When I Made A Basket Over Top Of Darryl Dawkins
A True Story
When I was going into my Junior year of high school, my dad, the rocket scientist, got a new job in Orlando Florida at Martin-Marietta (now Lockheed Martin).
I left my beloved Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, CA, for the halls of Maynard Evans High School in Pine Hills, Orlando, Florida.
This was in 1972. Pine Hills was not ethnically mixed at the time. (In other words it was all White.)
But in 1972 they started busing in Orlando, and they made Evans into 20% Black by bringing in students from Jones High School in Orlando.
One of those students was Darryl Dawkins, who would be known as “Chocolate Thunder” in the NBA. (I never cared for the nickname.)
Coming from Orange County, CA to Orange County, FL made academics easy. I made straight A’s without even trying.
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But Sports was different. I went out for the football team, and though I made the team (barely), I hardly played. (I was on the O-Line.)
So I tried out for basketball, but got cut. But during tryouts, that’s when I shot the basket over Dawkins. He was a Sophomore, I was a Junior. We never spoke, and he never knew my name. But I made that goddamn basket!
After getting cut from basketball, I tried out for Winter baseball, and it turns out I was great. I was starting catcher for 2 years and batted cleanup and led the team, in my Senior year, in home runs.
That’s the end of my participation in Sports, just about. College went poorly for me, and depression kept me from trying out for the baseball team at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
I played a little bit of church softball in El Paso, TX and Colorado Springs, CO. And I played a little bit of Army softball at Fort Sill, OK. But that was a total of maybe 15 games. Not much for an entire lifetime after high school.
The end.
