have mentioned previously these games in Mexico were not NCAA sanctioned and therefore did not go on our regular season record). The Mexican team played very physical and dirty and I have already told the story about the head hunting player from the junior team. He pulled that same crap while playing against our varsity. They had their 30 some year old looking black dude with dread locks there to manhandle our big guys. Leave it up to Brute Mahone, the hick from Indiana, to start a fight. That day was the most scared for my life I have ever been. Brute almost started a fight in every game he ever played in actually. And he wasn't even a fighter! It was always all about the drama for him. That game against the Mexican national players got real physical, and eventually the refs lost control to the point where coach almost pulled his team off the court. That fool Mahone had gotten into a shoving match with the big black dude and the two of them squared off for a minute like they were really going to throw down. I sincerely was thinking that our whole team was going to get jumped by an ornery and restless mob of fans and players, 4000 Mexicans versus the 15 or so of us. I give thanks to Jah for allowing us to live through that treacherous ordeal. I was worried that we all were going to have to stand back to back and fight for our lives. That experience brought our team together like nothing else could have. I was thankful for every last player, coach, and chaperon that was with us on the trip and with us at that game.
Our assistant coach and head JV coach Shad Spock threw down some nasty dunks at an outdoor court after one of our games. Someone had the idea of having him play with us in the JV games. It didn't happen. I think I remember running a little four on four at that outdoor court with the JV players and with Spock's girlfriend (she had been a great baller in high school) after our game. The game turned into a dunk fest for Spock and I. We ate dinner on New Years with the other teams players again. G Money and I drank more tequila than I thought was humanly possible. They kept bringing these little bottles for us with the worm in it and everything. When loading on the bus outside after the meal and the festivities put on by our most gracious host I saw coach standing with some burning sparklers in his hand. He motioned me over to an outdoor hoop behind some bushes and behind him which seemed like it appeared out of nowhere. He proceeded to do a rocker step basketball move with his back to the basket and then followed it up with a turn around hook shot and tossed the burning sprinkler through the hoop. Coach was hammered. It was our one moment. He said something to me about how he really liked me as a person. I got on the bus and told some of the guys about coaches sparkler routine. Lil lamb started rapping out loud about female body parts "squooshing and sloshing" and coach's wife heard it and gasped and then stormed out of the bus disgusted. Charlie tried to get coach to let him ride on the girls bus on the way home but coach wasn't having it. I guess the tequila kicked in because I got this crazy idea to see if I could steal Chuck's idea and steal a ride on the girls bus, so I slipped off our bus and slipped into the girls bus like it was nothing. I don't have any idea where or what the coaches were doing. I didn't say much more than hello to the girls and one of them actually spoke to me and said, "Your the one who doesn't talk." Ah yes, at least they had noticed me. My lack of funds alway adversely affected my self confidence concerning the ladies, so thats why I didn't talk much. I think I wanted to meet a Latina cutie more than spend time chasing those Scranton she-ballers. They were a fairly attractive group of young ladies to be honest. After I had been conversing for a while with the ladies coach came into the women's bus where I was with a mad as hell look on his face. He said something about me not wanting to see him get angry. That stunt I pulled was like the little kid who wanted to get attention from his old man or a kid trying to see what kind of crazy stunt he could get away with to try and impress his buddies. Once I got back into the bus I was informed that I was real close to pulling off the switched bus caper but non other than Brute Mahone piped up to coach about "someone" missing. It was right before the buses were about to head off. The ride home was a long one and I barely made it back without getting sick. Damn good thing I wasn't on the ladies bus. I made my way up to our room and took a shower in an attempt to try and sober up. I also hurled in the toilet a few times. I came out of my room to find a big team meeting going on in the hall way. I was dressed only in a towel. Word was that the rest of the team was allowed to go out on the town, all except for me and G Money (and coach himself). I interrupted the meeting (that I was supposed to be a part of) and announced to everyone that they could all blame me for the trouble and then upon turning to go back to my room I dropped my towel and mooned everyone including coach Spock's girlfriend who was also Ike Lambert's sister (I forgot she was there when I did it). That was one rough night of sleep and I almost blacked out at the game the next day and even had to lie down behind the bench for a while during the game.

That is all of the stories from the list I made concerning our adventures in Mexico City. The story of our time spent in sunny Acapulco is still to come.

Ode to the Gold
Acapulco Gold. My case of deodorant was my midnight expressed. Sniff my vapors. Marked ass suckers make your wager. Montezuma's revenge, caught at the Subway on the strip, lettuce was the culprit, my hungry stomach to blame. 17th floor Ramada Inn on the balcony overlooking the Pacific and the mountains, the toilet that night was my only friend. Parasites in the water in the southern hemisphere is the revenge. Am I now immune? Was that experience my friend? The Temple of the Sun's mouth came in handy, a serpentine figurine it was, with a snakes head as the stem, and the Sun god's head in the horizon. A dude on the beach was I approached, and he pointed me to another, then another, then another, the exchange was made, and a natural remedy for my ailment was put to a flame. Some may gasp, some may be oblivious, others would think that I was just having fun. I tell you I lived it, I'm the writer, and now I give it back to the people with whom back in the day I did run. If you are reading this then now its in your head too, here is the universe revealing itself to itself and so now you see it, at least in the form of letters that make these words which you are reading. The waves in Acapulco I felt them, I saw coach get thrown from about ten feet in the water to about 2 feet in, the old man did he look when I was using a body board to ride in. The club that night we did hit it, we met these young cats and a circle we made, and then we battled, one by one, their crew representative in the middle dancing, and then one of our crew members did the same. When my turn came I entered the circle and busted out my well rehearsed short but sweet routine, earning the respect of my teammates and of the Mexican youngsters who danced with us that day. It was good to see that breakn' was alive and well in this festive land. It was one of the best nights of my life, but after that sub sandwich, the shits made me stay in my hotel room for the rest of the freakn' I'm trippn', if only I had the foresight and the money to film that trip and then I would be raking in the riches. From my balcony on the 17 floor below I watched on the strip the flashing lights of the dance clubs that lined the Acapulco coast for many miles. The story goes that on that night when I missed going out with the fellas, a beautiful Mexican girl stuck her hand down the pants of Murph that lucky fella (it was just for a gag and nothing more). I myself even met a hot and sexy young American woman (who modeled for TV commercials) in the lobby of our hotel. She wanted to go out for a beer, approached me she did but I didn't have a dime to spend because Zeke had kicked that door in. I had forgotten about that girl for years until this very moment while rewinding the images in my head from a trip I took south of the border to where the sun shines bright fiery and red and the blue waves of the Pacific Ocean come splashing in. Have you ever met a member of the opposite sex who you have that instant special connection with? But do to circumstances you were unable to get down or get close or experience a love or even just a friendly affair? Maybe at that moment in the lobby in our hotel in Acapulco I should have asked the lovely lady to wait while I tried to borrow some money from one of the guys, and then maybe a night or a lifetime of difference could have occurred for me there. Some other interesting moments did happen while in the city of the golden sun. My teammate G Money was jocked by a chaperon in front of the whole team and everyone at a meeting we had, I think someone sold me out for the clandestine activity I had done. The praise G Money got was ridiculous, and everyone just kind of smirked, when this old guy got up and made a speech like he was John Wooden. "One player on this team represents the attitude of a winner and of a Spartan, and that player is Brag Havatake!" was that old man's war cry; which games had he been watching? Let him step on the court and try to run. One last tidbit or two of memories about that great city, there was a bar on the strip called "Happy Hour" which had drink specials all day long. Rundy and Havatake made it their home base, and drank pina collatas from dusk to dawn. Rundy was caught on the beach by the cops after hours one night with a player from the Scranton squad, he then had to pay off the cops to avoid more harassment. I caught Chucky Amsterdam creepn' from a room of a Scranton player, that New Orleans personality was more than a woman could bare. Finally upon our departure I said goodbye to the hotel high rise and to the lobby that had the indoor waterfalls, mirrors, and rock garden indoor pond. On the bus ride to the airport just like the bus ride in I saw huge "gold" plants growing in the jungle. Upon boarding the airplane Rundy was the last one on, little Spanky was part Mexican from his mom who was from the land of the sun. He made a vow he would return some day and I shared his sentiment. I did not want to leave. We all made it through customs, the gold in the deodorant intact, "Represent your team, your school and your country" were the words coach had departed to us, so I did in my own way, it was about way more then just having fun. I know it was unwise and even stupid it was, to smuggle my ideas of freedom, choice, and justice as a practitioner of ideas of a woman named Jane that was grown in the land of the sun. We returned via Air Mexicana to Chicago in winter, a blizzard was what we came back to. Coming home was so depressing for me, but we had the rest of the season to look forward to and a new vast arsenal of memories, from a trip of a lifetime to a place where the Aztecs once ruled and where the Mayans came from.

