#14: Entry 8

1990 Franklin Wrestling team - that little guy on the front row, the 2nd from the left is me. You gotta love my skater haircut, as if I was ever able to skate!

I’m not a person that speaks on regrets. We all make mistakes. We all have things in life where, with hindsight, we might have made different choices. The word hindsight is an interesting word:we will never come to a place in life where we catch it. Hindsight speaks on things past, yet only exists in the future. Hindsight will never help us make better choices. It’s unreachable.

With that being said, there is something about reflecting back. I look at my life, with the pool of unanswered questions that I was forced to swim through, and I now understand why many of those things happened. I recently had dinner with Mike Austin, one of my best friends during my Franklin Junior High days. He was in Orlando for a conference of some sort with the Navy. We caught back up with each other through Facebook, so when he comes into town, he tries to carve out some time so that we can catch up. During the last visit, we found ourselves talking about motivation and ambition, and he asked if I had any regrets, or if I ever had the impulse to bask in some of my success and take credit for all of the hard work I put in. It was a very fair question. I’m a very devout, spiritual person, and one would think the answer to those questions would be the typical “I just want to give all praise, glory and honor to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!” While this statement is at the root of all that I do, the real, genuine, truthful answer is a bit more complex.

Are there days where I want to take a Michael Jordan Hall of Fame ceremonial approach, sit in front of all of the people that doubted me and scream “WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT MY DESIRE TO PLAY BASKETBALL NOW?” Absolutely. I’m human. When you triumph over difficulties as much as I have, that’s a very human response. I remember driving home that night after my dinner with Mike wondering if I had done God a disservice. Should I have answered those questions with the staple Christianese answer? It led me to even more reflection, and I had questions to answer these questions: Would I have persevered without motivation? What was my motivation? What drove me to the brink of obsession to keep working hard to be a basketball player? The only answer I could come up with was God! Even as that young kid that fought going to church with my parents as a teenager, I knew, with hindsight, that God was directing my steps. He was my motivator.

Somehow, I was able to hold tight to that mustard seed of faith with the hope that I might eventually persevere as a basketball player. It didn’t…it could not have had anything to do with me, my strength, or my work ethic. Some people are blessed with incredible intellectual ability, others can sing or dance, and others are gifted with hand to eye coordination useful for mechanical engineering and repair. I was blessed with the gift of faith. The work ethic and faith that I was given to work hard was supernatural. It was directly from God. This is just who God created me to be.

Again…hindsight is an interesting thing. I know now, but in the thick of each trial, there was a lot of pain to manage. I’m surprised that I didn’t have some emotional breakdown, especially since a strong history of manic depression/bipolar disorder runs through my genes. I can’t help but wonder if I looked as crazy and distraught to everyone around me as I felt within. Was I the only person in my circle dealing with these types of emotions? I know I was one of the few outspoken individuals sharing my crazy dream with others. So do I have any regrets? Nah..I’d like to watch a remix of my life where I made different choices, just to see what would have happened, but I wouldn’t change anything. I believe in God’s omnipotence. In life, there’s no casting for parts anyway. You don’t play it, you live it, and I try to encourage others not to regret, knowing that you could have but you didn’t.

If I could, however, watch a different version of my life where I made different decisions, it would be during my eight grade year. I oftentimes share with people the fact that I was cut 5 out of 5 times from my middle school and high school team, from 7th – 12th grade. No one has asked yet, but there are actually 6 years in there. Why wasn’t I cut 6 times? In eight grade, as we were preparing for our Hornet winter sports season, I was torn between trying out for the basketball team or trying my hand at a second season of wrestling. My 7th grade attempt at making the basketball team was embarrassing. I started sharing my dream to play basketball with others, and after I got cut, almost everyone around me took it upon themselves to be the barer of bad news for me. It’s shameful, but people used my dreams as fodder for a quick laugh.

When Fall sports registrations came around, teammates of our wrestling team were in full recruit mode. There weren’t a lot of 70 pounders around to fill those midget weight classes, and my teammates from last year – people like Joe Peters, John Lloyd, and Steve Salvanish – made me feel needed and important. I can’t lie. It felt nice to be wanted and needed. In the end, those guys won out. I didn’t even try out for the 8th grade basketball team.

I believe that all things happen for a reason, but it would be interesting to see what would have happened if I tried out for the basketball team that year. Did Coach Schaum take me less seriously in 9th grade because I didn’t try out the year before? Maybe. Would I have measured up better by showing the improvements I had made in one year…if I had shown how much quicker I had advanced over other players through my hard work? No one will never know. I’m glad things happened the way that they did. When I am rejected, it does something to me internally. There’s this brief moment of depression, followed by this ridiculous drive to prove to myself that the rejection I endured was nothing but a poor decision. There’s a large part of me that thinks that if I tried out and actually made the team in 8th grade, I wouldn’t be who I am today. More than that, this story I am sharing wouldn’t be all that exciting. There’s a strong chance that I could have become an average guy merely existing, not living life to the fullest.

