Tags
Basketball, Brooklyn, Container Diaries, Holy Name, Prospect Park, Schoolyard, Sports, Windsor Terrace
My love for the game of basketball began when I was six. Christmas morning, 1970, my mother gave me an Orange, Voit basketball.
When I woke up on that cold morning I grabbed the ball from under the tree, got dressed and went to the Boys schoolyard at Holy Name Grammar school. Mom, my older brother and younger sister were all asleep.
We lived at 228A Prospect Park West but everyone called it “ninth avenue,” or, “the avenue.”
The Girls schoolyard was across the street where we played football, slap ball and stickball. It was also where the teachers parked their cars in the morning. To get to the Boys schoolyard I had to cross the avenue, walk down Windsor Place and hang a right at Howard Place. I remember bouncing the ball every step of the way. Whenever I went to the Boys schoolyard I always worked on my dribbling. If I didn’t have a ball, you could always count on the Trapp’s, who lived on Howard Place to have a few extras down their basement steps. And make sure you return it.
Six baskets, three full-courts, surrounded by a chain linked fence, I was in basketball heaven. (think “Field of Dreams” with Kevin Costner.) At the time I was in the first grade at Holy Name and the Boys schoolyard was where we lined up before school and took our recess.
Walking inside I began tossing my ball up at the netless rim. I missed the first few but on occasion I would get lucky and one would drop. Some shots would smash off the half-moon backboard.
My confidence grew with each make. I became addicted. I wanted more.
Noticing a few kids and their parents walking past the yard on Howard Place and up Prospect Avenue on their way to church I am sure the kids wished they were in the yard with me getting a few shots up instead of having to attend mass. Our church was next to the schoolyard. The parents probably thought I was nuts.
The Boys schoolyard would soon become my church. It wouldn’t be long until I worshiped the game, the coaches and the players. The older guys would play 3-on-3 and I would sit on the side watching their every move. I wanted to be like them. Between games I would run out onto the court and get a few shots up before they ran it back.
Basketball became my religion. In school the nuns and priests told us to get down on our knees and say our prayers before bed; yeah I prayed all right, I prayed to the Basketball Gods.
“HEY KID! GET OUT OF THE SCHOOLYARD!” A priest screamed at me while I attempted a shot. I stood there looking at him while my ball bounced away. I was scared.
“YOU HEAR ME?” the tall old man in the long black robe said. He was standing on the other side of the fence that separates the boys and girls schoolyards.
“GO HOME. NOW!” he shouted.
Grabbing my ball, I ran out of the schoolyard all the way home.
There would be many more situations when I was kicked out, not just by the priests. One night at around eleven, a cop car pulled up, two cops got out and told me to go home. The residents across the street on Howard Place must have been annoyed at the bouncing of the ball. But I wasn’t a very good listener, I would return many times after that.
Magic Johnson once said, “do it for love.” I lived those words when it came to the game of basketball.
Those were the days my friends…
Hope everyone is doing well. Stay positive and stay strong.
-Steve
E-Mail: SteveFinamore@yahoo.com