"Yo, Steamboat!" -- My Hardcourt Humiliation

Somewhere amidst my personal Dark Ages — I think it was in the 8th grade — I grew nearly a foot.

Just like that, I became gawky and stoop-shouldered, uncomfortable with my sprouting beanstalk body. My poor mother could barely keep me in pants that fit.

At nearly six-foot-three, I heard a school nurse once say, “You’re so tall. You must play basketball.”

Yes, in fact, I did. 

But not how she imagined.

I’d scrimmaged around my neighborhood, both in the summer and in the snow, all with too little finesse. As kids, that's what we did: we shot driveway jumpers, as instinctively as reaching for that bowl of cereal in the morning.

We followed the street rules -- if you swished a basket in a casual shoot around, you got the ball back. And pity the kid who didn't know, who dribbled off with the ball like some hoops cretin.

Back then, I fashioned myself as a natural shooter, a beyond-the-arc assassin launching high-flying projectiles that rang down from the heavens, hitting nothing but the net below.

My growth spurt changed all of that. 

It would banish me from outside the key into a place where dragons lurked.

Because in the 1970s, there were no Dirk Nowizkis or his Euro-pals, big men who could rebound and shoot. You did one or the other.

In organized games, I was forced to play inside the lane, where I quickly got lost in the forest, among the tallest trees, the Bigs, going chest to chest with much-stronger, more-coordinated kids. 

Gone were the long-range jumpers. Rebounding was my new desired skill-set, establishing position under the rack. I got pushed around.

Flatfooted, as limber as a crescent wrench, I struggled to keep my pride, let alone score points.

Hopelessly outclassed by the talent of my high school team, I played three unremarkable years in the local Christian Youth Organization league. 

CYO ball. Church ball. Second-class ball.

As the boy, the New York Knicks were my favorite team. I wanted to imitate idols like Clyde Frazier, Dave DeBusschere or Willis Feed. I longed to do the windmill like Phil Action Jackson.

But on the court, I forgot all about my heroes, left alone with myself and my own meager talents.

As the years passed, basketball would hurt me, humble me, humiliate me.

I broke both my Achilles tendons, ten years apart, on the court. As I aged, I got injured by players who had become mere hackers, henchmen who swung wildly at anything that moved, bloodying noses.

White men truly can’t jump. At least this one couldn’t.

And I came to a realization which still bothers me to this day.

My on-court failures, the lack of coordination, missteps and missed rebounds, all meant something. Taken together, they were proof that I could not only be not good at something, I could actually be bad. 

I could suck.

When I was in my late 20s, I worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star.

I also still played hoops.

One day after work, I showed up early to play some outdoor half-court with friends. I was alone, working on my jump shot when I heard the call.

“Yo!”

I looked over to see some younger guys going full-court. They were street kids, all Black, and their level of play, those sinewy moves and otherworldly jumps, was far, far out of my league.

But there was a problem. They were short a man. 

They needed a last-minute recruit.

Me.

I looked around for rescue, but there was none. What could I say? “No thanks, fellas. I’m just gonna wait here for my other dorky friends?’

I hurried over and joined the team that was a man short.

It was a free-for-all.

Every player on the opposing team wanted to cover me, the new guy. Of course, I knew why: they’d all sized me up as a chump.

I was winded after just two trips down the court. My strategy was to just stay out of the way.

But all of a sudden, there I was with the ball, at the top of the key.

I’d been there before in my stilted hoops career.

I had one move, one only.

I faked to my right, dribbled left and laid in the ball off the backboard with my right hand — the pathetic Glionna scoop shot.

My team went wild. 

Suddenly I was Willis Reed at The Garden.

Uh, not quite. They were all laughing. 

“Yo, Steamboat!” one yelled. “That’s how you do it.”

Yep, that was me — a slow-moving river vessel with paddles.

The only player who felt worse than me was the guy covering me.

You can imagine his shame. Dealt on by a lumbering riverboat.

We beat his team and then somehow beat another that showed up.

My team no longer needed me, but they wouldn’t let me walk away.

I’d become their mascot.

Soon, my friends all showed up to watch the game.

What does Glionna think he was doing?

These guys were real ballers.

Finally, when we replayed the first team, my shamed opponent was right there in my face, hungry for revenge.

I eventually got the ball. I had one slow-motion solution.

Well, that guy blocked my shot with his elbow, he jumped so high.

Then he dribbled down the court and slam-dunked his response.

Nobody called me Steamboat after that.

A few weeks later, I took over as player-coach of the paper’s intramural basketball team after the guy before me took a job out of town.

The team had always been an abject failure, as I recall, finishing each year in last place in the city’s amateur league.

How hard could this be?

I was a man with a plan. First off, I was smart enough to know not to play myself, under any circumstances whatsoever.

Secondly, I ventured outside the Star’s newsroom to recruit bigger-and-better hoops talent than our sad-sack editorial staffers. I’d already spotted a couple of really tall guys who worked in the pressroom.

One was black, who went by the name Big Mike, the other white. I forget his name. But here's the important part.

Both were 6-foot-8.

I called them my Twin Towers.

I filled out my roster with other talent, including my reporter friend Mike, who came from Southside Chicago and had a smooth way with the ball. 

I called him Bob Cousy.

OK, I'll admit it, I got arrogant.

I’ve repressed most of my memories from that Lost Season. But I remember one game that set the tone. We played a bunch of pint-sized white characters who looked like they’d been in the same college fraternity. 

They had five players, while we had our starting five and a bench-full of scrubs, including me.

Before the tipoff, I told my guys, “Let’s not run up the score too much.”

The runts killed us.

They passed the ball like wizards. Pretty soon, Big Mike started to complain that he wasn’t getting the ball and demanded to be taken out.

I was flummoxed.

I was a terrible player and even a worse coach.

The rest of the season sent me reeling to the analyst’s couch.

Years later, the hardcourt game continues to haunt me. I’ll be watching some NBA or college player shine and suddenly I'll hear it.

That voice.

Calling out to mock me.

“Yo, Steamboat!”