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#14: Entry 7

Two of the things that are so great about the game of basketball is it is one of the cheapest sports to play, and you don’t need others to play it. All you really need is a goal to shoot on (preferably standing at the regulation height of ten feet) and a ball (preferably a 7-9 lb bouncing ball). This is probably why the sport is one of the biggest draws to underprivileged urban kids. Playing basketball with the hopes of making it to the big time is almost as good if not better than playing the lottery. At least with basketball you can put some hard work in to increase your chances.

It wasn’t all about the money for me, but I can’t say it didn’t play a part. I could escape from just about everything on the basketball court, but the emotional depression of being poor always seeped into the back of my mind. Perhaps it was my growling stomach chiming in during a game, reminding me that when I finished playing for the day, I’d undoubtedly go to bed pretty hungry, unless I wanted to put some added time into heating the welfare peanut butter in a pan so it would spread without tearing a hole in the bread. Perhaps it was the ghetto-fabulous backboard I had, reminding me that we didn’t even have enough money to get a real fiberglass backboard.

Shoes was the biggest reminder. I remember when the Jordan shoe craze took us all by storm in the 1980’s. A pair of Jordans cost more than our electric bill, and we could barely afford that each month. Ironically, I could believe that I would make it to the NBA easier than I could believe I’d get me a pair of Jordans. My parents could never afford to get me a good pair of shoes. I recall the first time I got a pair of name brand shoes. It was a pair of Asics. My dad wanted to get me a pair of wrestling shoes since the rest of the wrestling team had a pair.It was the first time we spent $30 on a pair of shoes! Unfortunately, my regular shoes were on their last leg. When they were rendered useless, those Asics turned into more than just wrestling shoes. I wore than for most of the year: in school, in gym class, and even on the basketball court at home. At least they were high tops. I could get over not having fancy pants or nice shirts, but not having the proper shoes to play basketball was just terrible.

There was another time when my mother brought me back a pair of shoes from a garage sale down the street. She probably paid a dollar or two, and she was just so thrilled at the bargain she received. I think she assumed that I would be super excited about them. I guess I kind of was at first. the shoes that I was wearing had holes on the bottom, so I was definitely in need of a new pair that wouldn’t dampen my socks when it rained outside. Have you ever had to figure out a way to get around every puddle of water during a rainstorm? Not fun! Anyway, I didn’t have a problem lacing those shoes up, until the jokes started rolling in. The brand name was called Jox. They looked like a properly engineered shoe. They were blue, which was a favorite color of mine. I was just happy to not have holes at the bottom of my shoes to worry about anymore, until one joke changed my mind about wearing them ever again. Someone said, “Hey Markie…get off my jox!” A group of friends labored in laughter for about 5 -10 minutes, repeating that line over and over and over again. Yep…those shoes found the back of my closet and never returned. I opted to wear shoes with holes instead!

Being poor is one heck of an obstacle when you are facing the peer pressures of your school peers to be cool. It’s virtually impossible to be cool in public schools when you’re broke. I have no doubts that my parents would have bought me anything I wanted if they had the money. Unfortunately, this was our reality. I had to find a way to cope with it, so I tried to outsmart the system. I started taking notes about which pants and shirt I wore during the week. I was trying to play mind games with people so they wouldn’t figure out that I had 2 pairs of pants and a couple of shirts to my name. I switched jeans every day, and I tried to wear one shirt with one pair, and then alternate back to that shirt by the end of the week. Then I started worrying about wearing the same shirt every Friday, so I tried to mix that up. My goodness…it’s emotionally draining just to reflect back on those days. No matter how hard I tried, I still ended up getting made fun of. I wasn’t fooling anyone.

That’s why getting to school was so problematic for me. I didn’t want to be laughed at. I started missing 20-30 days each semester. There was a running joke that I was the king of snow days in May! I turned skipping school into an art form. I was obviously smart. the brainpower that I put into skipping school without making my parents mad should have been redirected towards my studies. We only had one car, so if I missed the bus, there was no way to get me to school. I made up all sorts of excuses for missing the bus. I’d purposefully leave a book home so that I would miss the bus while I went back home to get it. I’d purposefully set my alarm for PM instead of AM so it wouldn’t go off, and sometimes I’d sneak into my parent’s room and switch their clock time so they wouldn’t wake up on time either. One of my favorites was pouring clumps of my mother’s dark mascara into the toilet, sticking a finger down my throat to gag, and faking like I had a 24-hour bug. It definitely looked like throw-up. I’m laughing even while writing this. Boy was I clever.

