There was that period of my life where - 'just a sub', no women -- 'sides mummy, the cta bus and El system was my ride - and i was going all over the city and suburbs 60-70x every winter saiting my obsession: High school hoops. those who remember remember, but those who don't - every week, from say sometime around thanksgiving to the always deeply packed Patrick day weekends (to me, St. Patrick days daytime is always kool for many reasons - but the instant thought of that time is == "NCAA tournament 1st round, and the 'downstate' portion of t HS hoops tournament), I would be going all over the place to watch, well, high school basketball games. Not my school, now- i'd be watching the premier teams and schools across the state.
Obsessione
This means that, say, on a given week i mite hit west side school Crane on Monday, see Farragut the next afternoon and then take the El out to Oak Park to see Fenwick that nite, maybe no game Wednesday but a Westinghouse game on Thursday, then another Farragut and Fewick day on Friday, and then - if there was some special 'game day' on a weekend @ say DePaul or Northwestern that had a few hoop games - shit I'd make that. I had all the games schedules, bus, El, Metra schedules to near schools, the special tournaments over Thanksgiving and Christmas break, etc etc etc. I knew them all, and since I didn't have too much to hold me (and I was young - in my 20's) - I experienced it all. Again - for four years, I went to about 60-70 games a year. A few a week, sometimes 3-4 a day if there was an all day tournament going on. I dragged my frenz to games - I remember Depaul games w/ Farragut where Jackson and Gallo and some others were @. Dragon was dragged to a Carver game in the middle of Altgeld Gardens - the housing project itself is so isolated and @ the end of a long bus ride (it's in the city but really sequestered like solo style away from everything else except access roads) and we saw Farragut beat New Trier in the middle of Wilmette, JLaw, in from San Francisco, was dragged out to Hillside (via Suburban buses)to watch a mornings quartet of games, and there was that Thanksgiving tournament @ that tiny African American Southside Catholic HS w/ Jacob when the kids next to us - in control of the sound system - started jamming Wu Tang (the instant it hit, I turned to the kid as was like "What THE FUCK is THIS?!?!". Well, it was a kid. I didn't swear. But, y know. And then, that one nite..... that one nite where.... that one nite where Jacob, Spanky, and I had an...'agreement' , and Jacob decided to sleep @ Jacksons and Spanky and I decided to sleep @ Jacobs= that whole nite was kicked off in the afternoon by a Farragut playoff win in the afternoon and then a Fenwick win over Oak Park @ sold out Fenwick. For me, at least, many things stayed w/ me though that experience - and a huge one was the Farragut bands playing of "Go/go/go/ go you mighty Admirals"
So - Every week, during those years, I'd be one the bus or El, in every neighbourhood, to get my games in. There was just no possible way that f one of my teams were playing - and it was physically possible - i was gonna be there. i guess it really was like a bit of an addiction - the possibility of missing one of my teams -and some years I was following 2-3 teams - was too much.
So - again - every neighbourhood. No matter how shitty - and many were shitty ones- i was there is my team was there. I stuck out a lot - but i never remember being hassled. Again - i was in the worst of neighbourhoods, on side streets crazy by most standards, and me -waiting for the bus, nipping off for a leak in the alley if I had to, etc etc etc. I always...basically felt safe, no matter where I was.
SO - my glory years of HS hoops suddenly ended in the Spring of 1998. I was hired to be nailed to a cross and crucified - no, no, no, wait - i was hired to teach @ Lit HS - on second though, that nailed to a cross description mite be more apt to describe... But after being fulltimed both as a teacher and as a soccer coach - and the graduation of Cory Magatte, Micheal Wright, Frankie Williams, Chris Williams, Queitin Richardson, et al - suddenly I stepped off the court and rarely went to games I'd invested so much time the previous four years going - and then suddenly.....gone......
I'd go, for sure, to my own schools games. I've written about this before - for me, I want t be seen @ the kids games so, well, THEY SEE YOU THERE. it really helps when they know you take that extra step.
My new Obsessione
And, me, here @ my school - i'm now really taking that extra step - because once again, Hilts has a team to follow: and to make it even more delicious- it's my own school that's got me. Last year it started. I'd stop in justa bit to catch a quarter....then a half..... then, near the playoffs, i started to plan...... and even revisited my old policy of going to road games. Again - that bottomless thrill of 4 eight minute quarters, of kids screaming and pounding the stands w/ their legs, and of kids from my school - some I am very familiar w/ - playing real fucking hard feet in front of me.
Addiction has set in again, y'all. Maybe just for this team - our kids - but suddenly, that hoops calender has reemerged. My daily planner - it had game days pencilled in for months. I always check w/ one of the coaches - "Hey- varsity still on for 5.30 coach?". I won't go into this team here - dcs awaits - but I'll say it: we need....... well, we need that magic thing @ the HS level.... we need some height. Next year looks like The Year - but my school is doing well, and will make some noise in the city and state playoffs.
