Team photo late October or Early November 1992. We were awful.
Early in the school year almost every day a handful of the boys would head over to the Horner Park gym to play pick-up basketball. It was an open gym, meaning that anyone could show up and play. The competition was good. For me, it was a good introduction to competitive basketball again. You never knew who would show up, but it was almost always intense and fast-paced games. I played well and loved any game that was up and down the court. However, my enduring memory was coming across this lean white guy with long, stringy hair and a scraggly light, blonde beard. He was about 6’0, very lean, and probably in his mid to late 20’s. It was easy to tell that he played every day. The guy would race up and down the court and we soon locked horns. He was a talker as well and a little unhinged. We had some exchanges early on and he was the one that initiated the talking. I remember driving to the basket, missing my initial shot then grabbing the rebound and putting it in.
He took the inbounds pass and dribbled out wide. I purposefully gave him the outside corner as an invitation to drive to the basket. He saw exactly what I was doing but didn’t care, he raced towards the basket. I took two steps and gathered myself to jump. He was so fast that he laid the ball up and in as I took a swipe in vain to block his shot. I had never encountered a player who moved like that guy. To be honest, I never have since.
Javier and Danny would play in these open gym sessions that that is where I tried to get to grips with Javier’s game. Javier was a good ballhandler and quick. He was also wildly unpredictable. There would be no look passes with no rhyme or reason. I had been a pure product of street basketball, but there was a logic to how I played. I had watched hundreds if not thousands of hours of basketball. Javier seemed to have taken the cliff notes version of how to play basketball. I found him frustrating to play with as I wanted the ball out on the wing. He was trying to direct me to post up. I would post up every now and then, but I noticed that when I posted up, I handled the ball less and less. I would be less of a factor in games. Well screw that. I would just pull down the defensive rebound, send him a pass, race up the court and holler, “Back!”. Meaning give me back the ball. He would normally send it my way and I would find a shooting opportunity. More commonly though, I would pull down the rebound and take off dribbling myself. Those after-school sessions at Horner Park were good preparation for what was to follow.
Javier was one of the few players with some actual talent.
By the time late October rolled around, Gospel Outreach basketball practice had started. There were no tryouts for the Gospel Outreach Crusaders as we only had about a dozen or so players. Fittingly, one of the first drills that we ran was suicides. I had such fond memories of my fat thighs rubbing together as I labored badly to finish the only set of suicides that I ever did during my ill-fated tryout at Central Catholic freshman year. Three years later and this time I wasn’t 50 pounds overweight. I was in decent if not great shape. We ran the suicides, and I finished 3rd behind Javier and this Justin. I could run faster than both over 100 meters, but they were shorter and quicker. Their ability to get low and change direction quickly gave them the edge in the suicide drill. Nonetheless, I was okay with the results.
Sadly, the team was very short of real talent. Danny could play defense, use up his fouls and grab some rebounds, but with his heavy limbs and feet, he was not built for basketball. He also wasn’t a shooter or a creative passer. Danny would make life difficult for the opposition with effort, physicality, and determination. John was similar to Danny, built like an oak tree but he hadn’t grown an inch since 8th grade. He was still 5’5 or 5’6 at most. Chetan was a freshman who had some real size, but he was overweight, out of shape, and mentally soft. However, he did have good hands and decent feet. His own delusions led him to claim with a straight face that he combined the qualities of Shaquille O’Neal and Michael Jordan. A more apt compari son was in order. Think of the Indian American version of Kevin Duckworth, the late former Portland Trailblazer. On the scale of talent within the team, Chetan had more raw materials than most.
Then we had Kevin Renaud. He was a skinny 6’1 sophomore who was lacking coordination, athleticism, or any real discernable basketball ability. He was willing and determined, I’ll give him that much. Think of a much skinnier and shorter Randy Breuer from the Milwaukee Bucks.
Then we had freshman Mark Skidmore. Mark was a bulky 5’9 or 5’10 and not very athletic, but he loved to shoot. Mark made a real commitment to shooting the ball. Not that he was a good shooter, he was average at best. Plainly unaware of his own limitations, he had no conscience whatsoever. He would keep launching long-range shots, no matter how many times he missed…..which was most of the time. Mark was below average defensively and didn’t offer up much outside of his willingness to lower the team’s collective shooting percentage. He was our Tom Kleinschmidt minus 95% of the shooting or scoring ability.
Tom Kleinschmidt would justifiably take great offense being compared to Mark Skidmore.