I try my best, even today, not to make excuses or transfer blame and responsibility for my own actions, but being the butt of so many jokes really discouraged my academic ambitions. Sure, basketball had become my primary focus, and I should have been more responsible early on with my educational development. I just felt like despite what my grades showed, I knew I was smart, and I wasn’t convinced that getting an A or a B guaranteed anything for a kid growing up like I did. I do know one thing: going from an Honor roll student that received the Presidential Award for Academics signed by President Ronald Reagan to getting C’s and D’s rocked my parent’s world. They couldn’t understand it at all. Needing a scapegoat, they blamed it on the game of basketball. To them, this game ws going to be my permanent demise.

#14: Entry 6

Mark - 7th grade

I wasn’t much of a basketball athlete, but the one thing I did have a knack for was dribbling. I think it was the summer before 7th grade that I attended the Chuck Henry basketball camp with my good friend Cory. He was a year ahead of me, but we were still in the same age bracket. This was my first experience with any kind of coaching. It was a week long camp held at Wayne Memorial, and we learned a lot. The thing that stood out most for me was the Pistol Pete ball handling drills, and I started doing those every day.

These were drills that nothing could keep me from, even a broken basketball goal in my backyard. I still had my ball, and a nicely paved backyard driveway to dribble on. I did those drills three…sometimes four times a day. The hand to hand slaps, around the neck, waist then ankles, the figure 8’s, dribbling around each leg with one hand, then the quick hand drills, and then of course the treacherous spider drill. I was obsessed with these drills, even to the point of blindfolding myself and dribbling around in my basement with the lights off so I couldn’t cheat the blindfold. I think I drove my parents nuts with all the ball bouncing. Sorry Ma! Sorry Dad!

Towards the end of the Chuck Henry camp, I started to stand out among all of the others. Every day, Coach Henry would time us during the quick hand drills and spider drill for 15 seconds. He tested us on how many reps we could do. The drills were very difficult to grasp initially, but this was one of the things that I could work on and get better. No one could stop me from excelling, simply because it was a competition with myself…and the time clock. I was killing all of these drills by the end of the camp week, but the spider caused Coach to single me out. In 15 seconds, I think I had over 80 reps. That’s more than 5 finger touches per second. I had the quickest hands in the camp.

Being an awesome dribbler was only good, but I didn’t really know what to do with it. I was too weak to finish lay-ups, a poor shooter, and playing solid defense was just out of the question for a guy that was just about a foot smaller than everyone else.I would get knocked around on the court to the point where it probably looked like I didn’t belong. Having any sort of confidence was out of the question, and without confidence, you really can’t play the game of basketball with any success. I had a lot of work to do if I ever wanted to play on the big stage.

The one thing that I always found interesting was that no matter what would happen…no matter what people said, what I looked like on the court, or what the “odds” were of me ever playing organized basketball, I could never let go of that passion and drive to get better. I always looked at things with great optimism. I believed that my shortcomings as  player were just some things I had to figure out. I sincerely believed that if I worked harder than everyone, I’d eventually get better, and maybe get my shot to play for the school team. Yet, the harder that I worked, the more of a joke I was becoming to everyone around me.

When I eventually got my basketball rim up in my backyard, 720 Central Ave. became a hot spot in the neighborhood. On any given day, there would be no less than 12 people waiting for next game. Players like Gerald Adams, Andre Graves, Diz, Tony Dooley, Sam Bell, TJ, Tyson and his brother Desmond, Cory Blanks and Matt Canty, my girl Rica Barge (still one of the toughest female ballers I ever played against), and so many others that I didn’t even know by name. We’d play 3-on-3 from 4:00pm until the street lights came on, and oftentimes longer than that. I say we, but although it was my backyard, I didn’t play very much initially. I had a hard time even getting picked to play in my own backyard. How crazy is that?

I’ve never really had an opportunity to thank those guys for making me a better player. Sure, they didn’t let me play as much early on, but I made my way into the “regular rotation” eventually. If anything, it gave me something to work towards. While most of them probably went to sleep every night thinking about a plethora of various other things, my nights were oftentimes sleepless. All I could think about was basketball. That might sound like a bit of an exaggeration, but even typing this for people’s reading pleasure still feels like an understatement. I was consumed by this game. I was determined to earn my respect as a basketball player. I hated sitting down after losing, because it would take so much longer for me to get picked up. I think that’s why I’m such a competitive person. I hate to lose. I wanted to stay on the court all night.

As much as I loved having a backyard filled with competition, my parents and neighbors grew to despise it. My father hated listening to a bouncing basketball every afternoon. He was bipolar, and would often find his way to his bed as early as 8 o’clock. Unfortunately, for him, my parent’s room was the one facing the backyard. He could not escape the noise. My mom wasn’t as upset about the noise as she was the traffic we started bringing. I remember one day, after coming out to check on me, she immediately demanded that everyone go home. I was appalled! I was so upset I started to cry. She then proceeded to explain to me how she came out on the porch and found bags of weed and crack sitting in the old milk man stall that we never used. People placed their belongings inside that convenient hole in the wall. We knew that Inkster was turning into a pretty tough neighborhood plagued with drugs, crime and other senseless violence. That day, she realized that our backyard had started attracting some of those things, and she feared that I would get caught up in all of that.

