Lancaster 3 on 3 Tournament

Ike Lambert and I and a friend of Ike's from his hometown of Hazelgreen entered a three on three tournament in the town of Lancaster Wisconsin. I knew the town because I used to drive through it when I was going to school at UW Richland. At the tournament I saw and played against some of my former teammates from UW Richland. We played some tough games against some of the teams that had older physical players. They all knew who Lambert was. A few years prior Ike had led his high school team to the state tournament, made it to the finals, only to loose by one point in overtime. Ike said the whole town followed the team bus to Madison to watch the game and cheer on the team. Ike was a basketball legend in his hometown. I always saw my self as a play maker on the basketball court, at least more so than a scorer, so playing with Ike was easy. Just pass him the ball when he posts up down low and chalk up two points. That's what I did in Lancaster and that simple strategy won us the tournament. All that we got were some t-shirts for our troubles and that was about it (that t-shirt became highly coveted by some of my friends from the ICE and I eventually gave it to my old friend Big A.). After the last game Ike and I were hanging around talking to some of the younger guys that he and I knew (the UW Richland guys) when a dunk session ensued. The adrenalin was flowing after the hard fought victories and Ike and I put on a dunk show. I was two hand reverse dunking, throwing it off the glass and catching it then dunking it two handed, bouncing it off the floor and then catching it and dunking, and bouncing it off the floor then off the glass and catching it and dunking, and I was even doing statue of Liberty 360 dunks. Ike was throwing down some mean jams as well. I'm sure we celebrated the victory and the day mighty hardily later that night. There was and probably still is a great basketball tradition in south west Wisconsin. Ike's church had basketball leagues and tournaments starting for kids in grade school. The church had its own gym where I got to see Ike's little sister play. She was unstoppable. That little gym was packed and had more people in the bleachers at those games then the games at UW Richland. Over Thanksgiving break one year Big B. and an old baller from the ICE who we knew from the Robert A. Lee Rec Center named Larry O'Garry were all invited to Ike's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Larry was playing ball for a rival school near Dubuque called Upper Iowa University and just happened to be visiting when Ike invited us to come. The food was awesome and there was an old tradition in Ike's hometown of the ball players getting together to play on Thanksgiving day. Larry didn't have any basketball shoes with him so I lent him my coveted pair of Blue Air Jordans that Shot had given to me way back in the day. I played like crap that day, and the old ballers from Hazelgreen were unimpressed and whispering under their breath and making sny remarks about the fact that I actually played ball in college. It was easy to see that they were resentful of my college baller status. They fouled me on every play. Ike didn't get the same treatment. O'Garry had his usual good outside shooting game and Big B. did his usual thing. My girl friend from Ike's hometown came by and she too was unimpressed with my performance. Oh well, thats the way it goes sometimes. I still had a great time being with the fellas and having an awesome meal at Ike's with his whole family. I vaguely remember cruising around with the guys in Ike's black Cutluss Supreme later that night while a bit liquered up and some other guys yelling something at us and Big B. quickly rolling down the window and yelling back ,"Hey! Why don't you try to shove your d_ck up your a_s and see if fits!" but he didn't quite finish it before busting out in an evil but contagious uncontrollable laugh. That sticky fingered O'Garry "kept" my shoes. On that trip he had been saying how the only rap song he liked was "Down with OPP" which stood for "Other People's Property" ,or so I've been told. Those blue Jordan's were some sweet shoes and I might still have them to this day had O'Garry not stolen them. That chump! I didn't see O'Garry for years after that but eventually I did run in to him back in the IC (probably at the U of I Field House courts) and confronted him about the shoes. It was water under the bridge by then but I tend to remember things like that and I just wanted to hear what he had to say about it, which was not much.

I started writing this blog on a Wed. but now it is Thursday. Yesterday was the day after the U.S. Presidential election and it was the day I found out who won. It was a historic moment when it became official that Barack Obama, an African American was voted to be the next President of the United States of America. The CBC TV news here in Canada gives lots of air time to U.S. issues so I was able to follow the election relatively closely. During the highly watched Iowa caucuses, the first caucus to take place, Obama's crew apparently played basketball at some point, I assume in Des Moines, Iowa's state capitol. I bet it has been talked about a lot down in the states that Obama played point guard for and led his high school basketball team to a state championship in Hawaii. Later I saw an interview Obama gave and he talked about playing basketball in Iowa and then winning the caucus. In the next state he didn't play and they lost the bid to Hillery Clinton, his Democratic party rival. Obama said because of the outcome in Iowa he and his crew planned to play where ever possible. Since Obama claims Chicago as his home now and a lot of my stories are about kids from Chicago and even trips with teammates through Chicago (not written in this Blog as of yet) and because of the basketball connection and because of the historic importance of the event I thought I may has well enter a little story about it to mark the occasion. My hopes and prayers go out to the new president elect and to the whole nation for a better future for the world.