So, tough guy Hilts, w/ all that backdrop, now gets to the point:
The Tenor of the Times
There has been a LOT of shit going on in Chicago high school hoops these days: shootings and fight. The last two weeks, serious seriously fucked up shit has been going on. There was the shooting of fiv @ a Dunbar game. N. Lawndale star was shot in the leg. There was another shooting. And finally, a brawl Thursday nite. All @ city schools. All huge news - I even caught the Dunbar shootings as the LEAD ITEM on the BBC. The games above were all in the inner city - all on neighbourhood streets, all ganged up areas. So crazy - and the last two weeks have been just terrible. Here is some print:
Yesterdays big Sun Times Article on 'the problem'
Sun Times on Ban
and the Trib
(there is also a video from CLTV in the Trib article)
And, finally - this whole exercise wasn't just to name drop Jamal Rome's name, now, rite? Nope. Just wanted to say that me myself almost also made it into the news paper articles for getting beaten up. mita happened. people who know know i am @ home in all sorts of strange parts of the city. But that fucking air of violence that's visited the hoops sence almost got me as well.
8.20, darkened side street, Englewood
So - I travelled to see my school play on Wednesday. In Englewood. In a very very old school that's built rite in the middle of the neighbourhood. This means that unlike like more modern schools (mine)that are large building mainly on main Streets - this schools cross streets are side streets. The game was slated for 5.30, but that's when the J-V game started. Varsity started after, so by the time I got out, it was 8.20 @ nite. It was a long game - two games - and I was smack dab in the middle of the other teams fans. For the J-V game, there were a few of our schools girl players there. Of course, boys from their school tried to hit on them. A curious thing about todays youth - you wouldn't think that the way to a girls heart is to dis their school, dis their team, dis them, dis dis dis.... but that's how courtship is done these days. true, guys. I was sitting there the whole time. And the 'courtship' lasted for the whole game.
The girls left me awash in the crowd after the J-V game. I know the girls and was talking to them during the first game, and when they switched seats for the V. game, the kids switched their interest to me. Since i was white, the first question always is :
Who you scouting for?
No no, this is my school, just coming out to see the kids play.
But, buy myself, the good natured taunts evenually turned to - in the fourth quarter and my school taking it to the home team - hey, you better watch it ... and ... get the white guy ..... and hey, hey, c'mon lets get'm... and the like. Great. Took a piss, and then walked throught the exiting rowdy as hell crowd towards my car.
Ah, it couldn't be that easy, huh? Stupidly, I had parked @ one end of the building and around the corner - it was a very long and cold walk - one and a half city blocks - around the corner. It was even more long and cold - and very lonely - because the exiting shouting crowd decided to follow me down the block screaming and yelling @ me.
I got into character. The slight scowl to try to pretend I was a tough guy. The posture suddenly erect and like i don't care. The head tilted back. Ready to protect myself from the first few blows and to sprint to the car. Finally, the 'i'm in control' shuffle towards my car - 1.5/8ths of a mile away. I understand that to many readers, thia is an alien wrld to them. But not to me, over the years. So, I was going to bluff my way to safety - but understand - I was outnumbered 50-1 , and I fully knew that w/ the air of things going on @ games these days, the fact that I was still a ways away from my car and sudennly had a wicked tail of shouting - that I could very easily be jumped, the hell beaten out of me for the 30-40-50 seconds it would take to alert security in the building, and maybe worse.
But -@ that moment - one of the parents driving their kid (one of our players) from game stopped his car, yelled out "HEY!! YOU ALL RIGHT?!?" I yelled back that there was my car, still a block away, and he yelled back "I'LL WAIT!!". The kid had recognized me and told their Dad "Hey, that's the librarian @ school". Since the kids know I follow them - there is no one else that travels for them on staff besides me - they have appreciation for me. That's nice*. I jogged the block over to the car and he slowly drove the van up the block to provide cover for me. It was a good thing, too. Usually I don't feel nervous in these situations. (And yes, I've been in this sorta situation - basically exactly - maybe 100 times. Too reckless, too reckless, and I'm too old for this nowadays. but, like a 100 time.). But, I'll say it - it was an uncomfortable situation, given whats going on, and I was glad of the help. I ran into the parent @ a girls game the next day and he told me that that was him. Handshakes, thank you, I didn't feel good out there, please always be looking for me next time, make sure, bless you man, seriously....
So - the shootings have lead to certain restrictions in city games. It's basically the end of the season - we have only one conference game left - and I have to miss is. I'm conditioning the girls on Monday, and normally i'd finish by 5pm and then Strasser it to this school. but the new City rules in regards to hoops is that varsity begins @ 4pm. So - Monday, dammit, i gotta do my responsibilities and miss my hoops.
