Notes on a game
Text from the book, Basketball: Great Writing About America’s Game, photos from various sources:
I am sure that no man can derive more pleasure from money or power than I do from seeing a pair of basketball goals in some out of the way place—deep in the Wisconsin woods an old barrel hoop nailed to a tree, or a weather-beaten shed on the Mexican border with a rusty iron hoop nailed to one end. These sights are constant reminders that I have in some measure accomplished the objective that I set up years ago. - James Naismith
[B]asketball was a sweaty half-empty gym on a Friday afternoon, pale white legs clomping down court below billowing gym shorts; it was the two-handed set shot: pause, arch, aim, grunt. In the superheated dim gymnasium, twenty-seven friends and relatives watched the desultory to-and-fro of short, slow, awkward players who were eternally pulling up twelve feet from the basket to clatter a heavy brown beachball harmlessly off a white backboard. Always we lost thirty-eight to nineteen. - Donald Hall
At that special level all sorts of odd things happened. The game would be in a white heat of competition, and yet somehow I wouldn’t feel competitive—which is a miracle in itself. I’d be putting out the maximum effort, straining, coughing up parts of my lungs as we ran, and yet I never felt the pain. The game would move so quickly that every fake, cut and pass would be surprising, and yet nothing could surprise me. It was almost as if we were playing in slow motion…. There have been many times in my career when I felt moved or joyful, but these were the moments when I had chills pulsing up and down my spine. - Bill Russell
“What you do affirms the supremacy of all beings,” I told Julius as we sat in the offices of the Erving Group, a holding company designed to spread around the wads of capital Julius has accumulated during his career as Doctor J. Large gold-leaf plaques calling Julius things like TASTYKAKE PLAYER OF THE YEAR dot the walls. “Seeing you play basketball has enriched my life,” I finished. “Thanks, thanks a lot,” Julius said politely. - Mark Jacobson