Living through the Hoop

High School Basketball, Race, and the American Dream

Reuben A. Buford May

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780814795613
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: African American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

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When high school basketball player LeBron James was selected as the top pick in the National Basketball Association draft of 2003, the hopes of a half-million high school basketball players soared. If LeBron could go straight from high school to the NBA, why couldn’t they? Such is the allure of basketball for so many young African American men. Unfortunately, the reality is that their chances of ever playing basketball at the professional, or even college, level are infinitesimal. In Living Through the Hoop, Reuben A. Buford May tells the absorbing story of the hopes and struggles of one high school basketball team.

With a clear passion for the game, May grabs readers with both hands and pulls them onto the hardwood, going under the hoop and inside the locker room. May spent seven seasons as an assistant coach of the Northeast High School Knights in Northeast, Georgia. We meet players like Larique and Pooty Cat, hard-working and energetic young men, willing to play and practice basketball seven days a week and banking on the unlimited promise of the game. And we meet Coach Benson, their unorthodox, out-spoken, and fierce leader, who regularly coached them to winning seasons, twice going to the state tournaments Elite Eight championships.

Beyond the wins and losses, May provides a portrait of the players’ hopes and aspirations, their home lives, and the difficulties they face in living in a poor and urban area — namely, the temptations of drugs and alcohol, violence in their communities, run-ins with the police, and unstable family lives. We learn what it means to become a man when you live in places that define manhood by how tough you can be, how many women you can have, and how much money you can hustle.

May shows the powerful role that the basketball team can play in keeping these kids straight, away from street-life, focused on completing high school, and possibly even attending college. Their stories, and the double-edged sword of hoop dreams, is at the heart of this compelling story about young African American men’s struggle to find their way in an often grim world.

1
A Look Through the Hoop

Mama, just go back up in the stands. This is between me and my coach!

I was anxious as we passed through the metal detector and entered the gymnasium. Not only was it my first game as an assistant varsity coach of boys’ high school basketball, but it was also my first game on the road—and in Forest County of all places. The folks at Forest County were well known for packing out their gymnasium to cheer on their Raiders. They were hostile too.

What made matters worse was that, at just thirty minutes up the road from Northeast, some of our players had kinfolk that went to school at Forest County. This game would be for bragging rights. It would also be one of the few places where the opposing team’s players and fans would be black like us.

On a few occasions in the past, the competitive energy had spilled from the court and ended up in the parking lot, with fistfights among spectators from both schools. What stuck out to me most about our loss the previous year was the fiercely competitive and physical nature of the game.

As the players got dressed in the locker room I walked around as tense as I had been the first time I had ever played. A few minutes later Coach Benson entered the locker room to give his last set of instructions to the team before we went out to warm up.

“Now, gentlemen,” Benson said, “let me tell you something. You represent Northeast. Take pride in that. Don’t be out here embarrassing your family letting guys outplay you. You know, from the time we came through the door all I heard everybody talkin’ about was a party. They’re supposed to be having this dance after they beat us. Well, gentlemen, let’s cancel that fuckin’ dance. Remember, don’t let that backside man push you out of the way to get the rebound. If the ball’s on the floor, you need to be on the floor.”

The players nodded in silence, and Benson waited to let his words sink in. “Now let’s get the prayer,” Benson commanded.

We circled around and held our hands up in the center of the circle. As we began to recite the Lord’s Prayer, I became keenly aware of the deep echo of our combined twenty-five voices, “Amen!”

“Knights on three,” Lance, a junior captain, said, “1-2-3.”

“Knights,” we all responded.

Our players, twenty-one in all, lined up according to height and ran through the locker-room door. As they took to the floor clad in their red uniforms with black trim, the Forest County crowd booed. Instantly, those boos became cheers as the Raiders entered the gym from the opposite locker room. They were wearing their signature white uniforms with green trim. Their twelve players moved easily through warmup drills as their fans danced to hip-hop music in the stands and sustained a high-pitched chatter.

The horn sounded, and it was time to introduce the players. The public-address announcer introduced our team first. As he announced our last starter, “Number 4, Clifton Bolton,” his assistant shut off the lights in the gym.