.........................................................................
*= people like being liked.... and, of course, I like everyone.
Obsessione
This means that, say, on a given week i mite hit west side school Crane on Monday, see Farragut the next afternoon and then take the El out to Oak Park to see Fenwick that nite, maybe no game Wednesday but a Westinghouse game on Thursday, then another Farragut and Fewick day on Friday, and then - if there was some special 'game day' on a weekend @ say DePaul or Northwestern that had a few hoop games - shit I'd make that. I had all the games schedules, bus, El, Metra schedules to near schools, the special tournaments over Thanksgiving and Christmas break, etc etc etc. I knew them all, and since I didn't have too much to hold me (and I was young - in my 20's) - I experienced it all. Again - for four years, I went to about 60-70 games a year. A few a week, sometimes 3-4 a day if there was an all day tournament going on. I dragged my frenz to games - I remember Depaul games w/ Farragut where Jackson and Gallo and some others were @. Dragon was dragged to a Carver game in the middle of Altgeld Gardens - the housing project itself is so isolated and @ the end of a long bus ride (it's in the city but really sequestered like solo style away from everything else except access roads) and we saw Farragut beat New Trier in the middle of Wilmette, JLaw, in from San Francisco, was dragged out to Hillside (via Suburban buses)to watch a mornings quartet of games, and there was that Thanksgiving tournament @ that tiny African American Southside Catholic HS w/ Jacob when the kids next to us - in control of the sound system - started jamming Wu Tang (the instant it hit, I turned to the kid as was like "What THE FUCK is THIS?!?!". Well, it was a kid. I didn't swear. But, y know. And then, that one nite..... that one nite where.... that one nite where Jacob, Spanky, and I had an...'agreement' , and Jacob decided to sleep @ Jacksons and Spanky and I decided to sleep @ Jacobs= that whole nite was kicked off in the afternoon by a Farragut playoff win in the afternoon and then a Fenwick win over Oak Park @ sold out Fenwick. For me, at least, many things stayed w/ me though that experience - and a huge one was the Farragut bands playing of "Go/go/go/ go you mighty Admirals"
So - Every week, during those years, I'd be one the bus or El, in every neighbourhood, to get my games in. There was just no possible way that f one of my teams were playing - and it was physically possible - i was gonna be there. i guess it really was like a bit of an addiction - the possibility of missing one of my teams -and some years I was following 2-3 teams - was too much.
So - again - every neighbourhood. No matter how shitty - and many were shitty ones- i was there is my team was there. I stuck out a lot - but i never remember being hassled. Again - i was in the worst of neighbourhoods, on side streets crazy by most standards, and me -waiting for the bus, nipping off for a leak in the alley if I had to, etc etc etc. I always...basically felt safe, no matter where I was.
SO - my glory years of HS hoops suddenly ended in the Spring of 1998. I was hired to be nailed to a cross and crucified - no, no, no, wait - i was hired to teach @ Lit HS - on second though, that nailed to a cross description mite be more apt to describe... But after being fulltimed both as a teacher and as a soccer coach - and the graduation of Cory Magatte, Micheal Wright, Frankie Williams, Chris Williams, Queitin Richardson, et al - suddenly I stepped off the court and rarely went to games I'd invested so much time the previous four years going - and then suddenly.....gone......
I'd go, for sure, to my own schools games. I've written about this before - for me, I want t be seen @ the kids games so, well, THEY SEE YOU THERE. it really helps when they know you take that extra step.
My new Obsessione
And, me, here @ my school - i'm now really taking that extra step - because once again, Hilts has a team to follow: and to make it even more delicious- it's my own school that's got me. Last year it started. I'd stop in justa bit to catch a quarter....then a half..... then, near the playoffs, i started to plan...... and even revisited my old policy of going to road games. Again - that bottomless thrill of 4 eight minute quarters, of kids screaming and pounding the stands w/ their legs, and of kids from my school - some I am very familiar w/ - playing real fucking hard feet in front of me.
Addiction has set in again, y'all. Maybe just for this team - our kids - but suddenly, that hoops calender has reemerged. My daily planner - it had game days pencilled in for months. I always check w/ one of the coaches - "Hey- varsity still on for 5.30 coach?". I won't go into this team here - dcs awaits - but I'll say it: we need....... well, we need that magic thing @ the HS level.... we need some height. Next year looks like The Year - but my school is doing well, and will make some noise in the city and state playoffs.