The Holidays in Mexico City

There are so many good stories from my Mexico trip that I took with and while playing on the University of Dubuque Men's basketball team. It was the trip of my life. I also happened to play the basketball of my life against the best players in Mexico, including seven players from the Mexican National team, two of which were also on the Mexican Olympic team. I had my only career real game college dunk in Mexico, a real beauty, on the first day after arriving in Mexico City via Acapulco and Chicago on an airline called Air Mexicana. That part of the story has been told in a previous post. That post was basically about the first day of our trip including a partial summary of the basketball side of things. As I have mentioned before, my laptop was on the fritz for a while and during that time I discovered the proper order of some important events and stories. So when I restarted writing again after getting the laptop working I went back in time in my mind to my freshman year and wrote a couple important tales, which have been included in my last couple of posts. So back to Mexico now during winter break of my sophomore season. The second day of our trip in Mexico was Christmas day. We played games versus various club teams from the region almost everyday while in Mexico City and in between traveling to games we traveled around on a large luxurious tour bus with a beautiful woman as our tour guide. I believe she was an important government official, perhaps the head of tourism in Mexico City even. Its hard to remember the exact order of how everything happened in our travels from day to day and from game to game. We played a few weaker teams and actually won some games, but we played the really good team with the national team and Olympic team players on it twice. Our hotel was real nice and we stayed with and did some traveling with a womens team from Scranton, Pennsylvania. There was a Dennie's Restaurant across the street from our hotel in another hotel nearby, and that was about it for anything resembling American style food. Coach allowed us some free time to do what ever we wanted at night when we as a team made it back to the hotel at a decent hour after a day of playing and sight seeing. On Christmas night we were at the Hotel and used the chance to take a walk around. The city was like nothing I had or have ever seen. There was old beautiful Spanish architecture along with modern sky scrapers and so forth everywhere. There were people living in every store front and in every square inch of park space or where ever there was open space. The word was that the people from the surrounding mountains had been coming into the city looking for work and ended up living in what ever space they could find. There was a fairly nice large park just down the street from our hotel with thousands of people and families living in giant card board boxes. It seemed unusually organized and the area was neatly roped off from the sidewalk and street. There were markets with puppet shows and musicians and magic acts and all sorts of street entertainers and vendors. Everywhere there was a festive atmosphere. There was one stage set up with some musicians or performers, I'm not sure what to call them, all dressed up in really intricate costumes in a Christmas scene like setting and they were allowing kids or people to get on the stage and have their picture taken with them. One of my teammates in our little group had the idea of getting on stage and getting our picture taken with the performers, so we did. I think that these particular performers were from India. They did that purely East Indian side to side head movement when they were performing that I have always found so strange and hypnotic. The feeling I had at that particular time on stage with the fellas and the entertainers was one like I have never felt before. I don't know the words to describe it. It all seemed like a dream. The guys in the photo included Big B Growley, Brag Havatake, White B aka Sneaky Sig, Bad Shamron, Johny Duke, and myself. Cray Murphy and or Feldi (a JV player on the team and on the trip that I forgot about) might also have been in the photo. The photo itself changed hands between players a few times through the years. I think Big B. ended up with it; I used to see it around at his mom's house in the ICE (which happened to be a house once owned by the legendary author Kurt Vonnegut). I've been thinking about the possibility of making a documentary someday about my basketball upbringing, something akin to the legendary award winning skate board documentary "Dog Town Z-boys", and the photo from that Christmas night in Mexico would be a cornerstone photo representing the Mexico trip. There were photographers at many of our games and even in the markets ready and pushing to sell you a photo.
On one of our many outings we were taken to a major business center that had plazas, business buildings, old architecture, restaurants, etc... There were people everywhere. Some really young kids dressed in simple white clothing sang some harmonizing Mexican melodies on the sidewalk as an older gentleman, presumably their father, played the guitar. During that whole day a stark naked Indian, naked except for some rags that hung around his neck, followed us around off at a distance, usually about a block or so away. He was just letting it swing in the breeze and hang free, and he was unusually well hung, I mean really unusually, and he was quite tall. He was very dark skinned with scraggly hair down to his neck. I looked at everyone on the team to see if they were watching what was happening, and it seemed like I was the only one to take notice. Coach was looking at me funny and seemed to be watching me. I even made a remark to G - Money like "What's with old boy following us around. The guy is hung like a horse." G- money started laughing and coach and everyone looked at us like we were way out of line or something. I had a sincere straight look on my face and I didn't think it was funny. To see such a sight was disturbing yet very curious at the same time. Everyone else in our group looked away and ignored it, most wouldn't even look at me looking at them not looking at the naked Indian, even when he was beaten down in front of our eyes by a policeman with a night stick. What was the message there? What did that naked man want us to see or think? It seemed like I was the only one that was human in my reaction to that situation. I've always felt that there was something unusually significant about that experience, like it was something that I saw or was supposed to see that was such a powerful and unforgettable once in a lifetime event that it compelled me to have to write this story. I felt great compassion for all the struggling people I saw in Mexico City. During my post-Dubuque years studies at the University of Iowa while obtaining my B.A. in history I took several classes pertaining to Mexican history. They included Colloquium for History Majors: Women of Latin America, The Mexican Revolution, and a class on The Conquest. I also took two years of Spanish and several of my teachers were from Mexico and I studied the Mayans in a class called Introduction to Native American Studies. So, now, while writing this some 20 years after the trip, I know much more about the city and the history of Mexico City and of Mexico in general. The Aztec Indians ruled the majority of Mexico before the arrival and conquest by Cortez the Killer. The Aztec capitol was located in an enormous valley surrounded by mountains and was in essence a giant floating city situated in the middle of huge lake where Mexico City now stands. Cortez's men fought the Aztec's on the causeways which connected the mainland to the city. Overtime the lake was filled in and it now no longer exists. There is so much pollution in Mexico City because of the mountains that surround the city. The exhaust from automobiles and from factories in the city are trapped in the great valley unable to escape. The smog was very apparent, very visible, and the air and the sun were always hazy. During our travels in our tour bus we embarked several times up into the mountains. On one occasion we must have been on the side of a mountain because I could see for what seemed like miles of sloping hills going off into the distance. As far as I could see in one direction there were shantytowns, or actually it was one giant shantytown. There is a strange juxtaposition in this little story about the shantytown. Most of the guys on the team (all but Big. B and I) did not take to the Mexican cuisine, so our tour guide took us to a Mexican McDonald's. The interesting part was that it was very near the edge of the giant shantytown, maybe even across the street, I can't quite remember, but it was definitely close. The food at McDonald's didn't taste much like the McDonald's we were used to. They use corn oil and corn flour for cooking much more in Mexico. There were some jokes made about the possibility of horse meat in the McMexican burgers. Later that day we passed by the 1960 Olympic Stadium and heard a brief history of it. It was located in an enormous and immaculately clean acreage surrounded by a huge steel fence. I can't remember if it was a park or what. We were on a bit of a hill overlooking the grounds, which must have been many square miles in size , and off in the distance in this huge area that looked like the worlds biggest golf course (the grass was perfect and there was no garbage to be seen) we could see the Olympic stadium shining bright in the sun and looking like it was an enormous spaceship or something. It was the size of a small mountain and it was a real contrast in the foreground of the distant mountains that lay far off in the horizon. Our tour guide also took us to the central plaza in the heart of Mexico City. For some reason my teammate Goofy wanted me to try and enter the entrance area into the subway terminal, and when I did so an armed security policeman stepped in front of me and pointed his machine gun at me and waved me away. Goofy then wanted me to take a ride with him in a horse and buggy around the central plaza, so I did and he payed for it. I learned in my Mexican history studies that while they were building the underground subways preceding the Olympic games they dug down and hit the old causeways that Cortes himself and the Aztecs fought on. Hence the subways were built on the old causeways and beautiful murals depicting the beauty of the Aztecs and Mexican history and of the Spanish conquest were painted on the underground subway walls. The murals are said to in part have told the brutal history of the conquest, a fact that is not hidden but celebrated by the government as part of their unique heritage. On another one of the nights where we had some free time we went out to a nearby club. On the way, just outside our hotel, we flagged down a car full of local fellas, rapped a few minutes with them and asked them where to go, and even persuaded them to part with a few Tecate servesas, which we promptly slurped down right there in the middle of the street. The club was an upstairs joint, nothing to big or fancy. There were some attractive Mexican girls in the establishment and I even found the courage to step up and talk to one. She acted like she didn't speak English, but later I caught her talking to Zeke in perfect English and once back home I saw a whole bunch of photos with Zeke and the Mexican cutie I had picked out. Good for him, and the funny thing was Zeke wasn't even known as a ladies man. In fact in my three or four years of knowing Zeke I had never seen him have a stronger connection with a girl than he did with that girl that night in Mexico City. The Mexican basketball fans all thought that Zeke was Michael Jordan or something. Besides dance music and such the DJ in the club that night played some contemporary hip-hop like "Jump Around" by House of Pain and "Hip-hop Hurray" by Naughty by Nature. The team did a step line dance (black fraternity style of dancing) around the whole bar and everyone in the club got in line behind us and joined in. At one point I was standing up somewhere drinking a beer and out of nowhere Brute Mahone, the hick from Indiana, comes up from behind me and grabs me and plants a wet one right on my cheek and says, "You got more moves than a hundred dollar hooker. Its a pleasure to be your teammate." I think I may have started that crazy stunt when I was real drunk one night while trying to embarrass one of my oh so tough and oh so cool, too cool, teammates. The truth is I loved my teammates like brothers. There were some not so nice moments on the trip and some friction within the team. In our hotel in Mexico City Big B., White B., and I were roommates. Zeke, Lil Lamb, and G Money were across the hall. They called themselves "One, Two, and Three " which were their positions on the court. I tried to say, "Hey yeah, and I'm Four," which was my position. They didn't like that and were like "NO, no,no..." Their reaction was predictable. I think they felt threatened by the possibility of me taking their starting positions due to the way I had been playing on the trip, especially with leading both JV and Varsity in scoring and also dunking in the first game and all on the junior teams best player. About three days or so into the trip I was walking by their room or standing in the doorway and Zeke came out of the bathroom and flicked water in my face. He was like, "That's toilet water cous!" Lil Lamb chimed in as the dominate instigator, "Oh man, Zeke through toilet water on you." He kept saying that over and over. I was like OK, thats how they want to play? Big B. and White B. saw the incident and pointed out the obvious fact that they were trying to conspire a plan to bring me down. We formed our own plan which included Big B. shitting on a newspaper, White B. sliding it under the door, and me knocking on the door, and then running. The plan worked all to well, way to well, because I heard Zeke got shit on his clothes somewhere. I was in our room when all of a sudden the door comes flying off the hinges and Zeke comes charging in yelling. Surprised I stepped back and tripped on the bed while he swung on me and hit me with two glancing blows on the top of my head (I never felt a thing). I was like, "What the f--- you doing?" He really wanted to go but somehow it was avoided. Soon after that I ran into Zeke in the elevator while going down and he asked if I wanted to go right there. I should have. The thought of physically assaulting someone makes me sick for the most part, and I have always been more scared of hurting someone then of being hurt. Me and Zeke were pretty closely matched in size and strength and in everything, but we never went. That situation put an uncomfortable riff between Zeke and I forever there after. Coach said he didn't want to know what happened and we all had to pay for the door, which really sucked seeing as how I had about the least amount of money as anyone on the team. I had to borrow ten dollars from Murph in Acapulco. Back to Brute Mahone for a minute. He was one of those guys who always started some sort of drama in every situation, be it a game, a trip, a party, you name it. On this trip the drama revolved around his girlfriend who was back in Dubuque. He had been calling her non stop and was planning on borrowing money from coach for an early plane trip home. We had a big team meeting and Brute explained to the whole team that his girl friend was talking about suicide and that he needed to go back. He left to make another call, but came back a little later and much happier. He apologized and said he wasn't going home early now. He then said, "You know how you all have been trying to gang tackle everyone on the team at least once this trip, well you still haven't gotten me yet," then he swung open the door and ran out of the room like we were all going to jump up and chase him. No one even flinched a muscle and you could hear crickets chirping for a few moments before Zeke and then everyone else started laughing hysterically. Another interesting story about our stay while in Mexico City involved meeting this local fella named George who was educated in the states and spoke perfect English. He even found our hotel and called our room and asked if we wanted to go to a party. Bad Shamron and I ended up traveling out with him and he showed us around one night. He introduced us to a high class female street worker he knew well, and she went up to Shamrun and opened her coat to reveal some incredible cleavage. I told that story to the whole team and told about and demonstrated the cross eyed look and huge smile on Shamrun's face while eyeballing the street workers huge jugs. I told our friend George that I thought his lady friend was a bit too old for my liking. I think that was exactly the way George liked them and he seemed puzzled that I didn't agree.