It took a couple of days, but I complained so much about the situation that she eventually gave in. As I said before, in the long run, my parents felt it was better to have me home in our backyard rather than out running the streets and getting into trouble. At least she could keep a close eye on me. The crazy thing is I didn’t even know what drugs were. Sure, I attended those “DARE” program assembly in school, and “Just Say No!” was entrenched into my head. The truth is that the only thing that I really cared about was basketball. I never touched weed. My parents smoked cigarettes, and I deemed that a disgusting habit. Experimenting with drugs to feel good wasn’t necessary for me. Nothing made me higher than playing the game of basketball.

That’s not to say I never got into any trouble. In fact, basketball quickly replaced my love for academics. I went from being a straight honor roll student to barely getting by. I got into my share of fights, and the more I felt pressure from people poking fun at my ambition to play basketball, the bigger the chip on my shoulder got. There was this emotional tornado within me. I had questions that I couldn’t answer, I had so many different influences tugging at my heart, and I had people taking way too much of their time making me a laughing stock in school. Factor in the fact that we were one of the poorest families in the neighborhood, I rarely had anything decent to eat for lunch or dinner, and my parents always seemed to be at odds with me because of how basketball pretty much took over my life, and you’ll start to get a glimpse of why basketball was such an escape for me. Why a little midget like me became obsessed with the game of basketball was puzzling. I was content to get on a court every day and escape the realities of my life, but as I started getting older, that question started to haunt me. I needed an answer for that, if simply, for nothing else, to understand myself better.

#14: Entry 5

Inkster, Michigan!

The first thing I did when I got home from school was put my books down, grab my basketball, and head out to the backyard.It was like a drug to me. I could escape every problem when playing. There was always something soothing about a bouncing basketball. I’d liken it to the appealing sound of waves crashing the shore, or the sweet sound of exotic birds chirping away in a rainforest. It’s no wonder I declared for myself a goal to make it to the NBA. To me, it was an obvious direction to take. For others, I was a lunatic.

I might not have been very good when I was younger, but I knew, very early on, that there was something different about me. My attraction to the game was abnormal. I had to have been the most unlikely person in the world to choose to play basketball. Short. Unathletic. Scrawny. Poor eyesight. I can’t forget to mention the fact that I was white. It never mattered to me of course, and I’m not even sure it mattered to anyone else either. It did, however, seem like it back then.Regardless of my talent level, I played with the passion of thousands. You’d think a coach would have picked up on this and gave me a proper opportunity to improve. One of the favorite things that I like to share with players is that working hard as a player is not the hard part of the journey as an aspiring professional basketball player. It isn’t easy by any stretch, but what’s harder is getting the opportunity to show the skills you’ve acquired by working hard. What’s hard is conjuring up the motivation to work hard without knowing if it will be in vein or not. My life is the perfect example of this. I’m not able to see all things, but as far as I could tell, no other player in my circle was putting in the time and effort I was on the basketball court. I wanted to get better. I just never got the proper coaching as a youngster.

My first experience trying out for a basketball team was in 7th grade. Coach Schaum…I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a mental abrasion in my mind of his face when I work out…even today! I can’t blame him. In fact, he was only doing what God ordained by cutting me from the Franklin Junior High School basketball team. At first glance, it was a no-brainer anyway. We had a very talented team: Gerald Adams, Jeff Landers, Matt Campbell, Nate Bishop, Gerald Adams, Roderick Hardison, Andre Graves, Tony Brown…all names that haunted me while at Franklin. All of those guys were easily 5’10” or taller, and I wasn’t even close to 5’0″ (4’9″ and 70 lbs. in 7th grade if I remember correctly).

Since I didn’t make the basketball team, I was pressured to join the wrestling team instead. It wasn’t because I was a good wrestler either. I recall taking plenty of beatings on that mat. It had more to do with me being able to wrestle a weight class that few teams had someone small enough to wrestle. If you look at the yearbook pictures of the Franklin wrestling teams from 89-91, you’ll see me, take a second and third look, and if you knew no better, you’d ask yourself what the heck a kindergartener was doing in a middle school wrestling picture. I remember my first match. My coach – Coach Thompson – pulled me aside before heading over to the match. He told me I was up against a wrestler who had been All-State every year, as if I wasn’t nervous enough. I was actually quite proud though. I lasted through the final round before getting pinned. That’s about as good as you can expect from an impoverished kid my size. It was, however, downhill for the rest of that 7th grade season. I never one a match.

