FOOTWORK (5 of 24)
My shoes had seen many miles, many of them not of my own volition. I look down at my outstretched secondhand white and black Converse Weapon Mids, the only basketball shoes I owned(1). Scuff marks aplenty, shoelaces too long, bunny ears droop to the hardwood, tied too tight around my ankles, too loose around the toes, I toe the baseline of the amber court and smile. It was the first day of middle school basketball tryouts and I was not having second thoughts yet. I looked around the court at my competition and I was confident. I had not yet known that everyone makes the team, but a simple designation of age and talent decided whether we made the 7th grade team or the 8th grade team. Maybe I was overconfident, standing about 4’11” and weighing about 90 pounds in the 6th grade, I was not physically exceptional. I was not an especially good shooter. I was not an especially good ball handler(2). I had no real experience playing organized basketball(3) and I unfortunately had a target on my back at my new school(4). Still, right there in that gym in East Atlanta in Fall 2007, I felt as though I was at the height of my basketball powers.
Tryouts go as expected. I make all of my layups. I make a few jumpers. My passes were good. I did not fuck up any of my drills. When we scrimmaged, I played hard defense. I listened to everything the coaches said. I even found myself playing with an extra swagger in my gait. I felt good about my chances, regardless of my size. I was named to the 7th grade team. As a 6th grader, that felt good, even if it was the lowest possible designation. The day went well. When tryouts were over, Coach Salim, the athletic director at the school had pulled me to the side. He was an older short light skinned man with grey hair and glasses. He was calm at all times, warm. He definitely cared, he had built the program with less resources than he’d have somewhere else. But he looked like he was always fighting disinterest. Maybe it was the years, maybe fatigue. Maybe I just don’t know what I’m talking about. You could tell he had seen a lot. Coach Salim pointed down at my shoes. I look down at them, embarrassed and aware of them for the first time since practice had begun. He asks me why I play in them, old shoes from the 1980s. I tell him it’s the only pair I have and that my dad had promised me some new basketball shoes before the start of the season. A man of little words, Coach Salim grunts and begins to amble away. I twiddle my fingers a bit before looking to head back to my friends but Coach Salim turns around and calls my name again. I stumble back over to him.
He tells me I move too clumsy and that my footwork needs work. He brings me over to the sideline. I stand and watch everyone else shoot around, partially jealous and a bit embarrassed. I needed extra work? I thought I had done a good job? I calm my breathing and ask him what he meant by that. He says my running pattern needs work and I always look like I am about to fall when I’m doing my moves. I lack control. I lack precision. Or at least from the outside looking in(5). He points down at the navy blue sideline and tells me to put both of my feet on either side. I do as I’m told. He tells me to jump to the other side with both of my feet landing at the same time. I try to do as I’m told. Again. I do it. Again. I do it. Again. Again. Again. I’m bouncing back and forth between both sides, my eyes transfixed on the sideline all throughout. The activity begins to gain a slight crowd from my prospective teammates. I finally stop to take a breath. Coach Salim grasps my shoulder and tells me to continue to do that a few times a day to improve my coordination. I shake my head in affirmation, my confidence a bit shaken. But optimistic. I was given a mode of improvement. Everything helps.