During the last couple of months my laptop has been out of order and during that time I had to resort to and revert back to writing with pad and pen. I was really in the groove writing every day and night before the laptop's power chord broke beyond repair (I had to wait for my mom to send me a new one, she had a spare). Those past moments and memories that I was writing about were all fresh in my mind so I wrote down in a list all the little themes within the stories that were still bouncing around in my noggin and waiting to be told. I also did some research by looking through my old newspaper clippings to try and find out the timings of some certain events. Luckily I did this because I discovered that one of the most crucial memories from playing for UD and scoring official NCAA baskets occurred during my freshman year instead of my sophomore year. I had been writing about events from my sophomore season when the computer technical difficulties occurred, so I need to backtrack to in-conference play during the second semester of my freshman year. Here is the newspaper article from the Telegraph Herald about the game which I am referring to:

Spartan Men Win
by Craig Reber

Trailing by 19 points and a five game losing string hanging like an anvil in a willow tree, the University of Dubuque used a big second half to knock off Luther, 89-87, Friday night at UD's McCormick Gymnasium.
Luther was tied with Loras for third place in the Iowa Conference, Dubuque was sixth.
The skid was wearing on a number of Spartans including 6 foot 7 senior (Shad Spock).
"This was one we really wanted," said (Spock), who scored 15 points and pulled down nine rebounds. "Luther is one of the top teams in the conference. Maybe its a start. Maybe we can knock off the rest of the teams in the conference."
Dubuque could play spoiler, with road games remaining at co-league leaders Central and Simpson on Feb. 28-29.
Luther jumped to a 13-0 lead on 5-of-7 shooting and extended it to 25-6 midway in the first half. Dubuque scrapped back in the second half and took its first lead, 76-75, on a (Period Baby) layup with 6:33 remaining and held off a late Luther charge.
(Mac) added 15 points for the Spartans(8-12 overall, 5-6 conference). Jim Holien, Steve Hillman, Troy Terry and Scott Heggen all had 13 points each for Luther (12-9, 7-4).
"Tonight we beat insurmountable odds, nobody felt we could play this way, said UD's (head coach). "It's an indicator of our character. They battled and that was the key."

End of article.

Not a bad little sports article in my opinion, especially the imagery of the anvil hanging in the willow tree. The first line in the article reads, "Trailing by 19 points...". That was true, but here is the rest of the story: At that time the score was 19-0, but there was just under 5 minutes to play in the first half. The part in the article about the Spartans trailing 25-6 midway through the first half is inaccurate. At like 4:50 to go before halftime I remember looking up at our big goose egg on the scoreboard and sitting on the bench wondering if Luther was going to hold us scoreless in the first half. It was at that moment when coach turned and looked down the bench and yelled, "Matt! Get in the game and lets see how tough you are!" He then turned back and began yelling at the refs or one of the other players on our team. I jumped up thinking to myself, "Why that mutha... f---er, see how tough I am?" I got in the game and scored 5 points in a matter of moments, first a three then a two pointer. Big Ced, a 6-9 brother who occasionally (do to multiple injuries) played on the football team said to me after the game that as soon as I hit that three pointer all the girls in the stands stood up and started screaming my name. After scoring the baskets each time I looked over at coach and he didn't even know what had happened or who scored because he had been to busy yelling at the starters that were currently riding the pine. I ended the game shooting 2 for 3 from the field for five points total, which was more points then Zeke, the kid from Morton, my roommate Ike Lambert, Brute Mahone, and G Money himself Brag Havatake(who didn't even make it into the box score) scored. I only played a few minutes the entire game while most of the guys I listed played major minutes. I'm not saying I was better than any of those guys or anyone else, but I always felt and still feel like I constantly had to prove myself as a worthy college level baller on the court, even if it was only Division III basketball. Some other notes of interest, Chucky Amsterdam was in the box score, so I guess he had transferred to our school and joined the team over winter break, and maybe the same goes for Rundy, who was also in the box score. As the team walked off the court after the game coach was standing at the gym's exit next to the bleachers. As I approached he stuck out his hand like he was going to shake hands with me so I started to extend my hand, but he sidestepped me and walked to congratulate and shake Cray Murphy's hand who was coming behind me. Zeke happened to be watching and chuckled a little and condescendingly remarked, "You were the spark, bro!" Gee, thanks. I thought even right at the time of it occurring that coach walking past me when I had my hand out was a once in lifetime like comic moment even though I was the one that looked the fool. I should have known better. Its all good though because I can still laugh about it to this day. I may have seemingly and possibly combined some aspects of this story with other stories in my previous blog entries, but coach was always yelling at someone when I scored a basket and he was always congratulating Murph, the back up point guard, after games. This story as I told it is how it actually happened and it was the highlight of my freshman season and one of my varsity NCAA basketball highlights while playing for the UD Spartans.

There is another story that I need to tell but I can't remember for sure which year it happened. The story is not about a slam dunk of mine or about some points I scored in a game, it is about having an end of the season meeting in coach's office with coach and Shad Spock about the season and about if I had achieved my goals. The part that confuses me about which year that this particular meeting occurred is that Spock was at the meeting. He was team captain my freshman year and he was the JV coach my sophomore year so there was good reason for him to be at the meeting either year. Also, I remember talking to Ike Lambert about the meeting afterwards which leads me to think that the meeting occurred my freshman year, although I still talked to and hung out with Ike after he transferred to Loras during my sophomore year. So I now think that this unforgettable meeting occurred at the end of my freshman season. Why it was unforgettable has to do with the fact that I broke down into tears in front of coach and Spock to the point where I couldn't speak. The look on Spock's face was like he had been forced to witness an execution for the first time or something. There was so much I wanted to say to coach but I couldn't conjure up the strength to spit it all out. I was frustrated with my class schedule and that I was missing so much class and so much practice. I was a poor kid and going into major debt attending the University of Dubuque. My middle class parents helped a little but they felt the burden of there contribution which fostered a sense of guilt inside me. I was expected to work work-study jobs, an idea which I basically ended up abandoning after being fired or quitting one to many times. I didn't have a car and had to walk a very long way to class and practice every day. It seemed no one else on the team had to carry as heavy a workload as I did. For one thing the inner city poor kids on the team got way more financial aid than I did, and the other kids on the team were from wealthy enough families that they could afford to pay tuition outright. It's been 20 years now since then and as I sit here and write this I still haven't finished paying back my student loans. Also, I wanted coach to realize himself that if he wanted the best chance for his team to win then he should have played me more. Since I was not recruited by coach (I chose UD, it didn't choose me) I felt like he didn't have a clear vision of what I could do for his team. I also was probably having guilty feelings toward the fact that I drank and smoked every day, and that I wasn't shooting baskets by myself every day like the gym rat that I had been the previous semester and for most of my life. It was a very awkward moment in coaches office and coach admitted to me on occasion that he didn't quite know how to handle me or get me to become the type of player or leader or teammate that he wanted me to be. Of course I always thought that I would be a better coach than most of the coaches I ever played for and this was true for my coach at UD too, so that was another thing I was keeping welled up inside as the tears were flowing during our meeting. I don't think anything was accomplished at that meeting. I remember apologizing to Spock that he had to sit through such a pathetic display of pent up emotion. Coach said to me before I walked out of his office, "It's OK, it means that you care." I cared alright, way to much.

Here is a poem I wrote many years ago after playing ball for the last time at the University of Iowa Field House in my hometown of Iowa City. I wrote it many years after the Dubuque experience and after I had come home and solidified my legacy as one of the ICE's most authentic and legitimate street ballers who put together and led teams to many a victory and even to a few city league titles. I want to post this poem and get it out there before it is lost, never to be contemplated, ridiculed, or enjoyed by others:

He's Given His life to the Game

But who cares?
Writing poetry with his motions, moves that only give other players silly notions, An aging hippie playing the part of, A warrior in sheep's clothing preparing for battle with unyielding determination to play for his love... the game.
But who cares?
Years preparing, learning, giving, teaching, paying the price for game. Confronting fears and strengthening weaknesses. Seen em all, played with and against some good, some great, some legends. But usually waiting, and watching in corners, practicing, or defending courts of childhood lore, once described as hardcore. It's all real...
But who cares?
Overseas the possibility of dreams await, been there too, small school. In the red for his passion and the adventures, came away with some game, some say more, while others say: "Why does he do all that practicing for?" Led teams composed of of leftovers, looked overs, or whoever would play with him to victories of unbelievable proportions, those that fell to the player and his team still not believing how and that they lost, He always plays to win, no matter what the cost...
But who cares?
"He's not that good! I can take him, his outside shot is suspect, no handles, no defense, out of control, hacking mother f-er!"
Just step to the stage, don't be fooled by his old age, bad back, bad knees, bad ankles, the basketball player's Nemesis.
But he plays on, giving for the love of the game, over coming the feeling of pain. So don't underestimate the old and the meek, those who lace them up for the passion of playing the game, it's more than victories that they seek. It's for the life and the love of the game he plays, so takers beware!
But still, nobody cares.
So there he sits, writing about a game he once played, if only the aging process could be delayed.

