By his own admission, my Dad was not the star of his high school basketball team; not the leading scorer; not the best point guard; not even a starter during his career. When he remembers his playing days, he talks of coming down with rebounds in a crowd of forwards 5,6,7 inches taller than he; he talks of locking up with the best player on the other team and taking pride in not letting him score; and of course, the humble guy that he is, he talks of his Achilles heel – the soft spot in his game; the reason he didn’t get the shoe contract; the shot opposing teams happily allowed: the almighty LAYUP…given 10 attempts from the top of the key or 10 breakaway layups, he’ll make double the jump shots just about every time. These facts and the stories to support them I’ve come to learn over years during countless backyard shooting sessions…
There’s a little slice of heaven back in Interlaken, NJ on Woodmere Rd where a patch of blacktop has sat tastefully cornered for over a decade in a perfectly self-manicured landscape just wide and deep enough to fit a regulation three point arch that half moons around a full fiberglass backboard outfitted with a red white and blue net like you used to see at the playgrounds…”backyard of the year” kind of stuff...a peaceful, private spot where a guy has no excuse for not getting hundreds of jumpshots up every day…a place where Dads rebound for sons while passing down the stories and recollections of “rebounding amongst the trees” . If we all had to choose just one place to live down the rest of our days, this is probably it for me. The concrete was first poured at some point between my 12th and 14th birthday…I’m a little hazy on the details obviously and I’m sure my Dad would know for sure, but I can back into this two year time frame because I know it was there when I started high school and it wasn’t during one of them indelible moments that a guy will never forget.
As a 10 and 11 year old kid, you don’t know and probably don’t care how many points per game your Dad averaged in high school (but you assume it was a lot, of course). When you’re regularly playing one-on-one in the backyard, the only thing you know and care about is that he’s taller, stronger, quicker and that you’ve never beaten him. As an 11 year old, he could probably shut you out every time if he really wanted to but he lets you compete for a while before shutting the door and imparting the life lessons of humility and the value of a strong work ethic…these lessons, as we all know, don’t become apparent until later in life and lacking any perspective at that age, you wonder if there will ever be a day that you find that first victory…that is, until you actually pull it off on your 12th birthday. I’m pretty sure the plan was not to let me win that day…I would imagine the script called for letting the young pup get close enough but then clamping down and preventing any real chance of victory…ahhh, but alas, the script would be thrown out...
One in a million. A total prayer that had no right to go in. The memory remains pretty vivid. I couldn’t tell you how we got to game point, but I do know that I was checking it up with a chance to hit a two (pointer) for the win. I know that it wasn’t the new court because we dribbled on a patch of dirt/weeds and shot at a backboard in worse condition than the ones at the DS Basketball camp held in a tennis facility. He checked it up and stood toe to toe ready to thwart any attempt at moving an inch closer to the basket. I had no chance and I knew it. My only option was to take a dribble away from the rim, spin with my back to the basket and heave desperation in the general direction of the goal. It could have ended up in any one of a hundred different places that it deserved to: the most predictable being over the fence, down the hill and in the neighbor’s yard across the street…BUT, it didn’t. Nope. It first landed squarely in the center of the box on the backboard (a place no self respecting balla player ever aims for) and then dropped cleanly through the net, signaling that first victory and sparking a celebration replete with loud noises, high stepping and double overhead fist pumping. Equally goofy as it was obnoxious I am sure…but hey, what did I care? I just beat my dad (my hero) for the first time ever in basketball. I’ll never forget it.
