기회가있다 당신이 자신이 스포츠 일러스트 레이 티드에 나올 때 커버지만하더라도 아마 12 시간에서, 그 때 그에 대해 알게 아직도 기억하고있는 줄 몰랐. 이야기 there'sa 때 육상에 온다면 누가 어떻게 그것을 깰 수있게 말할 수있는 절대, 그는 그것이 될 거라고.
그는 르브론 르브론, 코비, 케빈 가넷도 전의 일이었다. 사람은 스포츠 일러스트 레이 티드의 표지에 착륙 들어오는 대학 신입생들. 1993하면 PC 또는 심지어 컴퓨터에 모뎀과 네트워크 액세스 권한을 갖고 비교적 부유한 중산층 상단되고, 윈도우 95 전의 일이었다. 그것은 시간이 아직도 사람들이 공공 장소에서 마이클 잭슨은 사랑을 말할 수 있었다.
만약 그가 5 년 후 태어난 거라면, 로페즈 상위 5 초안 고등학교를 골라야되었을 것이다. 대신, 그는 4 년 동안 학교에 남아 있던 그것에 대한 축하 늦은 첫 라운드에서 선택하는 과정에서 수백만 달러를 잃고있다. 그는 자신의 잠재력을 너무 일찍 끝나가는 마약을 완수 가진 적이 없어.
전설에 여기에 과거의 위대한 문서 - -있을 - - - 잘한 적이 :
문 쏘다
수잔 Orlean로
'뉴요커'
1993년 3월 22일
http://www.susanorlean.com/articles/shoot_the_moon.html
남성 정장에 흰색 펠리페 로페즈를 따라 사방에 온다. 사우스 브롱크스에서 모트 펠리페 헤븐에 살고있다. 그는 라이스 장관은 고등학교, 백스물네번째 스트리트의 코너와 Lenox 애비뉴에있다, 할렘에서 열린 주니어이며, 그는 학교 농구팀에 대한 경비 연극, 라이스의 해적. 백인 남성 유비 쿼터스있다. 그들은 거의 하나의 펠리페의 게임이나 대회가보고 싶어요. 그들이 연극의 가장 친한 분의 절대적인 리콜을 가지고있다. 그들은 당국이 자신의 신체 조건에있다. 그들은 큰 위치와 철주 - 모양, 그리고 남겨진, 부드러운 움직임이 그의 손목, 그의 발 감탄했다. 얼마 전 라이스 장관과 모든 성도 고등학교 간의 경기에서 백인 남자와 앉아 있었다. 나의 하프 타임 엔터테인먼트 사이에 두 사람의 토론을 듣고있었습니다 - 대학 스카우트와 하이 - 학교 농구 팬이있는 웨스트 체스터 계약자 -에 대한 여부를의 펠리페 크리스마스 휴식기 동안 30 인치 성장했다. "나,"스카우트 후반 시작으로이 아이가 알고있다. "30 인치 내가 그리워 할 것이라고 일이 아니다." 백인 남성 펠리페 우리 나라에서 가장 높은 - 학교 농구 선수이다. 그들은 종종 마이클 조던, 그리고 그를 비교 그는 뉴욕시에서 카림 압둘 자바 이후 등장할 - 최고의 농구 선수 중 하나가 될 도박있다. 이 추측들을 제공 중단, 짭짤한 흥분과 행복의 예지. 펠리페 그렇게 생각하는 사람과 주위를 어슬렁 거리는 다음과 같은 복권에 당첨되면 언젠가는 것입니다.