End of Poem


I wrote this poem after an afternoon of playing basketball at The University of Iowa Field House (in the south gym where there are 6 full courts). Playing had become a more and more spiritual experience for me every time I played. This day of playing was a day near the climactic end of my basketball journey, and I think it was the last day of playing full court at the Field House, or it was very close to it. I went by myself that afternoon. A one man gang. I parked my truck in the University owned parking lot that lied directly under the south gym, a lot that I had cleaned for years while working for the parking department. My mother parked in that same parking lot since its opening and worked at the U of Iowa Hospital across the way as an RN in the pediatric ward. I had been to Punt, Pass, and Kick competitions as a kid during the mid 1970's at this very spot before the old Field House Armory was torn down and the new south gym was built. Back in the day on this spot there was just a huge field next to the old Field House where the Hawkeye basketball teams used to play before Carver Hawkeye Arena was built, teams coached by basketball legend Lute Olson with players like Ronnie Lester and Bobby Hansen and where I saw Meadow Lark Lemon and the Harlem Globe Trotters play and where Meadow Lark hit a 3/4 court hook shot. Before going inside I said a little prayer and gave thanks for the day and for the talents and for the opportunities. It had become normal for me to do this as time had gone by and as the stakes had always gotten bigger. It was a response to the feeling I had acquired or come to terms with over the years of not knowing for sure whether or not this day or this day of playing basketball would be my last on this earth. Who knows what can happen with gangs, thugs, egos, rivals, or a fluke accident on the court playing a physical game with 9 other grown men running and jumping and checking... If things fell the wrong way it could lead to permanent injury, being assaulted, assaulting someone in self defense, jail, or even death. I admit this feeling probably evolved from the paranoia I had developed while romancing the stoned. I had seen a lot of things playing ball all those years and I had heard a lot of stories, including all the undesirable possible outcomes I mentioned. I played the game hard, and I always played on the best court if I could get in that game, and that meant playing with major Div. I athletes, sometimes against pro athletes, and often on the black guy's court, and often against gang members or rivals or who ever? It wasn't like that everyday of the year at the Field House, but weekday afternoons were like that almost every day, or at least when school was in session and when basketball was in season. I went into the gym after having to walk by the Olympic sized swimming pool that separated the south gym basketball courts from the rest of the Field House. I remember walking in the door to the gym, like I had done thousands of times before, and smelling that old familiar smell that all gyms have, a mix of sweat and floor cleaner and various deodorants. It was not a super busy day, but most courts had games on them. I shot around to warm up near the best court and soon a kid walked up to me and said, "You wanna run next game?" Of course I did. He had next game on one of the top two courts, but it was one of the courts at the far end and not the middle west side court where the best games were usually played. My team was made up of a bunch of short kids, but they were decent ball handlers and decent shooters and they played smart, never trying to do more than they could (in short they passed the ball around instead of trying to beat the defender one on one). We easily won the first game and then moved to center court. As we were playing, more and more ballers and some of the usual black crowd came in. There was some tall white dude who I saw dunk in a game earlier, and my team was matched up against his team in our second game. I had never seen him before and he was talking to some other familiar looking guys so I bet he was from nearby Cedar Rapids, a city of over 200,000 people. On one play in our game the kid was trying to get away on a breakaway but I took a good angle on the play and caught up to him and hacked him pretty good on the arm while trying to knock the ball away and as he was going in for a dunk. Sorry fella, not on my court. I heard the kid talking to a buddy before the game and they were talking about whether some kid named "the goat" was going to show up (at the time the comment stood out because one of the greatest streetball legends ever from New York was nicknamed "The Goat"). Somehow I thought maybe they were talking about me because I always sported a goatee. Anyways, we beat the kids team and then found ourselves in the position of holding and defending center court, which was about the most honored position a baller can say when they go out to the bars later that night and recant their days accomplishments to their pals or to their gal. But the story was just beginning for us that day. We ended up holding the top court for a 4 or 5 game stretch, beating stacked teams made up of players with local ballers like Toby Newsome, Rob Moore, Kevin Washpun, Diondre, etc... As the taller white kid was walking off the court after being defeated he told the next teams best player, a tall black dude with corn rows I recognized from somewhere, from C.R. I think, and I know he played college ball somewhere (Ellsworth J.C. maybe?): "Watch out for that dude, he's hardcore." He was referring to me. There were some close games in our streak, and the opposing teams kept getting more and more stacked. On one occasion the little dude on my team who originally picked me up (i.e. asked me to play) came up to me between games as the two teams were first matching up before the first check, and said, "Do we even have a chance this game?" I said, "Yeah, just play smart and hit your open shots. Then I quickly broke down the opposition and pointing to each player on the other team I said: don't let this guy shoot the jumper, make this guy shoot the jumper, keep this guy from penetrating, etc... and I'll get all the boards. In every game that day my teammates started hitting early jumpers to put us out to an early lead, and on at least one occasion Toby and his crew made a late in the game run. It was clear to see the momentum swing in those games and my team definitely got rattled near the end of some games, but we kept pulling out the wins. They would finally just pass me the ball and let me go to work when ever things got tight and I would put the team on my back. I carried us to some tough wins and my teammates were great, especially for realizing where to pass the ball at the end of games. I had some heated battles against the tall black dude from C.R. He tried to put a dribble move on me a few times, but I had seen it somewhere before, so when he faked and swerved right and cut left, I just cut left and he would collide into me and then call a foul. The same play happened about three times in a row and a fight almost erupted. I said one thing, and that was that I had reached the spot first while going for the ball when he made his moves and that he ran into me. It turned into a bit of a showdown and I was flexing my muscle, one against many, a one man gang, but it definitely could have ended badly, but the white kid who tried to dunk on me was right, I was "hardcore." I tried to use a power spin move at the end of one game when my team was having a problem even getting a good shot off, and I stepped on the C.R. dude's foot, managed to still get an easy shot off, but missed, and the dude said, "O.C. muther F---er!" O.C. meant "Out of Control" but I didn't realize exactly what he had said and at the time I even thought that maybe he was calling me an "O.G. mother f---er", which was something entirely different. We won that game somehow. The final game, exhausted and weary, went the same as usual. The game again went into duce and again I had to take over offensively for my team near the end. It seemed as though I was earning the respect and admiration of everyone there, even from the C.R. black dude who I was again matched up against in this last game. I was so worn out and was running on nothing but adrenalin, but I recognized the beauty of the moment and so I found energy and spring in my step as though I was drawing power from the land and the building and the history of this place and the special connection I had had with it for the past 20 years. On one particular play the C.R. brother was guarding me tight as I brought the ball across half court. My team had spread the floor out and"feeling it" I whispered to my opponent, "Watch my left." It was like I could feel the rhythm of everything and everyone on the court and I knew what move I had to do, which was a move and a play I had never made before, but I could feel it inside of me that I could pull it off (I felt spring in my legs). I jab stepped left then right but crossed over back to my left and I had the kid turned and the steps to the basket counted. I picked up my dribble, planted the left, then the right and with all my momentum going up and forward I went up for a left handed dunk, which would have been my first and only left handed dunk on a ten foot hoop in any game in my life. I was high enough to dunk but the defender made a last second cheap foul and barely was able but managed to push me in the hip. I was to far away from the basket, and he had just saved himself from being flushed on by a white dude at the end of a game in a half court set and after I called my shot. I called the foul, and laughed a little and walked back to the top of the key to check the ball. Everyone just stared in awe I guess? I wish I could have seen the play myself? I am not trying to brag, I am just telling the story as it happened, and I felt and feel very fortunate to have lived through and experienced such great basketball plays. I really feel in a way that the people watching some plays are more lucky to have witnessed the play then the ones actually involved. I know I was high enough to dunk, I felt the perfect plant and the perfect jump, and executed perfectly my instinctual yet preconceived plan of attack. I turned the defenders hips around so bad I was surprised he was even able to foul me, and in fact he looked very awkward doing it. My team somehow managed to score again and on the next play back at our end I grabbed an offensive board after a missed shot from one of my teammates and put up a shot after getting hammered by two dudes underneath, but didn't call the foul, and out jumped again the two taller, bigger, more athletic looking black dudes under the basket for the rebound, and went up again for what I thought was a sure two. The C.R. dude managed to grab my wrist in desperation and once again caused me to miss the shot. The ball circled around on the rim and I thought for sure it was going to fall in and that we had won (or were going to win) the game, and after I was fouled I was so out of breath that I couldn't speak or call the foul even after everyone paused for a moment, but my shot attempt just rimmed out (even with the dude hanging on my arm I almost made it) and the C.R. cat just stood there and said to me, "You gotta call your fouls." Next thing you know the ball was going the other way, they scored, scored again, and then it was over. It is not proper basketball eddicate to call a late foul and I tried to always follow the code, so it was a play I just let go do to circumstances and overconfidence and it was one I would regret. So we lost, I shook hands with the victors and my own teammates, and then went home. It was a great day of playing, but that loss still gnaws at me to this day. Going undefeated would have been a perfect ending to a great day of hoops(dare I say legendary? - it is in my own mind anyway). Once at home I felt so depressed that the day was over, that playing basketball that day was over, that I was alone, that I cost us a chance to win in the last game, and that maybe it was going to be my last time playing. It wasn't the last time I ever played, there was just as memorable one last day of basketball at the Robert A. Lee Community Rec Center, my home away from home, yet to come. Anyway, I was so depressed that I used my soka (Sanskrit for grief) and made sloka (Sanscrit) for art, and wrote the poem, But who cares?