When the lights went out, the Raiders’ fans cheered, and then the up-tempo music began.

“And now, your Forest County Raiders!” the public-address announcer shouted.

The fans stood and screamed as the announcer called the Raiders’ starting lineup. Under a bright spotlight, each Forest County player ran to center court.

After the Raiders were introduced, we all stood around a few minutes waiting for the gymnasium lights to illuminate. I was already exhausted from the pregame hype.

The two teams met at center court for the jump ball. For the first time I noticed that Forest County had the clear height advantage over our team. All their players stood at about 6’5” or taller. They were lean and athletic. Our tallest starting player, Lance, stood at 6’2”. But what we lacked in size we made up for in tenacity. That was Coach Benson’s gift. He was a motivator.

When the referees tossed the ball up, Forest County’s lean, athletic center easily outjumped Lance for the ball. The Raiders scored first, but we scored several baskets consecutively from steals we made from our full-court-press defense.

During the first quarter I was surprised by how much Benson relied on the other coaches for feedback and assistance during the game. I debriefed the players about their performance as Coach Taylor substituted them in and out of the game and Coach Bowden provided Benson with critical statistical information. We finished the first quarter with a six-point lead.

At the start of the second quarter we began intensifying our press defense by aggressively pursuing every pass the Forest County players made. Those Raiders couldn’t handle our persistent pursuit of the ball. We inched the lead up to ten points. Our leading scorer, Clifton Bolton, scored eight of those points on a variety of shots. He was not very big at 6’1”, 180 pounds, or very quick, but he had a precise jump-shot, an arsenal of creative moves to the basket, and an “I can score on anyone” attitude.

At halftime we left the floor with a ten-point lead. Benson came into the locker room and gave what I would later learn was his typical halftime speech.

“Listen,” Benson said, “you know they are going to come at you with that half-court trap. Don’t forget what you’re supposed to do. And I told you we still not blocking out to get the rebound. We gotta have rebounds on the backside.” Benson paused then said, “Coaches, what you got?”

“We gotta rebound,” Coach Taylor said.

“We gotta keep pressure on the ball,” I added.

“We gotta take the open shot,” Coach Bowden said.

After we fired off this relay of suggestions to the players, Benson said, “Does anyone have anything else for the good of the organization?”

The players were silent.

“Shit, gentlemen,” Benson said, “let’s get the hell outta the locker room. We can’t win the damn game in the locker room. And don’t walk out there.”

The players collectively sprung from the locker-room bench, jogged through the gym door, ran back onto the court, and began shooting warmup shots.

As the players shot around, I thought, “That’s it? That’s all we need to talk about?” In the past, I had always noted with curiosity the brief time that Benson and the Knights were in the locker room. He took about three minutes out of each halftime, whereas most coaches typically kept their players in the locker room nine minutes of the ten-minute halftime. I thought, “I hope we’ve given them enough information.”

We began the second half with the ball. We scored several lay-ups in a short span and pushed the lead up to eighteen points. Our defense remained consistent, and we were making our open shots. As the third quarter came to an end, I felt I was well on my way to my first victory as an assistant coach of boys’ basketball.

In the fourth quarter, however, the momentum shifted. The Raiders were playing harder and with more confidence and aggression. They changed from a zone defense to their patented 1-3-1 half-court trap, sending two players to double-team the ball each time we passed it to the corner. Benson had warned our players about this half-court trap in the locker room, but once the Raiders started their pursuit on defense we were rattled. We began to turn the ball over and gave Forest County several uncontested lay-ups.

As the clock ran down to under thirty seconds left in the game, the Raiders had cut our eighteen-point lead down to a mere two-point lead. We had the ball, and our plan was to hold it until we were fouled or the final buzzer sounded, but Clifton got trapped in the corner and couldn’t provoke the foul, and he instead attempted to throw a cross-court pass to Larique. At 5’9”, 154 pounds, Larique was quick, but he couldn’t get to Clifton’s pass fast enough. One of the rangy Raiders stepped in and stole the ball. He passed it to his teammate, who had already begun streaking down the floor. Just like that, the Raiders tied a game that we had led for thirty-one of thirty-two minutes. The Forest County faithful erupted. I could hardly hear anything.