As the years wore on, the games of 1v1 became more and more competitive and then less and less so…I continued to grow (and figured out that Achilles heel) and eventually our time in the backyard was spent mostly doing shooting workouts. Some real quality father-son bonding back there in our own little slice of heaven…and we didn’t play the 1 on 1 game but twice a year: His birthday and mine. When I eventually went off to college and was only home during the summer, the ritual stretched to just once a year: the 4th of July. Father vs Son, 1 on 1. It’s funny how things tend to come full circle. He now playing the role of unlikely underdog and I the boring favorite. Mom would come out and watch from the steps of the back deck tsk-tsk’ing and shaking her head while I backed him down in the post as if to say, “If you send your father to the hospital, you’re out of the will”. We found subtle ways to level the action and keep things competitive but inevitably if he ever got close to game point, I would check it up, stand toe-to-toe, take away the top of the key jumper he loved and force him to the rim. We battle it out once a year every summer: no injuries; loser pours…
This past summer, with me off at College Part Duex, the annual tradition was put off until the second week in August (during my two week break). We laced ‘em up, he put on his Ursinus basketball shorts and an old school ND jersey (class of ’75) and we checked it up out back with Mom watching from the steps. Game 1 followed the script: a close, scrappy contest with more bricks than swishes but eventually less bricks from the 26 yr old…a predictable outcome. Game II followed a similar pattern from the start. We seesawed for a while in the summer heat conceding open jumpers to each other while conserving energy. The score stayed tight as we got closer to 11 and I finally found myself checking it up with the old man a two away from victory. So what did I do? This was crunch time...I got low and close and was determined not to give up that top of the key jumper….what did he do? He shot faked, looked right, drove left and you’d never believe it, but he went up for a contested layup and actually made it…oh boy…now the 16 seed is just a point away closing out the 1 seed…check it up…determined not give up the game winner and convinced the last point was a fluke, I assumed the stance. Same move: head fake to the rim, I stay on the ground…he fakes right, starts the drive left…there’s no way he’s getting that layup off again; I’m with him the whole way. One dribble and he stops…on a dime he rises up and shoots the pull-up…I’m caught off guard, expecting the layup and he gets a clean look….ball in flight …hits the front the rim, bounces off the backboard and finally drops through…game over…with all of the goofiness and none of the obnoxiousness of a 12 year old, the routine of high knees, double overhead fist pumping and hollering ensues. The crowd (of one) empties from the bleachers (the step) and rushes the court (lightly jogs through the arbor) to join in the upset celebration… needless to say, I poured three beers that night…one for the loser and one for the victor and his cheerleader.
At 57 years old and playing on stiff knees, he’s still teaching life lessons on the blacktop in the backyard…today’s thesis (with an assist from Mom): You’re never too old to live with a 12 year old’s joie de vivre.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Saint Malinowski on N. Saint Peters
At long last, writing this week from the road! The final class of the summer session let out only a couple of hours earlier and my girl has just taken the wheel for a couple of miles…with the wheel comes ownership of the dial and I’m sorry to turn off Cleveland’s ESPN radio (and the riveting discussion in anticipation of an intra-squad brown/white Browns scrimmage) but it provides a good chance to sit back and reflect a little bit...
The last week of the “summer intensive” proved to be a nice transition to the approaching two week respite – just a morning pass/fail course on the subject of “Strategy Essentials” (mostly some touchy feely shi…stuff). After Monday’s class, Emily and I realized that with a light course load, it might be a good week to host our turn at dinner … an unofficial club has formed within the MBA student body and it is the brainchild of our classmate Greg Carlson. During the first two or three weeks of the program, he casually polled students seeking interest in a no frills dinner-club-type group where each member would take a turn at hosting a homemade meal of their own “specialty dish”… the thought was, as he put it, “work hard one week and then sit back and don’t do jack for 15 weeks”. He came up with a name - the “College Meal Plan” (sounds like it should be a Kanye album doesn’t it) – and then volunteered to host the first meal two Fridays ago. He delivered a great night and a meat-lover’s paradise – bacon wrapped grilled chicken stuffed with Italian sausage and portabella mushroom…lights out…as delicious as it sounds…after the feeding that night, the process for establishing the next host was agreed upon – the game of “Fingers” (involving a pitcher of beer) that produces no true winner(s) and just one loser. As you might imagine, with the odds stacked against us (two players), it was no surprise that team McEvilowski would have the honor of chef responsibilities for round II…Cool, nooooo problem….we left that evening promising the very best (and likely first) shrimp enchilada our guests have ever seen.