8 Mile Inspired

Do or die, make or break, like B Rabbit in "8 Mile" it's got to happen for me now, or... I'll be broke and half crippled. When B. Rabbit first tried to perform in front of a crowd on the Mic he got psyched, but me, I'm just a writer, my work is done at home, late at night, in front of a type writer. I like to catch the spontaneous thoughts as they come, sometimes not just for fun or not to be outdone, but so down the road I can reflect, relive, and review a moment caught on paper in a rhyme that I spun. And its not about battling an MC opponent. This is my story, including the stories of many others, but I have the last word here, I'm the writer, I'm the poet. So all you play write haters f--- off! and just enjoy it, and as for my writing and rhyming skill go ahead and watch me hone it. I used to play ball, the game captured my soul, I wanted to play forever but instead I grew old. My lap top was broke, my desk top is not working, so there I sat writing with pen and paper like an old fool, while in my mind the memories were lurking. Eminem gave me some inspiration, the old school hip hop, that generation is where I came from and where I was branded. The I.C.E. is not Detroit and it sure ain't the windy city, and it definitely ain't the NYC or the land of Cali, but hip hop was playing on my radio in the early eighties with songs like "Jam On It", a quick shouts out to KRUI and a DJ named Monk, then to DJ Early who always rocked the funk. My homeboy Scott rocked a tape from La Rock, and it was he who taught me the art of slam dunking. From the age of 12 I be jammin, it started on the low hoop at the Longhorn school, and my boy Scott loves to catch Salmon. This rap is dedicated to to the memory of all the summers that we were slammin, from the Robert A. Lee to a park we called Dodge, to across the river at Roosevelt where we shoveled snow and played in the fog, or back to the east side at Horace Mann old school low hoops against the Hillbillies where Scott would jump like a frog. And those days of working out at Shraider Field late night undercover style, with Big B. or and Big Swan was a secret of our basketball power. Together the beast and I ran and together we won championships. It was fun while it lasted, for ten years or more we hooped and competed, but eventually it all came to an end, and all that is left is a few plaques, a few trophies, a few memories, and now because of me there is also a few recorded stories written by my pen. For the good or for the worse I write and sometimes I rhyme, and sometimes the spoken word is my companion, but tonight with the pen as my sword I unveil my soul and reveal the stories of a silly game, all with reckless abandon. "8 Mile" rocks the TV set and VCR, but earlier 10 miles south I road on my bike, then 10 miles north I returned, all for pastries, for beer, and for a Red Bull to fuel my journey. My poor back does it hurt from doing my work, and bless my back for the load it has carried, the strain I put it through on the court, in the factories, and on the street, so many times was I stupid or foolish or blind or clueless, I could get so drunk that I could think like a Buddhist. The Buddha's teachings I did study, from the wisdom passed on I hope I have learned, as for the teachings of Jesus, Rama, and Mohamed their wisdom by me has been observed, on the court it was Magic, His Airness, the Doctor, and Bird. These things I reference, the wisdom, the teachings, 8 Mile, the ballers, the stories, and my dreams, by some must seem absurd. His story did I study, and his story of world religions did I expound, The U. of Iowa was my teacher, while the streets and ball courts of the I.C.E. were my playground. The night life was a blur, so I give a shout out to the G. Room and a birthday shouts out to the One Eyed Snake, I once fell in like with a girl from my friend Joe's place, and now her name resides on a street post next to the corner on the curb. Dion's pad was our hang out, Stag and Wally bought and brought the beer, and Mary Jane was our lady and music was our friend, there was a mouse that was modest, and Wally bought a Benz, ohh woops I mean a beamer, and this story does not end. But before this ever happened, Big B. and I took our game to U.D., inside and outside was our forte, we were the street ballers from the I.C.E. On this blog is where the UD stories are being recorded, at Dion's crib is where many a stories were told and many a girl has been courted. If someone tries to byte my rhymes, lyrics, or phrases, its OK, because the story is mine, I lived it, and for me when I write it is my personal oasis. It is a break from the monotony of my rural and secluded lifestyle where I live off and on the land, grow my own food and raise goats all according to my master plan, I wish I had my own land, so I could properly manage the resources, build a house, or move and live in my caravan. On other peoples land there seems to be the tendency of arising negative forces, usually about polluting the air, water, and soil by the landowner not understanding the cons- to the -quencies, the repercussions, or the alternative courses.... of action, any idiot can make a rhyme about anything, but the question then is whether or not artistic endeavor has meaning or whether it meets others satisfaction. Life was so simple back in the day, whether it was just going to class, playing ball, working on the P.M. Crew, going to mom's house for some good food, or going home to smoke the cactus. I knew a girl once who called it relaxing, some call it a habit. For me its a lifestyle choice, and it sucks that it needs to be clandestine. Does anyone read this? Does anyone care? Or is my artistic endeavor futile, meaningless, and real tired like the old gray mare. A small miracle or bit of help is all I need, with what talent I have and the hard work that I've done, the truth is now no matter what! I must get access to more land so that my herd can feed. If the help does not come I and my small furry army could endure much criticism, hardship, and the lack of basic necessities to live a worthwhile life with food, shelter, and each other for basic companionship. The present and the past are intertwined in my rhyme, its all about the love of a game, survival, growing food, my life and how I have lived it. I am who and what I am, do I credit society, a lack of knowledge or wisdom, or the lack of a good father? The lessons I have learned from playing a game has probably taught me more than any book, teacher, or brother. I need to be at peace with my surroundings or the negative affects will be abundant. Eminem made it in 8 Mile, is the talent of a rapper much different from the talent of a writer? Is a good story thats true a good story to you if the one in the story is a little different? Let me drop an old school reference on you old UD and Chai. town ballers, we watched Cooley High back in the day, poured a little out for the ones that we pray, like the side kick of Cochise (the one who bought it) to deal with the pain, he took his soka and made sloka and wrote the story so others could learn and someday do the same. I Elvised myself to the friend of Cochise, trying to break the shackles of the colonial imposed language by distorting it. First I make the story my own because I lived it, then I write it down and report it. If Rolling Stone were to call, my pen will be ready, this is just the tip of the melting iceberg, you heard it here first and on this blog I purport it. One slug, two slug, three slug, four, there were more slugs in my garden this year than the thoughts of my estranged wife that ragged hor...rible dresser, married her I did,and it was not just a simple gesture, I miss the the touch of a woman and the chance to caress her. The slugs that ran through my shotty this year were few, the life that I took was out of compassion, Trey consequences the cause and I worried about the probability of maggots. The dark side of my inspiration at the last moment the writing I changed it, I kept one thing in because its the one thing that is all to flagrant. My feelings on paper is hard to declare, the feelings of my story is as close to me as a skull is to hair, and its time to put it all out there, its like the dark side of the moon, and once again I warn takers beware. Then there is the backstabbing, jealousy, revenge, and resentment of others, if I had none than I would not be just another brother. The stories of a street baller from the ICE I keep writing, this time its in a rhyme, next time it will again just be a story, from the 10,000 or more in my head, about the dunks, the games, the friends, the lessons, and the glory. As for the number of stories there are to many to count, to many to ignore, they run through my head and my heart, its all one big story of my journey from the womb to the grave and the formation of art. "Flip the script on this shit" said Future the uncle Tom MC in "8 Mile". Word is born on this morn, let the lifeblood and breath of my story take the world by storm. To a battling MC like B Rabbit I can say, "Tell the world something they already don't know about me." If I stop writing my story I might just go crazy. What else do I do alone at winter at night, its been seven years now and still it does not phase me. After watching "8 Mile" I hot wired a boom box in my box of a trailer, The Big O from the ICE and KRUI is now radiating vibrations from the streets and the cities. The tape I've not heard in a year or two and right now it sounds amazing. An old school hip hop injection of memories, they memorize me, but the present is so hazy.

(*Written in the very late fall of 2008 on pen and paper when lap top power chord broke, some minor alterations made when transferring from paper to lap top, most transferring being done on the day of the winter solstice, the first day of winter as a blizzard dumps snow on the land here)

Shouts out to all the Basketball teams ever I played on:

Iowa City Central Junior High 7th grade team

Iowa City High 9th grade team (quit 1/2 way through the season)

AAU Junior Olympic team I tried to put together (we practiced a couple times at Longfellow)

1986 Rec League team I put together but never played on

1987 and 1988 Champion Iowa City Rec League teams

U. of Iowa Intramural teams put together by Kavli Khirana (w/ Paul, Sherman and Kenny)

Doc's 1988 AAU Junior Olympic team

Cornell College (Mt Vernon, Ia) - transferred before season started

UW Richland team - ineligible but practiced w/ team before transferring once again

UD Intramural Champion team w/ Big B. our first semester and Hubbard twin, Eric and Gerb...

University of Dubuque teams year 1 - 4

Lancaster (Wis.) 3 on 3 tournament Championship team w/ M. Lamb and his pal Jeff

Freddie's City League tournament champion team at South East w/ Scott, Don Euchas, Larry...

Fab Five Team w/ Wally at Ellis Community Center 6-3 and under league in C.R.

Rob Cordle's City league team w/ Greg Shank, Warnamont etc...

Gringo's City League teams

City League team w/ Big B. wearing red Prime Time shirts, R. Larson called us "score keepers"

Mike's Tap U of Iowa Intramural team w/ Drugstore Jim Bob Price and Big B. etc...

P.M. Crew U of Iowa intramural teams

P.M. Crew 3 on 3 team

Lambeer and Sons Drainage (LSD) City League 3A team w/ Big B., Michael Ray, Stretch, Jake...

Volven Concrete Championship City League 4A team w/ Big B., Donald and Malcolm, Stretch...

Cedar Rapids KCRG three on three teams with Stretch and Kemp... (and Kimm one year)

