My epic sports memories are a very mixed bag, tending toward more mediocrity, to put it mildly.
At age 3 or 4, I recall hitting a ball a country mile in Canton, Mississippi. The ball may have been plastic or rubber or a real baseball. I don't recall. I just know that it flew way over my Uncle Sweet Pea's head in this my first, glorious moment of athletic prowess! That felt good !
Later, in Missouri, I recall tackling the great Udell Chambers in a game of sandlot football up at James Milton Turner Elementary School. I was in 5th grade. He was in 8th grade. I got a big knot on my forehead from his pumping elbow as compensation during that effort! Rather than risk another 'payment' from that strong, brutal boy, me and my hicky ran straight home!
My next sports memory was my coming off the bench to score 9 points in the last 1:42 of the 4th quarter at Steger Jr. High School. We lost anyway by 24 four points!
But my glory brought adoring hugs from our lovely cheerleaders, who were my white classmates, and a flurry of telephone calls from two black community girls in the 7th grade, who I spurned as too young!
The follow-up to my basketball glory came in intramural wrestling. I was paired with our school 's "bad boy," Eddie Jefferson, in gym class. He carried a vaunted reputation of having kicked many behinds with abandonment. I knew who he was, but had not grown up with him. Nor had I ever had any encounter with him, unsavory or otherwise, until that memorable mat moment. As we grappled, I sensed that he could not pen me. I was too strong. I also sensed that I could pen him, if I was so inclined. He knew this too! But. If I penned the school 's tough guy, even in gym class, the notorious act would require some measure of public recompense by him or others, in the streets! So, I was content to accede to a draw!
In the 11th grade, I broke my ankle in a tackling drill, while competing for the quarterback position on our Webster Groves High School varsity football team in 1968. That fractured fibula ended my active, organized athletic career, finally.
Along the way, I was Sports Editor for The Steger Jr. High "Spotlight" and Editor in Chief of "The Dark Side," the newspaper we blacks published in high school to adore and communicate with each other given a predominantly white situs.
Friday, May 6, 2016
MY EPIC SPORTS MEMORIES
MY SPORTS MEMORIES
My epic sports memories are a very mixed bag, tending toward more mediocrity, to put it mildly.
At age 3 or 4, I recall hitting a ball a country mile in Canton, Mississippi. The ball may have been plastic or rubber or a real baseball. I don't recall. I just know that it flew way over my Uncle Sweet Pea's head in this my first, glorious moment of athletic prowess! That felt good !
Later, in Missouri, I recall tackling the great Udell Chambers in a game of sandlot football up at James Milton Turner Elementary School. I was in 5th grade. He was in 8th grade. I got a big knot on my forehead from his pumping elbow as compensation during that effort! Rather than risk another 'payment' from that strong, brutal boy, me and my hicky ran straight home!
My next sports memory was my coming off the bench to score 9 points in the last 1:42 of the 4th quarter at Steger Jr. High School. We lost anyway by 24 four points!
But my glory brought adoring hugs from our lovely cheerleaders, who were my white classmates, and a flurry of telephone calls from two black community girls in the 7th grade, who I spurned as too young!
The follow-up to my basketball glory came in intramural wrestling. I was paired with our school 's "bad boy," Eddie Jefferson, in gym class. He carried a vaunted reputation of having kicked many behinds with abandonment. I knew who he was, but had not grown up with him. Nor had I ever had any encounter with him, unsavory or otherwise, until that memorable mat moment. As we grappled, I sensed that he could not pen me. I was too strong. I also sensed that I could pen him, if I was so inclined. He knew this too! But. If I penned the school 's tough guy, even in gym class, the notorious act would require some measure of public recompense by him or others, in the streets! So, I was content to accede to a draw!
In the 11th grade, I broke my ankle in a tackling drill, while competing for the quarterback position on our Webster Groves High School varsity football team in 1968. That fractured fibula ended my active, organized athletic career, finally.
Along the way, I was Sports Editor for The Steger Jr. High "Spotlight" and Editor in Chief of "The Dark Side," the newspaper we blacks published in high school to adore and communicate with each other given a predominantly white situs.
My epic sports memories are a very mixed bag, tending toward more mediocrity, to put it mildly.
At age 3 or 4, I recall hitting a ball a country mile in Canton, Mississippi. The ball may have been plastic or rubber or a real baseball. I don't recall. I just know that it flew way over my Uncle Sweet Pea's head in this my first, glorious moment of athletic prowess! That felt good !
Later, in Missouri, I recall tackling the great Udell Chambers in a game of sandlot football up at James Milton Turner Elementary School. I was in 5th grade. He was in 8th grade. I got a big knot on my forehead from his pumping elbow as compensation during that effort! Rather than risk another 'payment' from that strong, brutal boy, me and my hicky ran straight home!
My next sports memory was my coming off the bench to score 9 points in the last 1:42 of the 4th quarter at Steger Jr. High School. We lost anyway by 24 four points!
But my glory brought adoring hugs from our lovely cheerleaders, who were my white classmates, and a flurry of telephone calls from two black community girls in the 7th grade, who I spurned as too young!
The follow-up to my basketball glory came in intramural wrestling. I was paired with our school 's "bad boy," Eddie Jefferson, in gym class. He carried a vaunted reputation of having kicked many behinds with abandonment. I knew who he was, but had not grown up with him. Nor had I ever had any encounter with him, unsavory or otherwise, until that memorable mat moment. As we grappled, I sensed that he could not pen me. I was too strong. I also sensed that I could pen him, if I was so inclined. He knew this too! But. If I penned the school 's tough guy, even in gym class, the notorious act would require some measure of public recompense by him or others, in the streets! So, I was content to accede to a draw!
In the 11th grade, I broke my ankle in a tackling drill, while competing for the quarterback position on our Webster Groves High School varsity football team in 1968. That fractured fibula ended my active, organized athletic career, finally.
Along the way, I was Sports Editor for The Steger Jr. High "Spotlight" and Editor in Chief of "The Dark Side," the newspaper we blacks published in high school to adore and communicate with each other given a predominantly white situs.
