You Can't Teach Mamba

I can't even count the number of times I've chosen Kobe Bryant when people argued who they'd rather have instead. I don't see that vibe coming to an end. It was always simple to me with him. Kobe didn't care about you or your assessments, your analytics or projections. I watched him come in that way...100% sure he belonged. He knew he belonged in the NBA among the legends, not the also-rans. He was drafted at the end of the physical era of hoopin', when hand checkin' was the norm and Vlade Divac was the only one floppin'. He got a taste of Mike while "His Airness" was still hangin' banners in Chi. Fresh out of high school he wore arrogance as a disguise concealing what people now call Mamba Mentality. Arrogance had to be a disguise because if it [the arrogance] was pure, his death would have still been tragic, but more akin to a Greek Tragedy. But Kobe "Bean"was hardly a victim of hubris. Kobe possessed something I only see as an outgrowth of his impact on this current generation of athletes from the NFL to Pro Tennis and beyond - a necessary killer instinct. 

Everybody talks about these favorite Kobe moments and I almost felt like a basketball heretic because I couldn't think of one off hand. Then it dawned on me that Kobe was his own moment. He was a personified ethos. I never questioned his commitment to his craft, the truth or the mission because for every folkloric tale of his 1-on-1 games with D-Fish or his maniacal shooting sessions after a loss, other pros corroborated these stories. And they did so long before the tragic crash that devastated countless families worldwide. The best of the athletic community esteemed Kobe Bryant as the icon of preparation and execution. I guess that's my Kobe moment right there. I never watched him play and said, "Damn, why he take that shot instead of passing it to Glenn Rice or Ron Harper or Sasha Vujacic or Vlad Radmonovic or Nick Young or even Metta World Peace?" And we all know the Metta formerly known as Ron Artest won us game 7 of that 2010 championship.

I treated Kobe in my mind the way I did Magic Johnson. Every team needs to have a guy in whose hands the game can rest. And it's gotta be somebody who wants every bit of that moment. He or she can't be shook and more than that, your "killa" gotta be certified, proven, authenticated. When you got that dude, people can say what they want about your squad and your dude. It doesn't matter and it doesn't change anything. I rocked with K.B. because you can't teach what he had any more than you could what Magic had. Shaq once said his goal was to make his opponent quit. Either that's original and the essence of "The Diesel" imposing his will all those years or that was evidence of a Kobe contagion spread in that Laker Locker room. 

Here's why Kobe matters to me personally though when you get away from the hoop part. Basketball didn't really become part of my life until I was in the 8th grade. I was athletic, probably because who wasn't in my Los Angeles neighborhood. That's South Central by the way. But the lesson of my lifetime has been learning my own identity, accepting it and envying absolutely no one. It's hard to settle into not being cool enough, never having the freshest fit and kicks and feeling conditionally approved in this world. I grew up a Christian which came with rules and expectations. I also grew up a black male in America which has certain preconceptions and projected stigmas. Basketball may have been my elixir but religion, ethics and Black identity have always been my sustenance. I mean trust me when I say a bruh played by the rules but I found out very early into adulthood that such adherence to even one's own personal ethical code made you a target. Organizations from churches to schools wanted me to be their "bridge Black guy" who knows how to assuage the people, tranquilizing them with my unassuming articulation and disarming disposition. I didn't need the Mamba lesson as long as people were employing me and applauding my skill set. But then I became maritally separated and ultimately divorced. 

Like so many others who experience divorce and what can accompany it, I entered unprecedented corrosive space. For the first time, I was the rule breaker, the virus that friends' wives don't want their husbands to contract. I was navigating fatherhood and a host of time-sensitive realities when my religious community thinned out like when you try to add water to the last of the dish washing liquid 'cause you too lazy or broke to get some more. I found very little support in very few places. 