Mexico Trip

I've been thinking about writing this story for many years now. The trip and the basketball I played in Mexico was the highlight of my career and one of the greatest adventures of my life. The team was around the .500 mark in the games prior to the winter break. Coach gave us about four days off before the trip so most of the guys on the team went home and had an early Christmas with their families. Big B and I went home to the ICE and saw and partied with our old friends from high school etc... During the normal age college years it was fun to see everyone roll back into town and see them out at the bars. The IC downtown bar scene seemed deserted each year during winter break except for locals back for the holidays. I have always stuck to the notion that it was good luck to get drunk the night before any important game or event, and the night before leaving back to Dubuque was no exception. I remember being so hung over at the one last practice on the day before we left for Mexico that I was border line sick, but for some reason I was jumping out of the gym at the practice. The moment finally came for us to leave. It was early in the morning and Reecey, White B, Big B, and myself all loaded into Big B's red S10 pickup and headed up the ice and snow covered road to the school. It was still dark, and as I sat crammed in the little truck I felt a strange flame like sensation near the back of my neck. It was Reecey's (aka Morris Vankinscoff's) hot dragon breath seething from his mouth, burning my neck, and stinking up the truck as usual. There were some groggy early morning cracks on Reecey as usual. I hadn't slept hardly a wink that night do to the great anticipation. Once at school we all loaded into a couple of vans and then headed off to Chicago's O'hare airport. A lot of the fellas slept on the van, but not me. I was way to excited. Big B had an interesting story about his last time at O'hare. The last time he was there was with our friend Jonas from the IC when the two of them had come back from Europe. Out of pure curiosity we looked in a certain spot in some bricks for where Big B and Jonas had supposedly stashed a little baggy with some herbal medication, but it wasn't there. Getting into the airport and onto the plane didn't take very long. We boarded an Air Mexicana plane. There was snow coming down and it was cold. It was the first time I had been on a large jet since I was a little kid flying from LA to San Francisco with my mom to visit my aunts in California. The team was spread out on the plane, I sat next to Big B. We lifted off and it seemed like we were out and over the Gulf of Mexico in no time. Some of the guys on the team (like Havatake) were taking advantage of the in flight hospitality service and drinking beers, Heinakin to be precise. The JV were scheduled to play a game against the Mexican Junior National team soon after landing in Mexico City, but before we arrived in Mexico City the air line had to make a stop in Acapulco. We all had to go through customs in Acapulco and board the plane all over again. Their were Mexican girls in black swim suites handing out Heinakins in the Acapulco airport. The temperature was in the 90's F. so the climate adjustment from winter weather and temperatures of the mid-west to the climate near the equator was a factor. Acapulco was a huge city of about two million people that stretched from the coast up over a coastal mountain range and back down the inland side of the mountains. This was all readily seen from the air. We would be heading back to Acapulco for our final four days of our ten day trip. All our games were going to be played in Mexico City. I can't remember landing in Mexico City or anything about the airport or the bus trip into the city. I remember the gym, the court, and the opposition from the game we played soon after arriving in the city. Coach Spock was handling all of the coaching duties for the JV. Our JV team was tough inside but we had no depth at the guard spot. Duke was a bit slow due to the fact that he was coming off a year of rehabbing a broken leg. Cray Murphy was playing varsity only. We were playing in front of a roaring and feisty crowd of about 4000 people in a good sized gym. Once the game started it seemed like I was the only one who could score. With no classes to worry about, no food or meal money to worry about, no worry about missing practices due to science labs, and no worries about getting to class or practice, all I had to think about was playing basketball and enjoying the trip. I felt care free and relatively healthy (except for the lingering hang over) and played the basketball of my life. The ballers on the other team were skilled and athletic. There was one player in particular that stood out amongst the rest. He played a similar position as I did and was about the same height. He had some awesome dunks against us in our game, all of them jumping off of two feet. I was the only reason that our team was able to stay in the game. I'm not bragging, thats just the way it was. I wanted my teammates to get involved and stop playing scared and I even tried setting them up for easy baskets when I had the ball on offense but it wasn't working. The best thing I could do was just take the ball to the hoop and score. There were some interesting differences in the Mexican officiating of the game. We were playing by international rules and the one difference that stood out the most was that when a team shot a free throw people were jumping in the lane way before the ball left the shooters hand. I went in so early one time just to see what the refs would do that I practically gave up on the play because I thought for sure that the refs were going to blow the whistle, but they did not. There was another player on the Mexican team that I clearly remember. He was the most blatant screen setting head hunter I ever played with. When we were on defense they ran a two man pick in the paint for a wing or post player to cross through to the opposite side and the head hunting cat was putting his elbows up and setting moving screens and he was going for our heads or necks every time. It was crazy. The thing was, I was a streetballer, and the no fouls and no rules style of play was what I was used to and it allowed me to excel in all of the games we played in Mexico. Even though I was going on lack of sleep, jet lag, and being hung over, I was hyped to be where I was and to be playing against the best young players in Mexico. We were in the biggest city in the world and it was the largest crowd I ever played in front of. When the second half finally got under way I stole the ball on a pass from the point to the wing and away to the races I went with the other teams two best players hot on my tail. D Rog and Mo used to ask me why I always flared out before shooting a lay up. There were a few reasons for this and they all had to do with the same principle. The biggest reason was that growing up playing on the black top or on concrete and playing on the many outdoor courts located in the ICE it became natural to flare on a layup attempt (as opposed to taking a straight line to the hoop) in order to avoid crashing into the poles that held up the hoops. So flare is what I did on the play during my break away lay up in Mexico City and it allowed the defenders a chance to go for a block as I jumped off of my left foot and went up for the shot attempt. I had no thoughts or preconceived plan of what I was going to do, it all just happened. As the two defenders tried to maul me in the air I stretched up and out, cocked my arm, and then slammed the ball through the basket right in the faces of the opposing players. The refs actually called a foul and I was awarded a free throw attempt on top of the basket. The crowd thundered its approval, and some of the players on my team along with Coach Spock yelled their approval while I calmly acted like nothing special had just happened. We as a team were getting our behinds spanked in the game so that was part of the reason why I didn't feel the need to celebrate the play. I missed the free throw. Lil' Lamb, the varsity starting point guard, was in the door way leading to the locker room waiting for the upcoming varsity game and was about the only varsity player to witness the dunk. It was my only college career dunk in a game and it occurred against the best players I ever played against in all my college years, in front of the biggest crowd, and in the biggest city in the world. I was the only JV player to play in the varsity game and because these games were not going on our official NCAA season record coach had all the varsity play equal minutes and platooned us in and out of the game. The opposition for the varsity was a team that had seven Mexican Natianal team players on it and two Olympic players. They had some real bruisers on the team including a huge black dude with dread locks who looked to be in his late twenties, but their best player was a guard who drilled some thirty foot three pointers on us and threw some super sweet no look full court feeds to his teammates for easy layups. The player on the Mexican team who dunked all over us in the JV game also played on the older team and he had some nice dunks in those games as well. Our team was outmatched and we lost by about 20. I probably led the Varsity in scoring that game and scored about 12 points or more in every varsity game which was enough to lead the Varsity in scoring on the trip. After the game and my dunk all the players were announced in front of the crowd and each player exchanged an article of clothing with an opposing teams player. When my name was announced I stepped out and waved and made the most stupid looking face I ever saw. How do I know it was stupid? Because a photographer came up to me and asked if I wanted to buy a photo of me making the face after the game. I still have the picture but I inked a beard on it to cover the ugly face. I felt a bit embarrassed in the spot light after dunking in the JV game. Some fans asked me to trade hats with them after the game. I was wearing a Charlette Hornets ball cap and exchanged that for a cowboy hat (which I gave to my dad after returning to the states). It is a tradition in Latin America and Europe to eat meals with the opposing teams after a game. The home team extends its hospitality by treating visiting teams to a meal and entertainment. So we went to dinner after the game in a large hall. There were many small tables set around and we were told where to sit. We were divided into two or three players from each team at a table. Havatake was at my table and the two best players off the Mexican junior team, the dunk machine and the headhunter, sat with us. It was Christmas Eve, and in Latin Culture the period between Christmas and New Years each year is a time for everyone to celebrate and get hammered, even for those who otherwise never party ever during the rest of the year. Beer and Tequila were available for free, so G Money and I proceeded to drink several small bottles of Tequila each. I loved the Mexican food and ate everyone else's plate and Big B and myself were the only ones enjoying the food. Once drunk off my ass I started telling stories to the two Mexican players by making hand gestures. I demonstrated the dunks by the one player and the head hunting picking style of the other. They laughed and seemed to enjoy it. At the time I did not know any Spanish except for "Mas cervesa por favor" which once translated means "More beer please." I also learned the phrase "cuantos dineros?" which meant "How many dollars?"

My laptop was out of order for over a month, and during that time I made a huge list of stories to tell about the trip in Mexico, and I looked at some newspaper clippings of stats from my UD games and discovered the proper order for some crucial basketball stories from my time spent in Dubuque. All this and more to come soon.

G Money Sells me Out!

Coach told me that I reminded him of Dan Donavon, a former player of coach's at UD who was killed in a car accident while attending UD and playing on the basketball team. The university hosted a yearly tournament that was set up in his honor. It was in the fall semester and early in our young season. I remember sitting on the bench in those early games chomping at the bit to get in and thinking how I could have scored at will against some of the competition I saw. I did play and I did score, but game action was limited. One incident in particular occurred during the tournament that clearly stands out and affected my playing time. It occurred after our first game of the two game double header, and sitting in the upper bleachers behind one of the baskets was Big B, Zeke, Havatake, and myself. We were all liquored up pretty good. Inspired by my memories of the good old days when D Rog and Mo still played for the Spartans and remembering how UD's little gymnasium was packed to the rafters and the home fans, mostly football players, would get chants started up in the balcony section behind the basket like, "A rope, a tree, lets hang the referee..." (they got reprimanded in the middle of the game for that one), I started my own version of jeering and mind games with the other two teams that were playing. One specific important point is that my comments were very timely and in good taste (in my opinion). For instance after a missed shot I would say out loud at just the right moment so the player could hear me, "Oh man, what a brick." Or during a free throw attempt right before a shot I would say to the fellas in a loud voice, "This guy really sucks." The fellas were crying from laughing so hard. Havatake never wanted to be outdone and felt he had to do or say something funny. He made some rude comments and then a lady sitting in front of us turned around and asked us(him) to be quiet, and so G Money aka Havatake told the lady, "Shut up you fat bitch." Good one Money, real smooth and tasteful. The lady left and must have complained to someone because word got to coach who appeared in the stair way and called us all over. Havatake was like, "Zeke, quick, give me your gum." Zeke took a wad of gum out of his mouth and Havatake grabbed it and began chewing it like mad. Coach informed us of the complaint and was obviously mad as hell, and asked if any of us had been drinking. Havatake immediately said, "Coach, I haven't been drinking." In actuality he was drunk off his ass, more than anyone. I, being of age, honestly and calmly stated, "I've been drinking." And Big B too said the same. We were both suspended for two games and Coach Spock supervised extra running after the next two practices (he let us off easy). Havatake started the next couple games, scored like 20 points in one game (the best game of the season for him) and solidified his role as a starter. I missed the next game in the Dan Donavon tournament and the one after. A common theme in my life is having people who pretend to be my friends sell me out for their own personal gain. This story is just one of the times Havatake did me that way. He was my teammate and I always let things like that go thinking that somehow things will all come back around. I forever lost a level respect for the kid, but none the less for years to come I tried to help Havatake out how ever I could, whether it be job related, a place to crash, personal advice etc... I felt like an older brother to most of my younger friends and teammates, Big B included. I did have some decent games that same semester before the teams trip to Mexico. Against Mt. St. Clair in limited action I was 3-4 from the field and1-1 from the line for a total of seven points. I think coach was yelling at someone on the bench every time I scored that game. The Mad Russian (as Big B used t0 call him) Cray Murphy hit me on some good transition passes in that game, and I made all my easy open shots for once. Then there was the game against Platteville that fall, where I would score a career high 10 points and nearly led the team in scoring (Brute Mahone scored 10 or 12 also). I blew some plays early on in the game but because the whole team was fouling out coach had no choice but to continue to play me. I reached a point in my mind where the 1000's of fans and our insane coach and my previous nervous caused mistakes just didn't matter and I was like, screw it, what have I got to loose now, lets just play ball and take it to the hoop. The next time I got the ball I made a spin move on the baseline from the post and came up under the basket and dropped the ball in the net for two. The refs called a foul on the play, an offensive foul on me, and counted the basket. Coach went nuts and rightly asked them how the hell can the basket count if its an offensive foul? At half time in the locker room coach gave me a compliment in front of the whole team, the only one that I can remember, and said, "That was an NBA move out there!" We got our buts spanked by Platteville that game 103 to 57. Platteville shot 34 free throws in the game, we shot 2. The refs were clearly payed off. Platteville was a Division III powerhouse and their coach Bo Ryan had won a National Championship there two years prior. Platteville is also known for being the home of the Chicago Bears mini camp. It was also a UW school I had considered attending when my girlfriend got the teaching job and moved to nearby Boscobel. One of D Rog and Moe's teams were the only team of coach's to beat Platteville in his 25 years at the helm for the men's UD basketball team. Platteville never forgot that loss and made sure that payback was severe. When rapping to D and Moe about their win against Platteville they said they had to overcome all the same ridiculous calls and the fans and all that, but with their depth and talent and the Loyola-Marymount style of play they ran so well they just kept trading blows with Platteville and out ran, out athleted, and outscored them. Mahone came up to me after our game with the score book in his hand and congratulated me on leading the team in scoring, even though I saw what looked like the fact that he had 12 points to my 10. What did it really matter anyway, we got whipped good. Practically our whole team fouled out so even White Boy Roy Sneaky Sig got a few ticks. That game made our team reevaluate everything we thought we knew about ourselves in the yet so young season. We had a long ways to go. The trip to Mexico would be just the thing we needed to pull together for the conference run in the New Year.