In an effort to continue the momentum of the Meal Plan, we really wanted to get our Enchiladas in before the summer break. After learning that the this week would afford the chance, Monday night we sent out the invitation and received back a near unanimous response - 15 affirmative RSVP’s….the gauntlet had been thrown – a grown up dinner party for 17 people… as the responses trickled in, we thought hmmmm, maybe we were in a little over our heads….nahhh, no way. How hard could it be, right? I was going to cook up a couple batches of my specialty Enchiladas (the only thing I got) and Emily would bring it all alive with some sautéed broccoli, green beans, asparagus and a side of Mexican rice while also preparing nachos and a corn dip for an appetizer (she takes a lot of pride her dips and seems to have developed a bit of a niche in the department). We set off for the food store on Tuesday to get all the necessary ingredients (we were missing just the corn tortillas). The next morning we wake up, go to class, and each have our own agenda for the afternoon. We agreed that we’d meet back at the house at around 5/530 that evening and I’d make sure to pick up the missing tortilla shells and some borrowed baking sheets…
Among other things on the agenda was a tentatively scheduled workout at about 4pm. It’d been a while since my last showing at the pickup scene and I was hungry for a little hoops action…planned to get some shots up on my own and then run a couple games with the afternoon crowd (they usually trickle in between 4:30 and 5)...Took a while for us to finally round up 10 but once we got going, my team won a couple games and I was feeling pretty good about my performance … (the Matt Harping pull-up game was sharp and I was the proud recipient of a recruiting pitch from an intramural team captain)…so good, in fact, that I kind of lost track of time and before I knew it, when I finally asked someone what time it was, the response that came, “eh, a little after 6” was a bit startling…Oh ____!! (you fill in the blank…they all apply)…I hustle to the locker room, pack all my stuff in a bag and immediately head off for the car – no time for a shower, change of shirt or even shoes. It’s now 6:15 and I look at my phone to see 5 missed calls and 4 new text messages coming as early as 5:10 and evenly distributed through 6:10….You can guess who they were from….there was a gradual progression of tone: First, “Bri, maybe we should get started sooner”…then, a little later, “You already picked up the dishes and the tortillas right?”…and the 6:00 one: “You do know we are hosting 17 people at your house in an hour!”…OK, now I have a lot more work to do than I originally thought. There's a fairly long list of responsibilities when it comes to hosting dinner party and on top of it all I’ve now managed to find myself squarely in the dog house…Walking to the car, I call back: “I’m really sorry, I had no idea what time it was, I’m on my way to the food store and John’s (for the baking dish), I’ll be there in 10 minutes”…”Bri, I already went to Johns. He had no idea where you were. I’m sitting outside your house waiting for you. Do you have any idea how mad I am right now?”…Sensing this was not the time for sarcasm, I’m thinking solutions, “The spare key is -------. Let yourself in and I’ll be home in 5”…click…I’ve now just parked at the local grocery store and am running through the parking lot into the store wearing a completely drenched t-shirt, fully laced ankle braces and high tops…moving so quickly I don’t even notice the strange looks coming from fellow shoppers…I get the tortillas, run to the counter, check out and am back in the car in 2 minutes flat…hmmm, I wonder if there’s ever been a quicker trip to this grocery store ever…phone rings, “Bri. The key’s not there. Your roommate must have it. (Thinking to myself: Oh, yea…I told him to take it yesterday…whoops)” …click…Any many who’s been in a relationship lasting more than 6 months knows just how quickly emotions of the opposite sex can turn…I roll in front of the house at 6:40 and it’s abundantly clear that I’m dealing with undiluted and raw anger…”Em…”…”Don’t even try it”