And then one day, I was on the other side of divorce and redefining Faith and manhood. There was a silence I can't explain that remained as friends watched my new life unfold (as much as one can superficially). Then I remarried and the reviews were mixed as some told me how they were struggling with how they found out while others supported the next episode. Regardless of how anyone came to view the current chapter of my life, Kobe's legacy lands this way in my world: PURPOSE-TENACITY-SUBMISSION TO GOD. It so transcends basketball (which I wanted to be my life) that letting go of human approval has become a necessary philosophy. One must learn to compete with false loyalty, to not bow to idols of human manipulation. To complete the mission, one can only be tenacious if one disentangles greater mission from the need to be affirmed. That was my deficit - feeling worthy. But attempts at being considered intelligent, spiritual, useful to the team, etc. always led me to people pleasing. Worried about people's feelings and perceptions became a hyper obsession until the road to divorce shook me woke! I think Kobe was resolute, clear of purpose and yet clear in his assessment of reality. While he hadn't changed in mind and soul, he knew in those last 4 seasons prior to retirement that he "[couldn't] love you [basketball] obsessively for much longer." He was at peace with the letting go because of what he gave in the love relationship between him and basketball. Now he was free to be completely the whole Kobe, not merely a basketball god. And so that is my parallel. 

I loved the justice of my Faith and still do, serving its ends and wanting the Church to realize its destiny. I loved the justice of education and still do, serving students as a guide to self-leadership and citizenry because that's how the teaching profession has evolved and more than that that, it's me. I loved accolades and being recruited by my overseers who need me to do the work no one else will but I resigned from this affinity. As long as Kobe was a basketball player he couldn't truly create from his center. But the path he was on before his life came to a shocking end was the right one, the most inspired one. And so I am a man who has experienced love on this Earth in many ways, divorce, manipulation, failure and such. I am a father/stepfather, husband once-again, teacher of God's truth, teacher of leadership, creator of the yet-to-be determined (though it will have something to do with God and Leadership and youth and probably education). I am judged and the volume of such judgement echoes loudly but is diminished by PURPOSE-TENACITY-SUBMISSION TO GOD. People say Kobe was a winner. Whatever he was, he made peace with himself, faced his dreams, fears, demons and potential. He didn't wait for co-signature to proceed with the essence imbued within him. Unprovoked, he struck the hot iron to forge something so powerful and ubiquitous that it would literally infect generations. No amount of approval from a person would ever give you that. It is the stuff of God. 

#WEARETHEANTIDOTE - Part 3 of 3

For me, being the antidote starts with a willingness to say hello. I look at some people, listen to some people, am offended by some people so much so that I give up on them and on moral excellence. But there's never been anything wrong with virtue as it doesn't have an expiration date. The more we encounter destructive thinking and behavior, the deeper we should delve into our true ability to be "given against" such things. Why in the world would we become the thing we revile? Why? Because there's a little toxin in us all and unlike the body, we get to choose whether or not we develop the antibodies or not. If we desire, we can be overrun with the influence of disintegration. Division has an addictive quality to it. But we have within us the divine capacity to reintegrate.

Every stranger can't be my enemy and not all my teammates want to take what I have. We've become so suspicious and prejudiced that the notion of loving one's neighbor as him/herself is nearly impossible. But still, we are the antidote and the chemical composition of "us" is basic stuff like: hello, holding the door for the person behind us, learning someone else' story, doing things without expecting a thank you and cleaning up messes we've made. No one questions whether or not it is better to help society live than die. We question whether or not we play a role in making it live. Yet we know full well...what we are. Listen intently to your complaints today. Write them, meditate on them, simmer even! Note how they make you feel and then be "given against" them. Ask yourself if your complaints have led you to do what's right simply because it's right. If they've led you elsewhere, just know that your real identity is as ANTIDOTE not venom.

#WEARETHEANTIDOTE - Part 2 of 3

We do it all the time, choosing the poison of retaliation as modus operandi. Our operating system often looks a lot like living under the control of impulse and convenience, blaming and targeting others as interlopers to our expectations. But antidotes restore vitality. We are the antidote(s). And personally, here are a couple of stifling realities I experience that poison me. #1 Racism #2 Classicism #3 Theft. These toxins mess up everything they touch and they're easy to both hate and replicate. One minute I'm complaining that a non-black doesn't understand why I brush my hair or keeps mistaking me for the other black guy. The next I'm using broad strokes in a conversation to demonize that group of people. Two wrongs still don't make a right. Sounds like poison being prescribed to cure a snake bite.

I'm convinced more than ever, though, that we are the antidote. An antidote is meant to heal. But maybe most of us humans, no matter our religion, really enjoy getting even more than we do healing. Somehow we think that one middle finger begets another. We think that the best way to protect our children is by isolating them and keeping them in view. But I'm convinced that there would be less Amber alerts if the village at large was allowed to look after our kids a bit. The villagers would dispose of pedophiles and the like.