I was not lying about my dad promising me new shoes before the start of the season. My father and my mother were divorced. My mother had recently remarried, I didn’t like him very much(6). My dad was part of the United States Naval Reserves at that point in time and was stationed in South Korea for 6 months. He bought a bundle of shoes and toys in South Korea and shipped them to our house in College Park. What I asked for was very simple, an assortment of action figures, specifically a replacement Thing from Fantastic Four(7). I did not get him but I got other toys(8). I asked for new sneakers, both for everyday leisure and for basketball. My dad gifted me some all black low Air Force Is for leisure. I hadn’t made any specific request in that department, I just knew I wanted a departure from the usual Payless brands that I had access to. I knew exactly what I wanted as far as basketball shoes were concerned however. The Kobe 3. Did not matter the color or size, I just wanted to be like Kobe(9). But that did not play out the way I had initially desired either. I dug my hands into our bundle and pulled out a pair of Converse Dwyane Wade 2.0 sneakers. All black with yellow laces, red Converse star on the side, red stylized red “3” on the outer sole, red generic DWade Converse logo on the tongue and heel(10), and red roses with yellow stems on the inner sole(11). The silhouette was strange but I found the shoe alluring somehow. Plus, they weren’t old and beaten. I was pleased. New shoes had arrived just in the nick of time, the Friday night before my first game on the following Saturday morning. I slept with the shoes next to my pillow. The game in the morning did not go as planned. We lost 48-6(12). I do not remember most of the game(13). The main thing I remember were my obsidian shoes seeping onto the amber court in the saturday morning sun, sunrays shooting through the big sliding windows atop the gym wall. Thinking back, feels like a win.
May 2011. My family and I are at South Dekalb Mall. My brothers and I spent our summers with our dad in Kansas City, my Momma wanted to spend some time with us before we left the following day. I had not grown all that much vertically in those years since my first middle school basketball game, only a couple inches. But my feet had extended out before me considerably, growing several sizes. Aged 15, maybe I was expected to be uncomfortable and uncertain. Adolescent, shuffling through my days with my mind on the next. I looked to tomorrow a lot back then. But that was a good day.
It was especially good because my Momma took us to the movies to watch the first Thor(14) film and gave us a budget for new summer clothes after. The budget wasn't very high, only around 80 bucks person(15), but it wasn't often I got new clothes and that was exciting. My Momma said no shoes but it was all I was interested in. I wasn't drawn to many clothes, except this navy blue 2-piece tracksuit. There weren’t many options I had as far as shoes (not from Payless) for under 80 dollars. Especially with 15 dollars from my budget allocated towards the tracksuit. I only had two options left at The Foot Locker: DRose 2s and some Nike shoes with Flywire technology. I had never been the biggest fan of Adidas and their sneakers and the DRose shoes were about 20 dollars more expensive. So I got the Nikes. It was mainly black, blue trim. It had an emboldened blue “F” with “Flight” in tiny text on the tongue. I wasn't in love. But they were shiny and new. And I needed them(16). I begged my Momma, on my hands and knees. And she relented. She bought the shoes. I sat in the food court, satisfied with myself.
When I touched down in Kansas City, I was hooping immediately. I put up shots in the morning and night and played pickup games all throughout the day. Hoop dreams were real for a few weeks. Then my feet grew some more. And some more. And I couldn’t fit my brand new basketball shoes anymore. I had begged for these shoes and I begged for the moment. I couldn’t let the moment end after a few weeks because I didn’t have shoes anymore, could I? So I shoved my feet into shoes I had outgrew. It hurt my feet, running on crumpled toes but I felt myself getting better, what was I if not amicable in discomfort? What was I if not eager to please and quick to be silent? What was I if not pain and resilience and fear and anxiety? What was I if i didn’t spin all of that into joy? I played basketball all summer, with my shoes too small. I made 100 shots every morning with my shoes too small. I played basketball until both my big toenails fell off, with my shoes too small. I had a lot of fun that summer, with my shoes that small.
In my senior year of high school, I made my “grand” return to organized basketball(17). I had grown a few inches and my newly restored health following my diagnosis of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis had finally given me the license to move the way kids my age were accustomed to. Practice and workouts went fine but I found myself in a familiar place, struggling to find basketball shoes on par with those that my teammates used. By this point, my mother had remarried and we were not as poorly off financially as the years before. But I was still the middle child in a large family and dropping a hundred dollars on shoes outside of any special occasion was a hard sell. I was nervous to ask my Momma for the money but to my delight, I got a yes. She gave me exactly 100 dollars. My oldest brother took me to South Dekalb Mall(18). I had my mind on a particular shoe, the Reebok Kamikaze II. They were the signature shoe of Seattle Supersonics Forward Shawn Kemp back in the 90s and had made a cultural resurgence in the summer of 2013. The shoe looked like stylized lightning on feet, high tops. It was cool, the type of flair and flavor I had never been permitted to own before. The particular pair that I bought were blue with white bolts, a white tongue, and blue laces(19).