She goes right to the kitchen to begin the prep work. I start straightening up the house. We planned for dinner to be served outside and to use the picnic table in the back as necessary seating…don’t exactly have the resources to host a 17 person formal dining experience…but the clouds are now threatening and only adding to the pain. As I start to move the two tables that we have out to the back deck, “What are you doing? We can’t eat outside. It’s hot and humid and it’s about to storm”…”But we really can’t fit everyone in…you’re right. My bad“ (A blatant lie. There is absolutely no way inside is going to work). I set up the tables inside and stand back to try and figure out #1) where we’re going to find another 5 chairs and #2) how the heck we’re to fit 17 of them around these awkwardly positioned tables…(still wearing the same wet outfit)…Emily continues to scramble preparing the food but looks up and finds me in problem solving mode (otherwise known as standing still doing nothing) … “What are you doing?”… “I’m trying to…”…”Just do something!”…OK, Fine. Time for an executive decision: the clouds will blow by. We’re eating outside. I move the tables outside, get the 3 chairs we have and set up the table cloths. Now, time to enter the Lion’s Den….I tread cautiously to the kitchen to take care of my culinary duties – the Enchiladas. Emily heads right for the bathroom to shower. I get done what I have to and at about 7:15 she emerges from the shower and asks, “Soooo when were you going to go to Greg’s to get the chairs and a pan for the rice that I need?”….Oh, right…On my way...
I grab the cell phone, “Greg, you still around? I have to come by to get the chairs…and do you have a pan for rice?”…”yea man, no problem. I’m on my way over in 5 minutes. I’ll just bring them with me.”….”Trust me dude, I don’t mind. See you in 2”. I hustle to get the chairs and am in the car turning the key when I realize that I forgot about the rice pan….pretty sure that would have been the straw that cut the camel’s balls off…I hustle back to get a pan and am again in the car headed home when I notice rain drops starting to hit the windshield...cursing and looking up to the sky (THINK: Henry Hill looking for helicopters in Goodfellas), I’m trying to evaluate how long it’s going to last…eh, doesn’t look bad, shouldn’t be too long…I get home to find a jeep parked outside and two guests inside…PHEW. A shield… the previously set tables are drenched but the rain seems to have stopped. We dry the tables and put the cooking into motion. It’s 7:35 and the rest of the party starts to show. After a dramatic 55 minutes, things seem to settle down and we look to have everything under control. The appetizers are served and receive many deserving compliments. The Enchiladas are in the oven and baking right on schedule. I finally have a chance to take a quick shower and by 7:50, I have a beer in hand and start to relax…man, that pull-up jumper felt damn good today…
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and after dinner, in true McEvily fashion, I forced all guests to play two rounds of knockout on our backyard basketball court…proudly sent them all home losers, I might add, as they wondered aloud what kind of person makes everyone play a game just so he can win… All in all, it turned out to be a fun evening and I could sense the tension easing with my ever-patient partner chef. When the last person left at around 11:30, the negotiation was quick and relatively painless. The act of contrition: a dinner at her favorite South Bend Italian restaurant, Papa Vinos. She really is the best….
“Bri, you ready to take back the wheel yet? There’s a rest stop coming up soon…Hey, what are you doing on that thing by the way?”…”Just typing up a blog post”…….”Let me guess, you’re going to make me relive it all again aren’t you?...I really should go find a new boyfriend!”
Sometimes, it’s hard to argue with her.