Hawk Killer: Taste of the ICE Tales

At the University of Iowa Field House pick up games are played to 15, win by two. In a game one day at Field House noon ball I put up a one game stat line against a team that had Hawkeye basketball legend Chris Kingsbury on it that read something close to this: 15 assists, 20 rebounds, and 10 points. I was working for the U's parking department at the time and I was still taking classes at the U even though I had already earned my B.A. in History. I was playing over the lunch break with my co-worker and intermural teammate named Sleepy. Sleepy had his own streetballer background and legacy growing up in nearby Cedar Rapids. Sleepy scored 11 points in our victory that day over the King's team, all his shots coming off full court assists from me in transition. Kingsbury could have matched up against me in the game but he decided to guard someone else at the opening check. He didn't even look at me and seemed to be avoiding eye contact for most of the game, until on one of those special plays where I jumped about elbow rim high to snatch a board, then a dribble or two out to get some space, and then I threaded a wicked full court no look pass on the money to my boy Sleepy who was streaking down the wing for an easy lay up. Kingsbury stared at me for a moment or two after that play, like 'Who is this guy?' Besides his usual high arching super long range hang time three pointers that fell straight through the hoop without even moving the net, the King made some awesome moves on the base line. Jumping off of two feet from outside the lane he would hang with like three or more defenders jumping and fouling him and hanging on and then after the defenders came down the King still hung in the air on his way to the hoop and scored the bucket. I never saw this side of his game when he played in games for the Hawkeyes. I had a good view of his baseline drives and it seems strange that I wasn't involved but the man I was guarding had a sense of spacing so I always found myself really far away from the play. Kingsbury was instinctively driving away from me and using the base line and the back board as his friend to avoid and shield off would be defenders. The game went into duece to at least 25 points and lasted what seemed for ever and thus it was the only reason I was able to get the stat line I did (or what I calculated or estimated I had from memory after the game). Kingsbury and my team were trading baskets like it was the Final Four match of the Hawkeyes with Ronnie Lester going against Louisville and their star Daryl Griffith. And, like any streetballer proud of their assasin like work against an established big time baller, I'm happy to claim victory for my team that day. For all you big time ballers let it be a lesson, you better play hard and win the game or some no name has been former Div. III baller like myself will be talking junk about those games for the rest of their life. One former Iowa player that stands out in my mind as always playing hard and dominating against anyone he played was Indianola's Chris Street (may he rest in peace in the heaven that is a playground). I would see Streets dominating pick up games always with a crowd of people gathered around his court watching. He tried to block every shot any one on the opposing team put up. I remember seeing him block someone's shot into the bleachers one time and then walking to the sidelines and taking his mouth peace out and staring in my direction as I was just walking in the door. I never had the honor or priviledge of playing with or against Chris Streets. He was killed in a car accident during his playing time at Iowa during the period I was playing for the Spartans of UD. I was looking forward to following his future career in the NBA. Some Hawkeye players like a kid named JR Krotch from Morton Ill. did not impress me so much. I played against him once and hit at least three three pointers over the 6'11" flag pole thin Hawkeye hoopster including the game winner. Krotch played good in games coming off the bench as a freshman and sophemore for Iowa and again he played well coming off the bench as a senior, but he did not do so well when in the starting lineup when he was a junior. I had a chance to talk to Krotch once at a party (I lived in the same house and worked with one of Kotch's teammates who played on the grey squad). I told him I played college ball at UD with another kid from his home town, and that I thought Kotch had a chance to get drafted and even play in the NBA. He was like, "Yeh, yeh. I know." I was like, "Bull shit, you don't know!" and started going into stories about how BJ Armstrong used to work every day and night and in his free time at his game, often alone in Carver Hawkeye arena dribbling all around, shooting free throws, lifting weights, making grades etc... while his teammates, who were more athletically gifted and endowed, Ed Horton and Roy Marble, hit up the night life and everything that came with it and in my opinion never reached their full potential. After hearing my rant Krotch got up and walked away pissed off and I over heard him saying, "That guy is an a-hole and doesn't know what he's talking about." The kid he was talking to, another baller and another roommate of mine nick named "Crow" responded to Krotch by saying, "Oh, he knows what he is talking about." Kotch never got his shit together like I told him he needed to if he wanted to make it in the NBA. So one day while I was working (at the parking department job) and at the end of Krotch's senior season I saw the kid working out in the Field House with then assistant coach and current Tennessee head coach Bruce Pearl as I was walking through the gym. I stopped and watched Kotch for a minute or two and saw him see me, so I said aloud, "Its too late Kotch! Its too late." Kotch was drafted that year into the NBA, a first round pick by the New York knickerbockers. He never made the team. It was too late.
My main "home court" in all my days of playing basketball was at the Robert A. Lee Iowa City Community Rec. Center. I first started playing there as a kid in the mid 1970's. When I was still in high school my crew used to play against the likes of Roy Marble, Ed Horton, Kevin Gamble, Kent Hill, Michael Reaves, Michael Morgan etc... all x-Hawkeyes who were current Iowa players at the time. They often came in on Sunday afternoons with their own five and wanted to take on Shot and me and our crew with Rog and Lonnie and Al or who ever, so we always obliged and to tell you the truth we held our own. We never beat those guys but we put a few scares in them, even taking games into duece with them. We were running a cherry picking fast break outlet style of play that got us a lot of easy baskets. Rog and Shot had world class speed and with Shot's leadership we competed better than most would expect. I also played against other Hawkeye greats and future (now former) NBA players like Les Jepson, AC Earl, and Brad Lohaus. Also I played with and against the likes of slam dunk phenom and former Hawkeye Gerry Wright aka Sir Jam-a-lot. Also Kenyon Murry, James Moses, Brian Garner, Rodel Davis, Wade Lookingbill, and Troy Skinner. I used to throw half court no look pass ally-oops to Lookingbill and Davis and they would slam it home. Garner was the most creative pure passer I ever saw play for Iowa, and I copied, learned, practiced and used the passing skills Garner had perfected. I hit or tipped in game winning shots over NBA 7 footers Lohaus and Earl on more than one occasion. After playing at Dubuque I came back to the IC and schooled Iowa Grey Squad players in intermurals and in pick up games on a regular basis. The greatest player I ever saw play was Lewis Loyd at the rec center playing in a men's city league game. It was just after he had been kicked out of the League (NBA) for drug abuse. He made the usual best players in city league look like little kids. I remember Loyd's style and moves and there is no doubt watching him play in my home gym influenced my own style. Lewis even came up to me and said high a couple of times. One of my lifetime goals was to win that city league title, especially the toughest division against all the former college and sometimes pro players. I was able to accomplish that goal with Big B. and our new school crew on a team called Volven Concrete, which was one of the best teams I ever put together and played on. All these stories are written in my yet unpublished work called "Story of a Streetballer from the ICE - Personal Slam Dunk Life History". The blog stories are about where I honed my skills during "The Dubuque Years." More of those stories to come.

Big B. decided to come back to the University of Dubuque my sophomore year for the primary reason that the team was planning a trip to Mexico over winter break. The coach traveled abroad with the team as much as NCAA regulations would allow, which was once every other year. Coach had us do all sorts of fund raisers like selling pizzas door to door, book binding for a local publisher, and working the football games. Working on the "chain gang" (yard and first down markers crew) during the football games was pretty cool. I liked being right up close, as close as possible to the action and to the battles in the trenches. At the start of the school year there was a change over in roommates at the Wilson Street Crib. Big B., White B., and Morris "Dragon Breath" Vankiscoff were new roommates while Spike and Stace moved back into the dorms. D Rog also eventually moved in some time after Mick Glajoe moved out and after he got back from playing pro ball in Czechoslovakia. Ike moved into the Loras college on campus apartment style dorms and joined a fraternity. On one of the first weekends before or right after classes started that fall the Zeta bitches (thats what we called the female sorority that had all the best looking gals in the school) threw a house party. A few of the Zeta's lived in a nice downtown old brick home they rented. There was a keg and some football and baseball players at the party. Big B. and I were smashed as usual, and the beginning of the school year was always something to celebrate and get crazy, so what did we decide to do but throw the keg out the window in an attempt to play a risky prank. I admit I came up with the idea on my own and talked Big. B. into going through with it. We got the keg out the window alright, but we were busted right before we could carry it away. The botched attempt almost provoked a fight between the basketball players and the football players. White B. almost got choked to death from a tough little football player named Crazy Jake. Rue came into the party just as we were skidaddling and I warned him to watch out but he was like, "Oh Matt, I ain't worried about none of these guys." White B. was punked by the little tough Jake character and afterwards he was carrying on about how he should of unloaded on the kid. We went and got some more beer somewhere else and went to the dorms to see Johny Duke. White B. and Duke were injured the previous year so they acted as equipment managers the previous season, but this year they were playing on the team. I don't know what I was thinking but I got Johny and Big B. to go over to the dorms where all the football players lived and standing outside the dorm I yelled and provoked a line up of football players to come out and hear my rampage about the treatment White B. had received at the hands of Crazy Jake. Jake was out there and he was the main spokesman on the team. It was three (actually Johny Duke was just watching), so two against twenty. I decided to lighten up my approach and went into a speal about how we worked the football games (on the chain gang and so forth) and how we cheered on and supported the football team when they were playing, and that I only hoped that they would give us the same respect, support and treatment. At some point in the conversation Crazy Jake casually made a move and all of a sudden put me in the same death grip choke hold with one hand around my neck as he had done to White B. Fortunately he was just demonstrating what had occurred between him and White B. and not really trying to harm or punk me (OK, maybe he was trying to punk me a little bit, but with 19 other guys backing him up it wasn't hard). I kind of liked that little toughy Crazy Jake after that, and it is somewhat amazing that Big B. and I walked out of the situation unscathed. That whole night was a hell of a way to start off the new school year and it most definitely set the trend for crazy drinking binges and mad parties to come. I always remembered that story as the time that Big B. threw the keg out the window.