So, tough guy Hilts, w/ all that backdrop, now gets to the point:
The Tenor of the Times
There has been a LOT of shit going on in Chicago high school hoops these days: shootings and fight. The last two weeks, serious seriously fucked up shit has been going on. There was the shooting of fiv @ a Dunbar game. N. Lawndale star was shot in the leg. There was another shooting. And finally, a brawl Thursday nite. All @ city schools. All huge news - I even caught the Dunbar shootings as the LEAD ITEM on the BBC. The games above were all in the inner city - all on neighbourhood streets, all ganged up areas. So crazy - and the last two weeks have been just terrible. Here is some print:
Yesterdays big Sun Times Article on 'the problem'
Sun Times on Ban
and the Trib
(there is also a video from CLTV in the Trib article)
And, finally - this whole exercise wasn't just to name drop Jamal Rome's name, now, rite? Nope. Just wanted to say that me myself almost also made it into the news paper articles for getting beaten up. mita happened. people who know know i am @ home in all sorts of strange parts of the city. But that fucking air of violence that's visited the hoops sence almost got me as well.
8.20, darkened side street, Englewood
So - I travelled to see my school play on Wednesday. In Englewood. In a very very old school that's built rite in the middle of the neighbourhood. This means that unlike like more modern schools (mine)that are large building mainly on main Streets - this schools cross streets are side streets. The game was slated for 5.30, but that's when the J-V game started. Varsity started after, so by the time I got out, it was 8.20 @ nite. It was a long game - two games - and I was smack dab in the middle of the other teams fans. For the J-V game, there were a few of our schools girl players there. Of course, boys from their school tried to hit on them. A curious thing about todays youth - you wouldn't think that the way to a girls heart is to dis their school, dis their team, dis them, dis dis dis.... but that's how courtship is done these days. true, guys. I was sitting there the whole time. And the 'courtship' lasted for the whole game.
The girls left me awash in the crowd after the J-V game. I know the girls and was talking to them during the first game, and when they switched seats for the V. game, the kids switched their interest to me. Since i was white, the first question always is :
Who you scouting for?
No no, this is my school, just coming out to see the kids play.
But, buy myself, the good natured taunts evenually turned to - in the fourth quarter and my school taking it to the home team - hey, you better watch it ... and ... get the white guy ..... and hey, hey, c'mon lets get'm... and the like. Great. Took a piss, and then walked throught the exiting rowdy as hell crowd towards my car.
Ah, it couldn't be that easy, huh? Stupidly, I had parked @ one end of the building and around the corner - it was a very long and cold walk - one and a half city blocks - around the corner. It was even more long and cold - and very lonely - because the exiting shouting crowd decided to follow me down the block screaming and yelling @ me.
I got into character. The slight scowl to try to pretend I was a tough guy. The posture suddenly erect and like i don't care. The head tilted back. Ready to protect myself from the first few blows and to sprint to the car. Finally, the 'i'm in control' shuffle towards my car - 1.5/8ths of a mile away. I understand that to many readers, thia is an alien wrld to them. But not to me, over the years. So, I was going to bluff my way to safety - but understand - I was outnumbered 50-1 , and I fully knew that w/ the air of things going on @ games these days, the fact that I was still a ways away from my car and sudennly had a wicked tail of shouting - that I could very easily be jumped, the hell beaten out of me for the 30-40-50 seconds it would take to alert security in the building, and maybe worse.
But -@ that moment - one of the parents driving their kid (one of our players) from game stopped his car, yelled out "HEY!! YOU ALL RIGHT?!?" I yelled back that there was my car, still a block away, and he yelled back "I'LL WAIT!!". The kid had recognized me and told their Dad "Hey, that's the librarian @ school". Since the kids know I follow them - there is no one else that travels for them on staff besides me - they have appreciation for me. That's nice*. I jogged the block over to the car and he slowly drove the van up the block to provide cover for me. It was a good thing, too. Usually I don't feel nervous in these situations. (And yes, I've been in this sorta situation - basically exactly - maybe 100 times. Too reckless, too reckless, and I'm too old for this nowadays. but, like a 100 time.). But, I'll say it - it was an uncomfortable situation, given whats going on, and I was glad of the help. I ran into the parent @ a girls game the next day and he told me that that was him. Handshakes, thank you, I didn't feel good out there, please always be looking for me next time, make sure, bless you man, seriously....
So - the shootings have lead to certain restrictions in city games. It's basically the end of the season - we have only one conference game left - and I have to miss is. I'm conditioning the girls on Monday, and normally i'd finish by 5pm and then Strasser it to this school. but the new City rules in regards to hoops is that varsity begins @ 4pm. So - Monday, dammit, i gotta do my responsibilities and miss my hoops.
.........................................................................
*= people like being liked.... and, of course, I like everyone.
3 comments:
Don't be an idiot. Get a gun.
geeze yr quick on the draw - did i even post this yet??
I remember one night walking down the street and hearing footstpes behind me. I feared a robbery. I turned around and saw that they were White. I never felt more relieved.
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