The last week of the “summer intensive” proved to be a nice transition to the approaching two week respite – just a morning pass/fail course on the subject of “Strategy Essentials” (mostly some touchy feely shi…stuff). After Monday’s class, Emily and I realized that with a light course load, it might be a good week to host our turn at dinner … an unofficial club has formed within the MBA student body and it is the brainchild of our classmate Greg Carlson. During the first two or three weeks of the program, he casually polled students seeking interest in a no frills dinner-club-type group where each member would take a turn at hosting a homemade meal of their own “specialty dish”… the thought was, as he put it, “work hard one week and then sit back and don’t do jack for 15 weeks”. He came up with a name - the “College Meal Plan” (sounds like it should be a Kanye album doesn’t it) – and then volunteered to host the first meal two Fridays ago. He delivered a great night and a meat-lover’s paradise – bacon wrapped grilled chicken stuffed with Italian sausage and portabella mushroom…lights out…as delicious as it sounds…after the feeding that night, the process for establishing the next host was agreed upon – the game of “Fingers” (involving a pitcher of beer) that produces no true winner(s) and just one loser. As you might imagine, with the odds stacked against us (two players), it was no surprise that team McEvilowski would have the honor of chef responsibilities for round II…Cool, nooooo problem….we left that evening promising the very best (and likely first) shrimp enchilada our guests have ever seen.
In an effort to continue the momentum of the Meal Plan, we really wanted to get our Enchiladas in before the summer break. After learning that the this week would afford the chance, Monday night we sent out the invitation and received back a near unanimous response - 15 affirmative RSVP’s….the gauntlet had been thrown – a grown up dinner party for 17 people… as the responses trickled in, we thought hmmmm, maybe we were in a little over our heads….nahhh, no way. How hard could it be, right? I was going to cook up a couple batches of my specialty Enchiladas (the only thing I got) and Emily would bring it all alive with some sautéed broccoli, green beans, asparagus and a side of Mexican rice while also preparing nachos and a corn dip for an appetizer (she takes a lot of pride her dips and seems to have developed a bit of a niche in the department). We set off for the food store on Tuesday to get all the necessary ingredients (we were missing just the corn tortillas). The next morning we wake up, go to class, and each have our own agenda for the afternoon. We agreed that we’d meet back at the house at around 5/530 that evening and I’d make sure to pick up the missing tortilla shells and some borrowed baking sheets…
Among other things on the agenda was a tentatively scheduled workout at about 4pm. It’d been a while since my last showing at the pickup scene and I was hungry for a little hoops action…planned to get some shots up on my own and then run a couple games with the afternoon crowd (they usually trickle in between 4:30 and 5)...Took a while for us to finally round up 10 but once we got going, my team won a couple games and I was feeling pretty good about my performance … (the Matt Harping pull-up game was sharp and I was the proud recipient of a recruiting pitch from an intramural team captain)…so good, in fact, that I kind of lost track of time and before I knew it, when I finally asked someone what time it was, the response that came, “eh, a little after 6” was a bit startling…Oh ____!! (you fill in the blank…they all apply)…I hustle to the locker room, pack all my stuff in a bag and immediately head off for the car – no time for a shower, change of shirt or even shoes. It’s now 6:15 and I look at my phone to see 5 missed calls and 4 new text messages coming as early as 5:10 and evenly distributed through 6:10….You can guess who they were from….there was a gradual progression of tone: First, “Bri, maybe we should get started sooner”…then, a little later, “You already picked up the dishes and the tortillas right?”…and the 6:00 one: “You do know we are hosting 17 people at your house in an hour!”…OK, now I have a lot more work to do than I originally thought. There's a fairly long list of responsibilities when it comes to hosting dinner party and on top of it all I’ve now managed to find myself squarely in the dog house…Walking to the car, I call back: “I’m really sorry, I had no idea what time it was, I’m on my way to the food store and John’s (for the baking dish), I’ll be there in 10 minutes”…”Bri, I already went to Johns. He had no idea where you were. I’m sitting outside your house waiting for you. Do you have any idea how mad I am right now?”