We had some decent athletes amongst us. Bruce, Justin, and Javier all brought their own genuine qualities to the court. However, none of them were scorers. Javier worked tirelessly on his game and was a good ball handler. His shot was spotty at best, but he was creative and daring. Javier was well-conditioned, and he cared. If I found him challenging to play with due to his unpredictability, I still was glad to have him as a teammate.
Justin was fast and athletic, but not a particularly skilled ball handler or shooter. He was also 5’8 at most. Most of his points would come from put backs and unusual shots inside the free-throw line. There was no baseline of fundamentals. Unfortunately, shortly after the season started, Justin was ruled academically ineligible to play.
Bruce was the best pure athlete of the pack, but he wasn’t passionate about the sport. I know for certain that Bruce was ruled academically ineligible early on as well. It’s a shame Bruce and Justin did not have the grades to play because we sure as hell could have used some of the physical qualities they had.
Opening Game of The Season
Horner Park in late October/early November of 1992.
By the end of October, we had lined up our opening game of the season. Our opponent was Ravenswood Christian Academy from nearby on the north side of the city. They wore yellow and light blue uniforms. I was very nervous, and tight before the game. There was much that I had to prove to myself. I was seriously wound up tight. The game was on our home court of Horner Park and there was a small gathering of supporters. We lost the opening tip and the game started slowly. There was no score for the first two minutes. Finally, I took the ball up over half-court, attacked with three or four dribbles then rose up from 17 feet and buried a hanging jumper. I exploded with emotion with a guttural yell and a punch through the air. One would have thought that I had just hit a crucial basket with less than 5 seconds remaining in the game, not the opening two points. It had to have looked patently absurd to everyone in attendance. What the onlookers didn’t know was that it was the release of three years of pent-up frustration and humiliation. God knows what Coach Hardy thought of my histrionics. The opposing team was bemused and a close, nip-and-tuck game unfolded.
My signature pull-up jumper off the dribble.
Ravenswood were more organized and better athletes for the most part, but nothing exceptional. They didn’t have a standout player but were well-balanced. As the game wore on, we found ourselves trailing 49-47 with 7 seconds to play. Coach Hardy called a timeout. My nerves had long since dissipated by this stage and I demanded the ball out on the wing. Javier hit me with the inbounds pass. I drove hard to the basket to shoot a short pull-up jumper when the whistle blew. I missed the shot, but a foul had been called. I’d be going to the foul line with no time left on the clock. The small crowd was buzzing with real excitement and nerves. As I stepped up to the line the opposing team made the customary remarks, “Don’t choke”. I ignored them and looked through them as if there weren’t there.
I was an average free-throw shooter at best. If I had to guess, I’d say that I was somewhere between 65-70%. My jumpers came from exploding up and off the ground, never from just standing and shooting. As a set shooter I had never developed a comfortable, reliable stroke. I stepped up to the line, took my time, drew a deep breath and rattled in the first free throw. There was audible relief as the supporters in attendance cheered in a guarded manner. I still needed to make the next shot. I took the ball for the second shot, bounced the ball three times, and released the ball. Nothing but net. It would be an exaggeration to claim that the place roared, but there was a delighted, excited reaction from the crowd.
Was there ever any doubt? Captain Clutch at the free throw line to tie the game 49-49.
Making both free throws meant that we were going to overtime, and I was pumped. We were going to take our momentum into the extra period and dominate. It was time to seal the deal and announce my comeback in emphatic style. Alas, It was not to be. I was called for my 5th foul less than a minute into overtime. Five fouls and you are out. I left the court in bewildered disappointment, and we subsequently lost decisively in overtime.
Some old familiar faces had come out to watch the game, specifically Ranjit and Nathan. We left the gym and headed to a Subway sandwich shop that was located at California and Irving. I sat with them not sure how to process what had occurred. I had scored 24 points which accounted for almost half of our total. I had played well but my expectation had been to score at least 30 points and dominate the game. That did not happen. I remember Nathan looking at me with a half-smirk. Those who knew him would be familiar with that expression on his face. Me and Nathan had always had a slightly adversarial relationship dating back to junior high and I think that there was a satisfaction he took in seeing the result play out the way it did.
Looking back, it was a respectable re-introduction to basketball redemption. Maybe I had not scored as freely as I would have liked. On the flip side, stepping up in a pressure situation and delivering was significant. That desire to step forward and embrace the moment was always present in my mental sporting makeup. Taking responsibility in a high-pressure situation was instinctual. In fact, I wanted all eyes on me at that moment.