Coach Benson called a timeout. As the players walked over looking dejected, Benson started fussing at Clifton for dribbling into the trap with the ball: “Haven’t I told you to stay your ass out the damn corner?”

Clifton just nodded.

“Larique,” Benson said, “you gotta get your ass over there to get the damn ball. You know they going to double-team him. Get your ass over there!”

Larique nodded.

I clapped my hands and offered encouragement, “We okay.”

The horn sounded for us to come out of the huddle.

“Run your damn press breaker and protect the ball,” Benson commanded. “When we get down on our end we going to hold the ball and run spread. We’ll get the ball to Clifton for the last shot.”

The boys nodded silently and then returned to the court.

Clifton stepped out of bounds and threw the ball in to Larique. Larique waited for the defense to clear, and then he began dribbling the ball up the court. 10-9-8-7 seconds.

Right on cue, Larique eyed Clifton breaking across the middle of the lane. 6-5 seconds.

The Raider guarding Larique knocked the ball loose. 4-3 seconds.

As Larique tried to secure the ball, he unintentionally kicked it, and it rolled out of bounds at half court.

“Raiders ball,” said the public-address announcer.

There were 2.8 seconds left on the clock when the Raiders’ coach called a timeout.

“Dammit!” coach Benson shouted as he threw to the ground the white towel he’d been using to wipe his hands.

The Knights hesitantly walked back to our bench. All the players on the floor had played for Benson at least one year, so they knew what was coming.

“Shit,” Benson yelled as the players got closer. “Y’all trying to give the fuckin’ game away. Fuck it. If y’all ain’t gonna play any better than this, we don’t even have to get off the bus next time. We just won’t play no more games this season.”

Benson looked around as if he were contemplating a way to take back all the mistakes we had made that night. Buzz. The horn sounded.

“Set up your half-court press,” Benson said. “Whatever you do don’t let them get the ball inbounds close to the basket. We can still win this game. We got this. Knights on three, 1-2-3.”

“Knights!” we shouted.

The team exited the huddle with renewed confidence and took their positions on the defensive end of the court. When Forest County came out of the huddle, they set up with a player at half court and the other three players close to the basket. Our defenders covered the players close to the basket to prevent the easy pass inside.

All the players for both teams were in position. My stomach began to churn as the referee handed the ball to the Raider standing out of bounds.

As the Forest County player began to wind up and throw what he thought was an uncontested pass to half court, Clifton, who had been inching forward in anticipation of the pass, ran two steps to half court and intercepted the ball.

2.7 seconds. Clifton took one dribble.

2.2 seconds. Clifton dribbled once more.

1.8 seconds. All the coaches started shouting, “Shoot it! Shoot it!” We feared that he would run out of time. Clifton ignored our commands.

1.3 seconds. Clifton took one hard dribble and exploded up toward the basket.

0.3 seconds. Clifton extended his arm and released the ball over the front of the goal.

0.0 buzz. Time expired as Clifton began to descend from his leap, and the referee signaled basket good.

Clifton hit the court then sprang up in the opposite direction and ran directly to the visitor’s locker room with his teammates chasing behind him. The Raiders’ faithful were stunned.

In the locker room the players piled on top of Clifton. He had thirty-three points that night, but none more important than the last two.

As the coaches entered the locker room, Benson said, “Shit. Everybody up.”

The Knights gave Clifton some room and gathered around Benson.

“Listen,” Benson said, “I told y’all we had the game.” The players nodded with approval and gave out high-fives to one another.

“Clifton,” Benson continued, “that’s the way to make it hurt. It’s those close games that really hurt. Shit, I guess we canceled that party.”

We laughed.

“Now get your shit on,” Benson said with a little laugh, “and let’s get the fuck outta this small town.”

We huddled up, raised our hands in the middle, and Lance shouted, “Knights on three. 1-2-3.”

“Knights!”