I was tough, though. On or off the mat, I never went out like a punk. I couldn’t afford to. One of the most important pieces of advice that my father gave me was about standing up for myself. I used to get picked on all the time as a kid, even as early as elementary. I would run home David Hicks elementary, crying after being bullied by someone. My father pulled me aside one day and told me I was going to have to stand my ground instead of running home to “mommy and daddy” all the time, even if it meant taking a beating. Simple words from an ex-convict of course. He was right though. As I prepared myself for the scary life of middle school, I told myself I wasn’t going to let these knew peers push me around, and I didn’t.

One day during lunch period, we were all finishing up, laughing and having a good time. I didn’t have much to eat (that’s another story), but the next thing I knew, I had people pushing their trays in front of me expecting me to throw everyone’s garbage away. All I could think about was what my dad had told me. I decided it was time for me to stand my ground. I pushed the tray away from me, refusing to discard everyone’s garbage. After laughing and arguing about it, I asked everyone why they didn’t tell “him” to throw their garbage away. By him, I was referring to James Crews. Now I was 4’9″…Jim, as he was also called…Jim was probably 6’2″…easily 170 lbs.

Regardless of actual statistics, it was easily a David and Goliath comparison. Needless to say, James didn’t take to kindly to me pointing my finger at him, let alone telling people to make him throw away their garbage. I’m pretty sure James woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. Perhaps he didn’t wake up on a bed at all. After slapping my finger down 2 or 3 times (I was stubbornly sticking to my dad’s new game plan for me), he was quick to get up out of his seat. He started walking around the long cafeteria table. I sat in my seat, laughing, without a clue of where he was going. Before I knew it, James grabbed my head and slammed it against the cafeteria table! I WAS SHOCKED! Ummm…OUCH!

As I bounced off the table and onto the ground, all I could think about was what my dad said. There was no way whatsoever I could get up from this crying. I’d be embarrassed for the rest of my school life. So I did the complete opposite…I got up laughing. I couldn’t have responded any better. From that moment, people looked at me as one of the toughest midgets in school. I never looked back from there. If anyone poked fun at me, teased me, or spread rumors about me to others that I found out about, I was quick to address the problem. I made it clear that if someone tried me, we’d just fight. It’s amazing how many people try to test people until they realize that it will end up in a fight. My dad was right. When people realized that I wouldn’t take any crap, they stopped messing with me as much. I still fought a lot. I got the crap kicked out of me quite a few times. Other times, I got the best of others. None of those fights hurt worse than getting cut from the basketball team each year. I could get up laughing after getting my head slammed into a table. When I saw my name on the tryout list with a line through it, the only response I could muster up was a painful, tearful whimper. It never seemed fair.

Despite my athletic challenges and my consistent track record of being cut, I had plenty of fodder to defend my decision to play basketball.I grew up in what I still consider the best era of NBA history – the 80’s. There was the Lakers and Celtics rivalry. The Detroit Pistons, led by my childhood hero Isaiah Thomas, on the rise, dismantling the Celtics, then the Lakers. We also did a pretty good job keeping Michael Jordan and the Bulls at bay for a short time, until they evolved into the dynasty of the 90’s. The NBA was quickly becoming the most popular league in all of sports. It was a special time for the game of basketball, and I simply couldn’t get enough of it! It wasn’t just me, either. Every kid on my neighborhood loved basketball. With the Pistons winning ball games left and right, and the highlights of Joe, Isiah, and Dennis “The Worm” Rodman, it was hard not to.

Back to Isaiah Thomas. My childhood hero. There…I said it. He’s not the most popular guy in basketball these days, but he’ll always be an important part of my basketball existence. He was living proof that small guards could make an impact in the NBA. The heart he showed on the court was nothing short of amazing. The skill and creativity he played with was mesmerizing. He handled the basketball like no one else in the league at that time. I remember watching him try to push the Pistons past the Lakers for the Championship while playing with just one good ankle.  I think he poured in 24 points in a quarter while hobbling around on one foot. His efforts fell short, but it was amazing to watch.

While I wasn’t the most athletic, I’ve always had an uncanny ability to handle the basketball. A lot of that came from watching Isiah’s every move. I found myself mimicking everything that he did. It took more hand quickness and trickery than athleticism to handle the ball well. In my backyard,  I use to envision players trying to guard me, and I’d create dribbling moves to trick opponents into reaching as I went by. I was always the flashy type, putting the ball in between my legs and around my back whether I went anywhere with the move or not. I was crossing people over before it was even cool. I didn’t know how to use my dribbling moves effectively, but I sure looked good. I used to drive people bananas by dribbling the ball around during games without going anywhere.