We would rematch our opponents on their home floor a few weeks later. This game was different as I was now familiar with who they were. I was more comfortable and not constricted by nerves. I easily played my best game of the season, pouring in 33 points and imposing myself on both ends of the court. I did not think about anything. I just played and set out to be involved as much as possible. When I was fully invested in a game my emotions would manifest themselves in colorful ways. Ridiculous histrionics were on full display. After emphatically blocking an opponent’s shot out of bounds, I dropped to my knees, threw my arms up in the air and hollered out a wild, celebratory yell. It was unquestionably an over-the-top, obnoxious act that endeared me to no one except maybe fans of professional wrestling. Unwittingly, I had perfected the role of the pantomime villain whom the opposition crowd loved to hate. For an independent observer, I was so easy to root against and I embraced being the antagonist.
The game was close, but once again I fouled out. This time with more than five minutes to play. The opposing team took the opportunity to mock me as one of their players dropped to their knees, threw their arms up in the air and cried out, “Yes!”. I had it coming. I wasn’t too bothered about it. We ended up losing by a wide margin once I fouled out. We just couldn’t score. Javier and Justin had been ruled academically ineligible and that was a big blow. Whatever chance we had to be a competitive team slipped away once Javier and Justin were out of the picture.
The season quickly went into a tailspin as we went out to the suburbs to play Aurora Christian and lost by at least 10. We fell behind badly in the first half. Aurora Christian had a taller kid with a blond mullet who was lighting us up. At halftime, I told the coach to let me guard the love child of Larry Bird. I loved to defend and kept him in check. However, the hole we had dug was too deep. I scored 27 points but had not shot as well as in the previous game. I had been too passive in the first half. The team would play hard, but once again we just lacked real talent.
Then we traveled out to Quentin Road Baptist. As soon as we walked into their gym, I knew that we were going to receive a proper beating. They had a legit, beautiful gym with a crowd. Their players were well-schooled and disciplined. Their team played smart and quick. Our team was a clown show in comparison. Quentin Road would have been competitive in the Chicago Catholic league. We were cannon fodder and played our role perfectly. This is the game that I remember despising Mark for launching up shot after shot from long range. I watched with incredulity as he bombed away from 20 feet and beyond. I think he scored 6 points, but he was easily the team leader in shots attempted.
I played competently if too passively. I finished with 16 points. I was normally aware of my numbers and after the game, I was certain that I had 16 points as I had made 8 shots without a lot of shooting opportunities. At the scorer’s table one of the kids from Quentin Road congratulated me on being our team’s leading scorer with 14 points. I quickly corrected him. We may have had our asses handed to us, but I wasn’t getting shortchanged on the stat sheet. Not that it made any difference. We had been easily swept aside and there was a helplessness that I felt. In retrospect, I should have insisted on playing point guard and putting up 30 shots. If ever a game merited me playing the ball hog card, this was the one.
We did manage to win our final two games as we somehow found an opponent who was even more inept than us. High Praises was the name of the school. I don’t know where Gospel Outreach dug up this school. Perhaps it was the association of Chicago Christian Home Schoolers. There was little joy to be taken from beating a team that was utterly abject. Interestingly, I have very little memory of those games as there was no competitive edge to them. To give you an idea of how lacking they were as competitive contests, I cannot even remember my statistics from these games. For someone as concerned with their score line as I was, that is saying something.
That was it, just a mere six games in total. We finished 2-4 and to be quite honest there was not much pleasure to be had from that experience. I averaged approximately 24 points and 12-15 rebounds for the season on around 50% shooting. We lost to all the competent teams that we played. The Gospel Outreach Crusaders were a rag-tag bunch. To be honest, I was not the best teammate. Far from an altruistic, encouraging presence to my fellow brothers of the hardwood, I had little time or respect for any of them as players. I’m sure that they felt my lack of regard and it would have naturally caused resentment. I regret comporting myself in that way and it was not intentional. It was born out of frustration and disillusionment stemming from my own misguided expectations of how I wanted to be embraced. I was asking myself the inane question: Why couldn’t it be the way it was before?
This photo pretty much summed up team camaraderie.