#WEARETHEANTIDOTE - Part 1 of 3

The word "antidote" has this greek rendering that means "given against." It's the counter agent to whatever toxin you've been exposed. In 2007 I was stung by no less than 15 wasps at once. My wife happened to come outside as I was writhing in the driveway. She remembered that mud is said to function as an analgesic and proceeded to turn on the hose. She made some mud, smeared all over my head where most of the stings occurred and the pain gradually subsided. How do we treat our figurative wasp stings?

Antidotes, I've read, can be created by injecting small amounts of a poison into an animal so it can naturally produce antibodies. Those antibodies can then be extracted to save say a human life. But in our world, what if the venom is unkindness, isolation and self-absorption? When people insist on not making eye contact with me, I usually let 'em off the hook. I don't engage. I have neighbors on either side of me that I don't know. Many strangers don't want to know me (venom) and I respond in kind by pretending I don't care (also venom). Huh? The antidote to unkindness, isolation and self-absorption is certainly not to reflect those non-virtues. But isn't that what we do? Tit-for-Tat? A husband cheats on his wife and she fixes his wagon with a comparable act. Your teammate won't pass you the ball so on a routine 3-on-2 fast break you return the solid and cost your team buckets. There's a small picture and a big picture that we see in the worlds in which we live. Focusing on the small one is always the most poisonous because it's only about us. (Part 2 tomorrow...)

TREY EIGHT

Dude asked me yesterday if I felt 38 years old. I ain't trying to read into a simple question too much but that's like asking someone how much they love their unborn kids. Or maybe it's more like being asked, "Do you miss the NBA career you never had?" Wait a minute, I got it. I visited my sister in Brooklyn, New York earlier in October for the first time. I had never been to the east coast...EVER! I once spent a few days in Miami, Florida as part of a demonstration team for a coaching clinic but as east as that was...it wasn't New York.

I hadn't seen Ground Zero, hadn't ridden a New York Subway train, hadn't been to Union or Times Square and hadn't hooped at a park just a minutes from the Barclays Center. It was a new and foreign experience so if someone had asked me upon my return if New York felt like New York it would have been an impossible question to answer. To what could I compare or contrast the current experience. I mean...the subway train caught me off guard when it took-off and an elderly New Yorker riled up as I fell into his space. I stood on the grounds of the most grave and gripping memorial I will ever behold at 9/11 Tribute Center 120 Liberty Street NY, NY 10006. What''s my reference point of comparison for a location where ghastly events robbed a city of 3,000 inhabitants. 

Back to age 38. I've never been this close to 40. I don't feel old per se but I do feel different. There is a sense of urgency in me but I swear that was there 4-5 years ago. The latest sensitivity to the new age terrain, however, involves all the usual suspects. I have no biological children and the cats in the NBA my age are becoming a select few. I'm not as motivated to even play basketball as I was at 23 though I can find that drive when called out ha ha. But feelin' 38? I'm not feelin' 38. I mean, I'm felin' 38 in the sense that I appreciate not punchin' out at 37. Life is no right as much as it is a sign that God's grace persists. So yeah...I'm feelin' 38 with both hands, so-to-speak. But as far as 38 goes, I know that men my age post questions online like, "What can I expect at my physical? I didn't play sports in high school and haven't had a health exam in 22 years." C'mon bruh. That ain't got nothin' to do with being 38 and its commensurate ailments. I don't hate doctors enough to stay away that long. And while weight rooms and eliptical machines are the opposite of sexy, I'm not trying to feel 38, not that way. 

So what now? What's the difference between 38 and 28? The late 30s is a season. Jay Z once said, "I used to think rappin' at 38 was ill but last year alone I grossed 38 mil..." Is that the difference ha ha. Maybe for Jigga but not this bruh. Now young people get to chattin' with you and you realize, "Man I got 15-20 years on this person. They hit you with a sir or compliment you on ya shoes as if they didn't expect swag from somebody your age. Then 38 hits you a little bit. The role is mentor now. The perception of others shifts. I mean...old is not the operative word. But there is guidance responsibility I feel now that I didn't say 8 years ago. It is what it is and I'm down. Like so much else, age is the stuff of labels. Categories are tempting as we try to figure out where we belong at various stages of life. I can't get down with 'em though. 38 is perfectly public for me. No shame. But the meaning of the number is unclear. All I now is that I should probably keep tellin' the truth and learning from as many people as I can. Jesus only needed 33 years to live full and with purpose. I've gotten five more than he had so the least I could do is keep eyes up. Happy Halloween.