I didn’t realize it then, but it’s probably likely that I also learned how to be tough on the basketball court from Isiah. Isiah played through so many injuries during his career. I didn’t have many injuries to distract me, but I definitely needed to be mentally tough to keep going. In fact, it was my confusing, obsessive motivation that prompted me to start asking some tough questions: why was I so driven to prove people wrong and make the team? Why didn’t I listen to everyone else and quit? Why did I love a game that I clearly wasn’t built to play? It took me a very long time to find the answers to those questions, yet I tarried on, working, pushing, and striving to be a better player than the day before.

I think my work ethic was a combination of things, including a natural response to my environment. Inkster, which was once a pleasant middle class neighborhood, quickly became one the most most feared, unfavorable areas to live in. Noticeably, crime in the area was rising swiftly. Drug trafficking became the norm, and even random shootings became a regular occurrence. One day, while my parents were out, I watched dozens of cop cars pull up to my neighbor’s house. It was a drug raid, complete with a swat team, heavy artillery, sniff dogs, a battle ram for the front door, etc. All I can remember is hitting the floor in fear of what I saw in the movies and on the TV: a no holds barred shootout. Not one single shot was fired, but several pounds of marijuana were discovered.

On the other side of Inkster, there was a section of town, just across Michigan Avenue, dubbed Little Saigon. For me, probably one of the most difficult challenges was being one of the few white kids left in the Inkster neighborhood. Several of the white families on our block moved out of town. For a long time, it was rumored that white people couldn’t step one foot into Little Saigon without getting shot at instantly. I’d later find that to be severely untrue. I don’t think the guns and bullets discriminated. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, there was a high likelihood that you could pay for that mistake with your wallet, clothes, and sometimes…your life!

Regardless of my “chip on my shoulder” mentality, people still tried me. I remember returning home with my family after a shopping trip, only to find our backyard filled with kids playing basketball on my court while we were gone. As they saw us pull up, everyone scrambled in different directions, hopping fences on every side of the yard to escape the wrath of my father. My dad parked the car, we went into the backyard, and what I saw shattered my heart. My dad had decided to put the rim at just 7 feet high. The problem was that this was a height that everyone else in the neighborhood could slam dunk. My basketball goal had been dunked on so aggressively while we were gone that the rim was bent all the way down. I remember pulling out the ladder and trying to bend it back. I couldn’t believe I was going to be without my basketball goal. It wasn’t like we could just go and get a new one. As it was, we could only afford the basketball goal itself. My father made the backboard himself. Everything I tried to repair it was no use. The goal had been rendered unusable.

It took months before I was able to get another goal, but it didn’t keep me from the game. I started dribbling my basketball everywhere that I went. When we were able to get a new rim, my father also decided to raise the rim as high as it could go (9′ 8″). This helped prevent everyone from being able to dunk. It also was better for me. Now I had something much closer to regulation to practice on. After a couple of, shall we say…”discussions” between my father and those coming over to play basketball, people started to get the picture. There were still occasions where we returned home only to find people playing in our backyard, but it was harmless. if anything, my parents were just happy to have something to keep me at home. Getting into trouble in Inkster became easier and easier with each passing day. It never effected me though. While others learned how to write graffiti, steal from stores, play with guns, experiment with drugs, etc., I was quite content playing basketball, whether it was with others, or all by myself.

#14: Entry 4

From that moment on, basketball slowly took over my life, in just about every sense. I slept with my basketball most nights. It was all I could think about. I came home from school and went straight to the backyard. After I caught the “basketball jones”, nothing much else mattered to me. All I wanted to do is play basketball. It was an escape for me…an escape from a life no one would really want to live. Everyone wants to be somebody…to be important…to matter…especially as a kid. I didn’t think I mattered to anyone.

Before basketball, my life had already started to feel pretty insignificant. There were times when we had our electricity and water cut off due to non-payment, we switched phone numbers more than the number of outfits I had to wear to school, and we made due most days on a steady diet of pot pies for dinner. My wardrobe was hurt! I recall several days where I was made fun of because of what I was wearing. I didn’t know what it was like to have a pair of name brand shoes. I wore these wooden frame glasses for a while, and I had no comprehension of matching my clothes or developing any sort of fashion sense. Getting dressed for school consisted of me putting on one of the two pairs of pants that I had and picking a shirt I didn’t wear that week (I think I had maybe 5 or 6 different ones).

To top it all off, I wasn’t the most handsome guy in the world either. I had this mole on the corner of my left eye, my teeth were crooked (still are actually), and developed an acne problem, too. I got my hair cut maybe once every 4-5 months, and I had no idea what I was doing with it. Needless to say, going to school got pretty rough. Who wants to get made fun of every day? Who wants to go through puberty seeing all of the pretty girls and know you don’t have a shot in the world at getting a girlfriend? I sure didn’t. Too bad I didn’t have much of a choice.