7th grader Andrew Picken’s humorously accurate contribution to my graduation autograph notebook
The basketball scene was so different from 8th grade where my teammates were also limited players, but we had a fantastic camaraderie. We were unified and defiant when we played the high schoolers in spring of 1989. In fall of 1992 the dynamics had changed. Tim, Reggie, and Jonathan were no longer a part of the equation. The sensations of euphoria and joy had been replaced by more mundane, pedestrian feelings. I was not experiencing the same enjoyment from playing. In fact, this is the point where I began to fall out of love with basketball to a certain degree. I did not have the same passion for the sport. I’m not sure if the fact that we were so utterly poor played a role or if it was related to having very little competition in practice. Perhaps my interest would have been maintained if there had been another player challenging me every day in practice. I don’t know. This wasn’t necessarily a conscious realization that I had at the time. However, it manifested itself from 1993 onwards as playing basketball was no longer a priority or a way in which I defined myself.
The fall and early winter of 1992 was the culmination of my basketball experience. To be blunt, I was a rather flawed player. I could not dribble or shoot effectively with my right hand. I stood up too tall while dribbling. I never learned how to shoot effectively from beyond 17 feet……. was never quite fit enough as an overall athlete, even if I did make some strides my senior year. In an odd way, I was always chasing the version of myself from June of 1989. Despite those flaws, I always had an internal arrogance and belief that I could overcome more polished, refined players. Many times, I did. It was not born out of any rational thinking, just stubborn bull-mindedness.
I did possess some real strengths that I could consistently rely on. My offensive skills were rudimentary but effective. I would drive to my left relentlessly and I had the strength to finish at the basket. When my pull up jumper was dropping, I could score points in bunches. I had decent spring in my legs, and I was creative when driving to the basket. I ran the court very well. Defensively, I felt I could guard anyone. I had good footwork, and I took defending very personally. I relished the opportunity to shut people down. When I stopped thinking and just played hard, I was a genuine handful.
Basketball had been my passion and much of my emotion was expressed through sport. However, the looming reality of not having an influential male presence in my life left me with deficiencies on and off the court that held me back and haunted me.
There was a lack of direction which led to me drifting away. My cocky persona at school covered up a tremendous insecurity. The fact that I came nowhere near fulfilling my potential as a basketball player hurts badly. I accepted that fact a long time ago, but it doesn’t change my level of wistful regret.
Just how far behind my development was as a genuine high school level player was laid bare at a tournament held at Horner Park in early February of 1993. Gospel Outreach had registered two teams for the competition. This competition was open to all levels aged 15 and over. The team that I was on had two adults: Rick Hoendervoogt and James Baldwin. James was a big black man well into his thirties with a middle-aged girth to him. He had graduated from Prosser and was a solid player. Rick was an ox who knew how to use his 6’3 250-pound frame. We were coached by the Gospel Outreach Youth Group leader Mike VanYzendoorn, who was a decent player in his own right. Our team first played the opposing Gospel Outreach squad led by amongst others, Kevin Renaud and other limited players from the school. They were suitable stooges for us to flex our hardcourt muscles. We won easily and I put up big numbers. It was a cakewalk.
Then we faced off against a team from St Gregory’s high school. It was a different story. As I watched them warm up, I knew we were in trouble. They were lean, athletic, and fit. St. Greg’s wasn’t even close to being a powerhouse basketball school in Chicago. But there was a genuine gulf in class between us. I was looking at players who had honed their craft against legitimate competition for four years. On our first possession, James swung the ball to me on the left. I quickly took aim and buried a jumper from 17 feet. Those would be the last points I would score. We were dominated. Rick and James, we’ll call them the Rick James show, tried to impose themselves on St. Greg’s but were overwhelmed by the quickness and athleticism of the opposition. It was shirts versus skins. We were the skins so there was big Rick in all his fleshy glory. I wasn’t going to win any modeling contracts either with my pasty white skin and skinny/fat build. What is a skinny fat build you ask? Well, pull up the Tom Brady photo from his NFL combine when he was a rookie and that will give you an idea. I had my red Chicago Bull’s shorts pulled up high to try and hide my love handles. It was a great look.
The only commonality I ever had with Tom Brady was the skinny/fat physique I sported senior year.
Getting back to the game, there was no single sequence where I was embarrassed or obviously outclassed. However, I let Rick and James take the offensive responsibilities. Tellingly, I didn’t demand the ball. I was passive. I grabbed some rebounds and passed the ball to James. Truth be told, the St Greg’s players were the type of competition that I would have needed to play against consistently to properly develop as a player. I was four years behind the curve from a skill standpoint, strength and conditioning, and experience. Everything. It was too late.
Gospel Outreach School and High School Memories 1988-1992 