IN CURRENT TRAFFIC

...Took a break from blogging to start a podcast and I'm convinced that as many people love listening to 30 minute tirades as do the number of those who love reading them. Anyway, I had been thinking quite a bit lately about how I got to school from the 4th through 8th grades.

Let me start by asking you how your kids get to school? Do they walk, take a bus, hitch a ride with a neighbor family? Do you take them and make yourself late to work some days as they meander and stall because they've been Instagramming and texting all night? If you don't have kids, can you remember how you got to school? Well, I can.

According to Google Maps, with "normal" traffic my route to school from about 1984-1989 was 1 hour and 10 minutes. That's a one-way trip. That's barring an accident on one of the three busiest freeways in Los Angeles (I-10/405/101). Ignorance is a saving grace man. I knew I was in school with kids who walked or were driven to school. But I don't remember thinking too much about that after I was on the bus in the afternoons. I thought more about finding a way to sneak and eat my candy on the bus ride home without the driver seeing me. I memorized lines for my role as the Cowardly Lion in the school's production of the Wizard of Oz. I attempted to complete homework on that ride home while fending off Corn Nuts, ambient laughter and exhaust fumes. Some days I just slept until a jolting brake alerted me that the bus was exiting the freeway for the first afternoon stop.

Whether going or coming, the ride from South Los Angeles to Woodland Hills was a labor in hindsight. It was anywhere from 2 hours and 20 minutes to 3 hours spent on the road round-trip and it all started because mom thought it'd be a better educational opportunity. So...what precious virtue was forged from this furnace of daily expedition you ask? Here's what I got:

PATIENCE
For the majority of the 5 years I attended schools in the San Fernando Valley, it required me to take two buses from my home to school. Back then Metro Transit Association (MTA) was known as the Rapid Transit District (RTD), also known as the Rough Tough & Dangerous because of the stereotype that gang altercations ensued on these public buses. I got up for school between 5 and 5:45 a.m. from the time I was 9 years old until I was 13 and began my day as early as most adults who rise early to earn a living for their families. The RTD, if on time or not missed, was a 10-minute ride to my school bus stop from which I boarded the Los Angeles Unified School District or contracted equivalent transportation en route to the promised land. It's still vivid how I felt on those mornings, anxious to prove that I was intelligent, eager to perform well with peers who didn't ride a school bus. Everyday felt like a basketball tryout and for whatever reason I was willing to endure mild Carmegeddon for the chance at an escape route from the inner-city.

RESOLVE & RESOURCEFULNESS
Sometimes buses break down and while your science teacher is reading the paper and having coffee in his San Fernando Valley home, as a "bussed-in" kid you have to decide to wait until the bus arrives (could be hours), run to another stop to try and catch a different bus headed to the same location or sprint to your school-bus stop because the RTD never came that morning. Oh and there's also thugs who don't care how young and small you are. Some mornings you simply have to decide how to evade or engage these cats who prey on the week like 1 and 2-men war tribes. I wasn't a fighter by nature and everyday presented the possibility of getting jacked on the way to school. But when it was all said and done I finished the 8th grade. I figured that a couple moments in a full sprint beats a full day of dodging the imbeciles who would harass you all day if you went to school in your own neighborhood.

HUMILITY
I wish I could say that I didn't experience racist indoctrination prior to my integrated education. But I didn't grown up in communities where Americans of African Descent trusted Whites. Truth is, it's hard going from black homogeneity to white homogeneity, from being the majority to being a gross minority...gross in every since. When I was in fourth grade, Madonna was fresh on the pop scene pretending she had only recently lost her virginity. Kids in the Valley loved her while I barely knew who she was. Boys in Woodland Hills were saying, "Bitchin' and Rad," and their jeans were rolled at the bottoms and uncreased. What? Hair was spiked and argyle sweaters were en vogue, but not where I was from. So when I had seen enough, I mumbled, "Madonna Sucks!" and this kid said if Madonna sucks you suck. I had only recently started using the word "sucks". It sounded terribly offensive. But when in Rome yo. So the encounter escalated, he called me a "Nigger" and a smashed him in his face when the teacher wasn't looking. I think he knew he'd provoked at least a portion of the encounter so he didn't tell on me. I was terrified. I thought I'd be kicked out of school but that was the end of it.