For a long time, I blocked everything out and tried to focus on my studies. The one thing my parents did try to teach me is that I could be whatever I wanted to be as long as I got good grades. That lesson would come back to bite them (more on that later). Strangely, it’s a lesson they didn’t really practice themselves. My father had a middle school education level before finding his way to prison, and although my mother did graduate from high school, she never pursued her passion for cosmetology. Usually, a person embraces lessons from people who actually practice what they preach. For some reason, although my parents were speaking on something they clearly knew nothing about, this lesson stuck with me. I figured with the life I was living, I had better be as smart as possible to make something of myself. Otherwise, I’d be doomed to the same fate as my parents.

As I write this, I realize now that my competitive tendencies started at a very young age. In 5th grade, I recall watching with envy as several 6th grade students walked up to receive the “Presidential Award for Academics”. It was an award signed by the President of the United States given to students who maintained honor roll status throughout the 3rd through the 6th grade. You couldn’t have any C’s, only A’s and B’s, and most of them had to be A’s (I can’t remember the exact criteria).

That’s actually my first memory of setting a significant goal and achieving it. Upon finishing the 5th grade, I was already almost to the finish line, being on the honor roll every report card period. As underwhelming as my life was, this was something prestigious that I could achieve that didn’t cost money. Receiving something signed by our president seemed like something of a fairy tale for a kid like me. I spoke to Ms. Hislop, my 6th grade teacher, at the beginning of the school year. She asked me what my goals were. What a fantastic elementary teacher, instilling the concept of goal-setting at an early age. I asked her about that award, and she told me to go after it…so I did.

The worst part of it all was that on award day, my parents didn’t even come. I believe my father was in the hospital again, and at that point, my mother didn’t have her drivers license. I was the only student to receive the award that year, and Ms. Hislop was sure to make it a big deal when she presented it to me. I got up, feeling so proud to walk up there and receive it, and all I can remember was hearing younger students heckle me for what I was wearing. I had some corduroy pants (not at all cool at the time) and a poor excuse for a dress shirt. Oh, and I had a pair of Kmart sneakers on. We couldn’t afford more than one pair of shoes, so dress shoes were out of the question. Yep – dress pants, button-up shirt, and tennis shoes…not an appropriate combination. I was laughed at all the way up to the stage. It’s even hard for me to believe that I still remember such specifics of that moment. It helped seeing Ronald Reagan’s signature on the award, and the fact that Ms. Hislop showed enough pride in me to measure up toe-to-toe with any proud parent. That and the fact that I achieved something I put my mind to made it feel a little bit better.

The shame of it all is that up until 7th grade, I was a very good student. After discovering all that basketball had to offer, all of that went out the window. Maybe it was the heckling I received after receiving that award. Maybe it was the inferiority complex that I struggled with, wondering if I could actually keep this up. Or, maybe it was the fact that once I got to junior high school, I had more books to carry home, and the closest thing that I had to a backpack was a plastic Farmer Jack bag from the grocery story that always seemed to bring much laughter to others when it ripped on the way home? It was undoubtedly a combination of many things, but I believe it was primarily being able to play basketball any time that I wanted. Education suddenly took a back seat to basketball. For an athletically-challenged kid of my size and weight, that seemed like a travesty to everyone! Well…everyone except me!

#14: Entry 3

 

I don’t want to leave the impression that my father was this terrible guy. On the contrary, he has inadvertently taught me so much about being a man, a husband and a father. Some of those lessons came by way of learning what not to do, but my father knew his faults. I wholeheartedly believe that he did the very best that he could, given his illness and circumstance. It wasn’t his fault that he had bipolar disorder to manage. No, my father wasn’t a bad guy at all. The irony of our relationship is that I have plenty of wonderful memories to compete and diminish all of the negative.

For example, my father helped expose me to the game of basketball. There were two basketball goals on Central Avenue to play at. Early in my childhood, my father would oftentimes join the kids in a few pick-up games. He wasn’t very good, but that never mattered to me. I just enjoyed shooting hoops with my pops. It was father and son time. He had an awkward two-handed shot, which wasn’t too shabby. It was just as accurate as any of us kids at the time. Of course, he was also pretty short, which kept it much more fair for us kids. He was much stronger than all of us though, so he did stand out.

One of the most amazing memories of my father came from the day we decided to refinance our house and add a garage to our backyard. When I learned that adding the garage entailed the addition of a newly paved driveway, my immediate thought was that we could finally put up our own basketball goal in our backyard. I was so very thrilled. Being able to play basketball any time that I wanted was this unimaginable gift. Even at an early age, I felt this creative connection and release from playing. I kept thinking about how amazing it would be to have my own court to play on.