…Sensing this was not the time for sarcasm, I’m thinking solutions, “The spare key is -------. Let yourself in and I’ll be home in 5”…click…I’ve now just parked at the local grocery store and am running through the parking lot into the store wearing a completely drenched t-shirt, fully laced ankle braces and high tops…moving so quickly I don’t even notice the strange looks coming from fellow shoppers…I get the tortillas, run to the counter, check out and am back in the car in 2 minutes flat…hmmm, I wonder if there’s ever been a quicker trip to this grocery store ever…phone rings, “Bri. The key’s not there. Your roommate must have it. (Thinking to myself: Oh, yea…I told him to take it yesterday…whoops)” …click…Any many who’s been in a relationship lasting more than 6 months knows just how quickly emotions of the opposite sex can turn…I roll in front of the house at 6:40 and it’s abundantly clear that I’m dealing with undiluted and raw anger…”Em…”…”Don’t even try it”
She goes right to the kitchen to begin the prep work. I start straightening up the house. We planned for dinner to be served outside and to use the picnic table in the back as necessary seating…don’t exactly have the resources to host a 17 person formal dining experience…but the clouds are now threatening and only adding to the pain. As I start to move the two tables that we have out to the back deck, “What are you doing? We can’t eat outside. It’s hot and humid and it’s about to storm”…”But we really can’t fit everyone in…you’re right. My bad“ (A blatant lie. There is absolutely no way inside is going to work). I set up the tables inside and stand back to try and figure out #1) where we’re going to find another 5 chairs and #2) how the heck we’re to fit 17 of them around these awkwardly positioned tables…(still wearing the same wet outfit)…Emily continues to scramble preparing the food but looks up and finds me in problem solving mode (otherwise known as standing still doing nothing) … “What are you doing?”… “I’m trying to…”…”Just do something!”…OK, Fine. Time for an executive decision: the clouds will blow by. We’re eating outside. I move the tables outside, get the 3 chairs we have and set up the table cloths. Now, time to enter the Lion’s Den….I tread cautiously to the kitchen to take care of my culinary duties – the Enchiladas. Emily heads right for the bathroom to shower. I get done what I have to and at about 7:15 she emerges from the shower and asks, “Soooo when were you going to go to Greg’s to get the chairs and a pan for the rice that I need?”….Oh, right…On my way...
I grab the cell phone, “Greg, you still around? I have to come by to get the chairs…and do you have a pan for rice?”…”yea man, no problem. I’m on my way over in 5 minutes. I’ll just bring them with me.”….”Trust me dude, I don’t mind. See you in 2”. I hustle to get the chairs and am in the car turning the key when I realize that I forgot about the rice pan….pretty sure that would have been the straw that cut the camel’s balls off…I hustle back to get a pan and am again in the car headed home when I notice rain drops starting to hit the windshield...cursing and looking up to the sky (THINK: Henry Hill looking for helicopters in Goodfellas), I’m trying to evaluate how long it’s going to last…eh, doesn’t look bad, shouldn’t be too long…I get home to find a jeep parked outside and two guests inside…PHEW. A shield… the previously set tables are drenched but the rain seems to have stopped. We dry the tables and put the cooking into motion. It’s 7:35 and the rest of the party starts to show. After a dramatic 55 minutes, things seem to settle down and we look to have everything under control. The appetizers are served and receive many deserving compliments. The Enchiladas are in the oven and baking right on schedule. I finally have a chance to take a quick shower and by 7:50, I have a beer in hand and start to relax…man, that pull-up jumper felt damn good today…
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and after dinner, in true McEvily fashion, I forced all guests to play two rounds of knockout on our backyard basketball court…proudly sent them all home losers, I might add, as they wondered aloud what kind of person makes everyone play a game just so he can win… All in all, it turned out to be a fun evening and I could sense the tension easing with my ever-patient partner chef. When the last person left at around 11:30, the negotiation was quick and relatively painless. The act of contrition: a dinner at her favorite South Bend Italian restaurant, Papa Vinos. She really is the best….
“Bri, you ready to take back the wheel yet? There’s a rest stop coming up soon…Hey, what are you doing on that thing by the way?”…”Just typing up a blog post”…….”Let me guess, you’re going to make me relive it all again aren’t you?...I really should go find a new boyfriend!”
Sometimes, it’s hard to argue with her.
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