I realized at some point that the teachers were well aware of the difference between us bussed-in kids and the natives. But whatever reservations they may have had, I benefited from Mrs. Kaufman and Mrs. Morford. Fourth and Fifth grade were "dope" experiences for me. No matter what challenges I had on the playground, these white women treated me with respect and demanded the same of me as anyone else. This was a big deal too since I was in some kind of cohort with the higher performing students. I swear I was one of 2 black kids in the classes. But it was in those first two of the five years that I learned to accept help from those willing to offer it. Color matters but there is no honor in refusing tutelage. It was as if I had been fortunate enough to be placed with teachers who responded to students who demonstrated a willingness to learn.

CROSSOVER
Long before I was ever good at basketball, I lived between this 'hood and suburb world. My white friends made light of it and my urban homies called me an Oreo when I slipped up and used proper English. The Valley kids didn't believe that gunshots were a nightly occurrence in South LA. They didn't believe that once I got on that bus in the afternoon, I had to change a little bit, smile less, check my wardrobe to make sure I wasn't displaying the wrong colors. But whether they believed it or not, a kid had better understand his transition as routine if he intends to succeed across the divide of inner city dwelling and affluent academia. I learned the hard way that speaking too proper an English dialect in my home neighborhood could come across as arrogant to adults and peers whereas speaking slang in Woodland Hills netted you caricature status. So at school if you blurred the lines or forgot where you were, you might have an Argyle sweater walk up to you rocking side-to-side with his hands overly demonstrative while yammering, "Yo, yo, ma homeboy. W'ssup?" The crossover is a learned skill by which you learn to effectively communicate without consciously betraying your identity. Those five years in the Valley taught me how to communicate without losing myself.

I'm realizing this has gotten long and I need to get ready for work so to be continued...

p.s. - Peace to Serrania Elementary and Parkman Junior High School.

CP3: UNIVERSAL POINT GUARD

The new NBA Players Association president is Clippers point guard Chris Paul and I couldn't think of a better choice. Check the resume: He's a dad, an all-star, an Olympic Gold Medalist and he's coachable. I once met former Lakers sharp shooter and former New Orleans Hornets head coach Byron Scott and he told me how upset Chris was when he (Scott) was fired in New Orleans. The reaction was like that of a kid who amusingly tries to stick up for his dad when pops comes home and says, "I was fired today son." CP3 was ready to make some calls to the owner, ready to protest, ready to fight for all things decent. I think Coach Scott talked him off the frontline.

But Paul seems like an extremely protective guy, someone with a high quotient for justice and someone who has decided it's too much work to try and convince people that you're something other than who you were born to be.

He's quoted on brainyquote.com as having said, "No matter where you put me, I don't care if it is North Carolina, Florida, California, New York City; I'm going to be who I am." I like this next quote even better where he's recorded saying, "I trust my wife more than I trust myself." That's a real man talkin'.

There's something about CP that makes you wanna buy a jersey. There are some people who are bigger than the sports they play, whose jersey number and last name signify something transcendent. It's like what comes to mind when you see the words Johnson in purple over #32 or Manning over #18 up in Denver. In the moments we are blessed to encounter an athlete who is both competitor and ambassador, we find it difficult to merely fanaticize toward the iconic figure; we actually desire to emulate that personified inspiration. We prescribe that emulation to ourselves, to kids, to random others. The impact of an athlete who crosses over from phenomenal performer to "leader" can never be measured. Derek Fisher is a similar case study of a clutch guy who's ethos permeated his profession. But Fisher was not in the echelon that CP3 is currently in. And that makes Chris Paul even more interesting to watch. He's about as elite as it gets and yet he says things like...

"I have a Dominique Wilkins Hawks jersey that I still wear. That's probably my favorite one. What's funny is that I spend all this time collecting jerseys, and now people are out there collecting mine."

Almost without trying, just by being himself, Paul is grounded. It just so happens that his self is a transparent, honest self. Sometimes it's hard to believe he was literally a Laker for several hours until David Stern vetoed the trade.

I keep arguing that the character driven athlete, the basketball player who is self-aware will undoubtedly outperform his deluded counterparts. And I guess that's true to a degree. But more impressive to me is when a guy like Chris Paul embraces leadership as if to say, I've been a point guard my whole life, why not assist and make plays everywhere else too.