I’m pretty sure that part of the plan for getting a garage has an equal amount to do with getting a basketball court as it did adding a garage to the property to house our car. As soon as I put 2 and 2 together, I asked if we could put up a basketball goal on the garage. My father answered yes, like he was hoping to have surprise me but couldn’t stand to let me wait. He was excited to do it, almost like it brought him so much joy to provide something so awesome for his son. When we went to price the goal, things took a turn towards disappointment. Basketball goals (particularly backboards) were much more expensive than I think he anticipated. We couldn’t afford everything. Rather than disappoint me, my father assured me that we would get the metal rim and a net, and he would build me a custom made backboard to fix the rim on. I honestly didn’t care. I just wanted a rim to throw a basketball into.

So we went and bought some plywood. My father sketched out a backboard design, which was…well, it wasn’t exactly what you would expect a backboard to be shaped as. It was a little shorter in height, but it didn’t matter to me. We fixed it flat onto the wooden garage at about the 7 foot height, and I went to town. Oh my…the sheer joy. I must have stayed out there for hours. I could care less what else was going on. I just wanted to do some trick shots, dribble around the nicely-paved concrete and create my own NBA moments. Eventually, everyone in the neighborhood started coming over, and 720 Central Ave. become one of the hottest spots on the block!

#14: Entry 2

One of the biggest reasons people do not get along with others is because there is a disconnect in regards to the measures of expectations. From as early as I can remember, my life was pretty much defined by this “meeting” of expectations. The problem was that those expectations were not my expectations, nor were they God’s expectations, yet people shared those expectations as if they were God…as if they had my life story planned out already. One of my earliest memories that I have is one of me climbing out of my crib in the middle of the night. I didn’t want to be alone, especially in the dark. I wanted to sleep in my parent’s bed, so I figured out a way to get out of my crib.

I remember my parents being shocked to find me in their bed the next morning. It sounds innocent and meaningless, but it symbolizes the type of spirit that I had as a child. It’s a spirit that remains with me even to this day. My parents expected me to sleep in my crib, which is not much different than many of the other expectations that I’ve had to deal with in my life. People will always have expectations for you. Even before I was two, I was defying expectations. It has become a very important part of my life.

I grew up poor. Now that’s a line that a lot of inspirational stories begin with. It’s the American dream to come from nothing to something. However, for me, growing up poor wasn’t the real story. The story is deeper than dealing with the complexities of being poor. According to expectation, I wasn’t supposed to grow up poor. We were living in the thriving outskirts of Detroit, Michigan – The Mighty Motor City – and my father worked at General Motors. It was as good of a job as any ex-convict could expect from the blue collar region of southeastern Michigan.

Unfortunately, getting to work was always an issue for him. Thank God for the UAW. Without the union, my father would not have held his job longer than a couple of years. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder back in 1976, the year in which his father, also battling bipolar disorder and alcoholism, committed suicide by shooting himself in the stomach, just 5 months before I was born.

My father has been in and out of different hospitals for most of my life. I’ve lost track of how many times he tried his hand at the same fate as his father, not with a gun, but through medication overdose. There have been some close calls, but none of his attempts proved fatal. I recall one particular episode, when I was approximately 16 years of age, where I walked into his bedroom, only to see him unconsciously sprawled out on his bedroom floor in his underwear. I was jarred, but only for a brief moment. I knew I had to act quickly. As I struggled to get him up, he could barely move. I noticed an empty bottle of Lithium tipped over on the nightstand. I knew what he did. I wanted to cry, but there was no time.

We were without a phone in the house at that time (we were without a phone most of my childhood), so I sent my sister next door to call 9-1-1. I knew we were asking for embarrassment by doing so, but we had no other choice. It didn’t take long before a good portion of the neighborhood was outside of our house consumed with finding out what was going on. I remember trying to salvage my father’s dignity by unsuccessfully putting some pants on him. As the paramedics carted him out on a stretcher, we walked outside to what seemed to be like a crowd of paparazzi without cameras.

The ambulance ride was one I’ll never forget. My dad awoke briefly, only to yell and scream at me for calling the authorities. I can still hear his voice resonating clearly in my head.

“Maaaa-aaark….what the hell did you do Mark!” The paramedic began his routine.

“Paul, can you hear me? Paul, who is the President of the United States?” he asked.

My dad screamed his reply. “Bill Clinton!” He paused for a brief moment, and shouted “Turn these BLANKITY BLANK (of course substituting the obvious words) LIGHTS OFF! Maaa-aaark, what the BLANKITY BLANK did YOU DOOOO Mark?”

Ironically, those same words were going through my own head about my dad. Why didn’t he want to be around us any more?

He drifted back into an unconscious state. We arrived at the hospital, and I waited frantically in the waiting room for my mom to arrive. She was at Burger King, working her typical closing shift. Calling the authorities was the right thing to do, but I couldn’t help but fear that I had made a bad decision. I didn’t want them to send my dad to a psychiatric hospital because of this. The issues I had with my father were long-winded, but I still loved him. I needed him in my life…I just needed a better version of him…a version he seemed to be quite unwilling to provide more days than others.