The Northeast Community

Northeast is like many small- to medium-size metropolitan areas. The population is approximately 105,000. Sixty-four percent of the population is white, 27 percent is black, and 6 percent is Latino. Twenty-eight percent of the population of Northeast lives below the poverty level.¹ This racial composition, coupled with poverty rates that disproportionately affect blacks, helps to explain its reputation as an undesirable environment. The majority of the players who play for Northeast hail either from Flat Shoals, Hillside, or Eastridge housing developments. An example of the general distribution of the team over communities is the 1999–2000 team. Of the twenty-eight players from this team, sixteen were from these neighboring housing developments, nine were from nearby working-class communities, and three were from affluent neighborhoods. With the exception of one player, all the players were black.

Flat Shoals, Hillside, and Eastridge were built in the early 1940s as affordable housing developments for low- and moderate-income families. Today, these housing developments continue to be homes for low-income families, primarily blacks in Northeast, but because of concentrated poverty and other structural factors, there has been an increase since the 1970s in crime, drug use, and social disorganization in these residential areas.² The social conditions of these housing developments offer a formidable barrier to enjoying the innocence of youth.

Many of the players live near drug houses—neighborhood homes in which the sale of crack cocaine is the primary function—or on blocks where gunplay and violence occur often. In fact, during the 1990s, four of the Knights’ former players from these neighborhoods were murdered after they were no longer playing basketball for the team. Two were shot, and two were stabbed to death. One player, Thomas Thurmon, was murdered while he was an active member of the team. During the 1997 basketball season, Thurmon, at that time a junior, was shot to death while riding in a friend’s car. A day later the shooter, twenty-two-year-old Phillip Winston, turned himself in to the police and admitted killing Thurmon supposedly in self-defense. Winston, however, in his statement to the police admitted that in actuality Thurmon resembled someone who had threatened to kill him. Thurmon’s murder had been a case of mistaken identity.

Although the entire school mourned Thurmon’s death, many of the players recognized his death as just another reminder that they lived in a high-risk environment. In their community, survival was based on one’s ability to compete against the constant allure of fast money obtained through drugs and crime and to be confident, aggressive, and, above all else, willing to fight in any way necessary. Many of the former players, who have internalized this outlook and confidence, projected an attitude of aggression and have also successfully channeled these feelings into mainstream activities. Some of the Knights attended college and started successful careers. These former players remained a source of encouragement to the players and to Benson, who believed in trying to help these young men face the difficult odds of the circumstances and environment into which they were born.

Northeast High School

Over sixteen hundred students attend Northeast High School, which is located in the metropolitan area of Northeast, Georgia. Approximately 55 percent of the students are black, 35 percent are white, 7 percent are Hispanic, 2 percent are Asian, and 1 percent are multiracial. Two-thirds of the students hail from working-class to upper-middle-class black and white communities in Northeast.³ One-third of the students are from families that live below the poverty level.⁴ Most of these impoverished students are black and live in one of three low-income housing projects located in a three- to five-block radius of Northeast High School.

About 51 percent of the students entering as freshmen receive their high school diploma within four years. This completion rate for high school is dismal, yet it is on par with Georgia’s statewide average of 55 percent.⁵ Northeast High School had gotten its graduation rate up to 53.4 percent in 2003 but dropped slightly to 51.4 percent in 2004. Sixty percent of Northeast High School graduates go on to four-year colleges and universities (approximately 1 percent attend very selective schools), and approximately 5 percent attend two-year community colleges. A small percentage of those students who drop out go on to obtain their GED (general equivalency diploma). Most go on to work in places like fast-food restaurants around metropolitan Northeast.

During my time there, the school went through three principals. The third, Dr. Elizabeth Morris, began in 1999. Dr. Morris had over thirty years experience in education and had done a more effective job in maintaining discipline in the high school than did her male predecessors. The school had two full-time armed police officers and several surveillance cameras that were installed throughout the halls in the late 1980s. Still, there were disciplinary problems. These problems mainly involved truancy, prank bomb threats, school fights, and a gradually increasing gang problem in the area.⁶

Until recently the tension among students at school was related to loose neighborhood affiliations throughout Northeast. These affiliations were simply identified as a North versus South conflict. However, during the influx of Latinos to Northeast in early 2000, there was a rise in gang affiliation among both black and Latino populations.⁷ Individuals, especially Latinos, were claiming allegiance to organizations in Northeast that were offshoots of renowned gangs like the Crips and Bloods of Los Angeles, California. These affiliat...