White B. was a white kid from Bloomington Ill. who grew up in the projects. He was the most authentic black acting and talking white kid I ever met. He was also a self proclaimed gang member of the Vice Lords, and that was where his true loyalty always lay. He blew his knee out his senior year in high school and that no doubt set his basketball game back so far he probably never fully recovered. He was a computer science major of all things. His first year he lived in the dorms and roomed with a black kid from East Chicago named Black B. (they had the same first name). Black B. played varsity as a freshman his first semester but became ineligible the second. They got into a lot of trouble together that first semester. White B. had a fine ass girl friend he met that first year in the dorms. She was a local gal and I liked it when she came over to the Wilson Street Crib to hang out and sometimes she even brought a friend or two with her. White B. developed a few nick names during my two and a half year long tenure at the school. Sneaky Sig was his most other well known nick name which he got from blowing the cover on his boys and their female playing ways. After White B. moved into the Wilson St. pad I came under the illusion that he was fairly responsible because I always saw him bagging up the trash in the kitchen and taking the garbage out. He claimed he was just trying to get rid of the smell for when his gal came over. There was one particular hustle I had created (I'm sure it was done a million times else where) that White B. found to be absolutely hilarious. I received a ton of junk mail about joining record clubs and so forth. My little trick involved creating various aliases so as to receive a whole bunch of free tapes in the mail. White B. thought that my main alias "James T. Eastwood" was about the funniest thing ever. Whenever he brought the mail upstairs into the crib he would come in the living room or the kitchen and say, "Looks like their is a letter for James T. here," and then he would laugh out loud or to himself. The UD baseball coach once called White B. nothing but a "clown in a circus." B wasn't impressed and probably thought about how to get even. I got to play with Sneaky Sig in JV his first year of playing, which was my second. I played JV and Varsity my sophomore year because coach wanted to play me as much as possible due to all the practice time I was missing because of all the afternoon science labs I had to attend. There were several new faces on the team that second year. Moe and D Rog were in Europe playing pro ball and Spock took over the JV coaching duties and the assistant varsity coaching position for the team as he attended grad school. He also began dating Ike Lambert's sister. New faces on the team included Jerry Putzman from Bellevue, Cryan Ryan Pickle La Te, Mick Cousins, Chubby Rundy aka Spanky and Bad Samrun, all from small town Iowa, Chuckie Amsterdam from New Orleans, and Kale Barron from Indiana. Li'l Lamb, from Gary Indiana, was coaches new favorite little project. Li'l Lamb ran the point. Chuck was a 6'6" Junior, a transfer that was a force to be more than reckoned with on the inside. Big B. took a liking to old Chuck, and the two of them along with Brute Mahone and the freshman Putzman battled for playing time for the big man spot on the team. I also competed for playing time with those guys even though I was more of an outside wing player than any of them were. The biggest thing that affected my playing time was the fact that I missed a lot of practice, due to, as I've stated several times, the fact that I had afternoon science lab classes. I liked the fact that I was the only one to play on both varsity and JV every game. I got to play with my main homie from the ICE Big B and with my other roomies from the Wilson Street Crib who were all on the JV team. This was an overall, JV and Varsity, more talented team with a lot more depth then last years team. Mark Black and Period Baby had transferred to Iowa (to my hometown) but Zeke, Brute Mahone, and Darby Allen (when eligible) were upperclassmen now and gave our team needed experience. The kid from Morton Ill. on last years team transferred out as well, along with Ike Lambert of course who was now at Loras. Havatake and the mad Russian Cray Murphy were still on the team. A newspaper article appeared in the local paper previewing the teams upcoming season. It read:
"UD Focuses on Defense. But their coach still reluctant to slow down offense.
The University of Dubuque men's basketball team won't be confused with Loyola-Marymount this season. Not if the UD coach can help it. The Spartans (11-14, 8-8) were the Iowa Conference's best offensive team last season with 82.7 points per game. But they also gave up a league-leading 85.1 points. "Defense is usually the determining factor for the conference positioning, " said the coach. "How we fare will be determined by our defensive play, rebounding skills and taking care of the basketball better than we did last year. I've seen some very good things offensively that I've been pleased with." The UD coach would like to see improvement on the defensive end of the court. However, he has no intention of slowing down the Spartan attack. Four starters return among six letterwinners, including point guard Cray Murphy (Bellevue, Iowa), 3-point threat Chubby Rundy aka Spanky, Darby Allen, and the league's leading free-throw shooter Zeke Waunson. UD's coach must replace center Shad Spock, an all-league second teamer and the conference's top rebounder. But the Spartan's look to be solid up front. Six-foot six Chucky Amsterdam, 6-7 junior Brute Mahone and a pair of freshman, 6-8 Jerry Putzman and 6-5 Big B Growley, will all play. Mahone is a big, strong, inside player. Amsterdam and Zeke are a blend of both strength and finesse. Putzman earned all-state honors at Bellevue, Iowa. "I'm excited about our new kids," said the UD coach. They're energetic, quick and have the skills we looked for. Putzman runs the floor well and can hit the outside shot. We can use him inside and outside. Zeke and Chuck came into practice in great shape," said the coach. "Zeke is one of those tireless guys who go and go." Former Iowa City High standout, 6-3 Matt Clearsky, and Brag Havatake (Dubuque Hempstead) are slotted for duty at small forward. "We've filled in some holes that will make us a better basketball team," said UD's coach. The Spartans open their season Saturday at Cornell and host Mt. Mercy on Tuesday. The annual Dan Donovan tournament (UD, Clarke, St. Ambrose, and Marycrest) tips off next Friday. 'I've been impressed with our attitude," said the coach. "We're young and we will be up and down - to start." If the Spartans find their rhythm, they could be in the thick of the Iowa Conference race that tips off in January rather than in December. By then the Spartans will have already played 10 games."

This article appeared in the Telegraph Herald and was written by some cat named Craig Reber. I changed the names of the players in the article and put in "coach" where ever our coaches name was used. A couple things about the article. I wrote my summary of the team and listed the cast of characters on the team and so forth from memory, then I copied the article down without reading it beforehand, and I hadn't forgotten anybody. They are alike in many ways and I find coaches descriptions and his predictions about the team to be strikingly accurate to my own assesment of the team and to how we performed through out the season. It is funny how so little is written about Havatake and I, but to be honest I found great comfort in the fact that my name came first in order of who was "slotted" to start at the three spot. Ironically I ended up playing at the four spot and Havatake played at the two. Black B was not mentioned at all because of his inelgibility status. The article at the end states how the team will have played 10 games before conference play starts in January. It did not say anything about our planned trip to Mexico where we were scheduled to play about five games each for JV and Varsity (I would be the only player to play equal time on both teams on the trip). It was good to see my boy Big B Growley get a little run and a promise in print from the coach that he would see some playing time. We had a game early that season at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, a school I had attended right after high school and against the first college coach that I almost played for. At the game I saw a few cats from the IC that I knew well. They were ball players I had grown up watching and playing against. One was and would be years later (after the Dubuque years) a prominent on the court personal rival in my hometown. His last real name is so cool I have to mention it: McCool. It is real and I hope he doesn't mind me revealing it. There are several stories already written about him in my IC collection of street ball tales. I was put in the game against Cornell early on and soon when on offense about my second series I picked, pivoted and flashed into the paint just as I had been coached, received a good post feed on the left side from 6-8 freshman center Jerry Putzman. I caught the ball, drop stepped, slapped glass as I shot it, posed for a brief moment in the air like I was His Airness himself or something, and then watched my shot attempt roll around the rim and spin out. Out of the game I came. I was embarrassed with my lack of concentration to make that possibly all so crucial shot. I pulled that trick all too many times in my short career as a basketball player for the UD Spartans. I have always wondered if I would have just made that damn shot if coach would have left me in the game and if it would have allowed me to get in the flow and score like I could and then who knows what would have happened with my basketball career and my life. Instead, I missed it and back to the bench I went. Big B's mom was at that game also and afterwards she told Big B that she thought she understood what college athletics was all about after seeing the game. I'm still not sure what she exactly meant by that. Big B didn't get a chance to play in the game. I'll point out some irony right now so it won't be lost by the reader who only reads this story and not the entire "The Dubuque years" episode. Both of my two full years of playing I shot 50 percent from the field, which in both years led the team. Coach never acknowledged that fact when giving out the end of the year awards, apparently due to my lack of playing time and shot attempts. I did miss some gimmies, too many, but 50 percent from the field for the season? Thats pretty good! Coach never gave me the chance to perform at the end of the game when I was loose and into the flow of the game and when the game was on the line. I'll say it now, I have always had philosophical differences on coaching with every coach I ever played for, and I always thought that I would be a better coach than all of them some day, if that's what I ended up doing for a career. My opinion of "better" coach I supposes means a fairer coach. Not wiser, smarter, more clever, more knowledgeable, just fairer. I always despised hypocrites and it seemed and seems that I am good at finding and pointing out the hypocritical nature of everything under the sun, including in regards to my own behavior. These thoughts may seam like tangents or insignificant moments in some poor fools life (mine), but I have been mulling over these memories for about 17 or 18 years now, and things like the missed shot against Cornell, coaches hypocritical tendencies (spoken philosophies vs. actual actions), and all the little but important moments that possibly could have changed my life so much, still affect me to this day. Its hard to say what possibly could have happened if some of the little things had happened differently, but I have imagined some of the possibilities. Maybe missing that shot at Cornell for ever made me hungrier to prove myself and help put a fire inside of me to try and prove to myself that I could be worthy of shouts out from all the fellas that I ever played with or against and them saying, "Old Matt was a hell of a ball player. " A Streetballer from the ICE.