But I couldn’t get them, not after tax. It went over budget and I bought some Nike sneakers that came in under 96 bucks. I liked them good enough, they were bulky and fashionable. But they weren’t basketball shoes. After one single practice, the shoes began to feel like bricks on my feet, like weights around my ankles. I had to take them back. I convinced my mother to let me take them back and exchange them for the Reebok Kamikaze II sneakers. The shoes came up to 110 dollars with tax. My older brother lent me the last 15 bucks and I got the shoes. As the season grew closer, it became time for all the players to put our money into a pot to get the team shoes. That particular season, our coach had decided that we were to wear Nike Air Max Stutter Step sneakers and they were as ugly as they sound. But they were relatively inexpensive, he was thinking of kids like me, who were struggling to scrape together the money in the first place.
When it was time to put all the money together, I was the only one who had nothing to put in. I was not about to get another hundred dollars from my parents for shoes only a month and a half after the last time. I didn’t get the team shoes, the only player on the whole team with different shoes.
I played that season out, mainly sitting on the pine and hyping up my teammates in their uglier shoes. It felt good, once again, being the exception. I was so used to sticking out, to being without. But this time, being the sore thumb wasn't so sore at all. I felt outstanding in this truth. I didn’t feel like I was clumsily jumping from one side of the line to the other. I felt like I could stand on my two feet and be myself. Many miles later, I could finally stand on something all my own.
Footnotes:
I owned some rundown SHAQs as well, but nothing could have made me consider wearing those in public.
When I say that, I mean I was not on the track to NBA superstardom. I was pretty damn good at both of those things for my age by my estimation.
I had played a few games for the YMCA in Kansas City when I was around 6-7 years old.
Within my first few weeks at Mohammed Schools, our math teacher, Bro Yusef began goading the older students on about my basketball talent and letting them know that I'd be better than all of them after he witnessed me dominate a 3 x 3 game with some of my new classmates.
I honestly rarely traveled (I still rarely travel), so it maybe was not that bad.
It’s not relevant enough to get into here.
The Thing was my favorite toy during my entire childhood, even dating back to when I lived in Kansas City, MO. I lost him when we were living in a 1-room Motel in Marietta, GA. I left him in the parking lot by accident and came back a few hours later. The Thing was gone.
Thankfully for me, I was able to get a replacement Thing from Wal-Mart because of merchandise for Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer. He was much more realistic looking than my cartoonish original, but I acted like it was the same person in my toy continuity and the canon of the shared toy universe I created with my brothers.
Okay, maybe the size mattered a little bit.
Seriously though, what the fuck was that? It was basic. Was he supposed to be in a defensive stance or something?
My favorite thing about the shoe to be honest.
We played against The Paideia School. They had future D1 and pro-basketball player, Nate Mason on their roster. He bust our ass and we couldn’t break their press. Most of the other guards had no confidence. One guy scored all 6 points on three layups. I had two shot attempts. One was a deep airball three. I promise you I played better in the future.
This does not sound like a good earmark for my hooping ability.
Probably the worst in the trilogy (4th one coming out soon) but enjoyable nonetheless. A bit tame by today’s Marvel movie standards.
80 x 5= 400 dollars. That’s how having a lot of siblings works out.
I had aspirations of making my grand return back to organized basketball. I was sidelined for two years by that point by my Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis, which was undiagnosed at the time. I put in work all summer but my health hadn’t been what I had hoped by the fall. All the work for naught. So it goes.
My role was greatly diminished from middle school, as expected. I went from rotation player to a benchwarmer. I had a few really fun basketball moments my senior year though. I wouldn’t give it back for anything.
Old Reliable
It was the same color as our team jerseys so that made me hopeful that I would be allowed to wear them during the season.