이 순간, 펠리페 5 6 피트이다. 그는 6 피트 7되고 싶습니다. 그의 신발 12 사이즈입니다. 큰 -와 - 키가 - 남성 매장에서 바지를 구입했다. 때문에 자신의 머리카락을 보관하는 작은되고 있으며 높은 그의 귀를 - 설정, 과장 작고 가까이 보이는 그의 두개골에 면도있다. 그는 거무스름한 - 갈색 눈동자와 크고, 선명한 혀 - 난이 유일하기 때문에 혀를 쏙 때 가끔 그는 열심히 놀고있다시피, 그리고 매우 어두운 그의 피부, 반대, 핑크 페넌트 같다. 그의 목소리는 슬러리이며 그의 모든 단어 둥글고. 그는 깡마른 콩으로 만든 극으로, 그리고 긴 정강이와 가느다란 팔뚝과 날카로운, 끌로 무릎있다. 그의 손을 거대한있다. 길을 걷고, 그는 고도의 모습을 많이 받고 있기 때문에,하지만 그는 분명 아이의 말과 아니 - 그 남자의 5 학년과 fleshed - 누가 누구의 성인 형태로하는 장소에 크기는 소년이다 그들은 13 시간. 그는 모든 개요입니다 : 그는 뻗어 - 중에 평균 - 크기가 사람처럼 보이지 않는다 - 그는 아직 응답하지 않은 어떤 색의 큰 사람의 스케치처럼 보이는
법원에서 펠리페의 시체가 유난히 잘 조직된 것으로 보인다. 그의 움직임을 신속하고 액체. 내가 그를 가로로 허공을 항해를 통해 보아왔다. 높은 - 학교 선수들은 힘든 상황과 벌목, 그리고 그들 대부분은 평평한 쏘지 - 발,하지만 펠리페 우아한, 부력이 게임을하고있다. 그는 법원의 가장자리 주위 그리고 수레가 공을 멀리 sprints에 온천이있다. 그가 언제 바구니를 향해 이동, 스피드 마치 - 스케이팅, 그리고 갑자기했다 보이는데, 그는 공중에,, 사라지지과 쏘는 떠오 릅니다. 그의 총격을 원활하게하고 사랑스러운, 테가 아크. 현재, 20 - 6 점, 9 리바운드, 경기 당 평균, 그는 모든 - 높은 -의 파업 시간 거리 내에있는 뉴욕 주립 학교에 대한 기록은 득점이다. 그는 법정 위대한 비전, 부드러운 손, 활발한 3 - 포인트 샷과 속도를 안쪽과 낮은 공을 받아하고있다. 그는 대개 패스트 브레이크에서 가장 빠른 사람이다. 그는 포인트 가드처럼 볼을 처리할 수있는, 그리고 그가 방어, 그의 신속하고 그의 시체를 제어하기 때문에 큰 선수를 이기죠. 그는 법정에서, 비록 아니지만, 그가 걷는 방법이 복잡하고 조잡. 그가 고의로 자신 크기의 등불과 그의 은혜로 변장하게이 방법을 걸을 것으로 보인다.
전에 펠리페 만났을 때, 사람들은 내가 물에도 그를 찾을 거라고 말해 줬어. 다 그 사람에 대해 알고 - 그 소년, 그것은 그가 10 대 소년, 그것은 그가 6 - 발을 - 5 대 - 소년 운동입니다 -이 꽤 믿기 어렵다 만들어이지만, 사실이 밝혀졌습니다. 그는 실제로는 내가 아는 가장 사랑스런 사람이다. 그는 순진하고 열망 때문에 우리의 함께했던 시간 동안 어느 시점이되면, 그것을 나에게 그런 그가 멋진 농구를 속인다 수 발생 - 이상적인 성격이 농구 코트에 경쟁력있는 거물을 유치했다. 그것은 그가 속인다 이상의 비트가 없을 때 발생합니다. 그러나 그는 또한 거의 없다 순진과 열망으로 그가 나타납니다. 그는 한때 속물되고 있기 때문에 그들은 그를 비난하지 않습니다 그 사람이 그를 광대로 생각하게하는, 좋아하신 대요. 그는 또 모든 사람에게 친절하게, 그래서 아무도 그가 누구를 믿을 수 없다 는걸 깨닫게된다 좋아하는 연구만했다.
펠리페 전혀 영어를 모두 그가 뉴욕으로 도미니카 공화국, 4 년전부터 이사 얘기지만, 빨리 자기 도청 밖의 "충돌 보드", "특정 문구를 포함하여, 선택", "의 빠져나가 페인트, "과"오, 세상에. " 지금은 편안하게 영어, 억양으로 말하는 부자 도미니카 - 단어를 클릭 공중제비 함께, 돌과 같은 연마기에 던져줘. "오, 세상에"자신이 좋아하는 문구가 남아있습니다. 그것은 그의 겸손, 그의 매너, 그의 ingenuousness을 보여주는 유틸리티를 표현이고, 자신의 평소 마음의 상태를 어느 쾌적하고 간계가 자신의 삶의 본질에 깜짝 놀랄입니다. 나는 그에게 기대 그가 언젠가는 NBA에서 풍부하고 세계적으로 유명한 축구 선수가 될 것이다, 그리고 그것을 사용하는 언급을 들었 숙제를 접어 두는 플레이 온 사실이 최근 스페인에서 50 만 달러를 제공하는 사람에 의해 만들어진 그들의 리그, 그리고 사실은 그가 이미 도미니카 공화국, 도미니카 사람에게 처음으로 NBA에서있을 거라고 믿고있습니다의 시민이 있게한 국가로 수출하는 방안도 검토하고있다는 사실에 너무 빠르게 성장하고 그 한때 자신의 바지를 인식하지 못했습니다. 가끔은 그 상황에서 자신의 동료와 친구라는 문구가 사용된다 어디 좀 더 역동적인 말씀을 받을수있을 수도있습니다. 이번 겨울 어느날 밤, 난 펠리페와 그의 동료, 옛 황제 '마이클 조던의 비디오 시청과 학교 주변에 앉아 있던 하이라이트. 최대 흥분을 편집한이 테이프왔다, 그리고 팀에있는 애들 대부분의 파울 언어의 건설과 함께 더 많은 바로크 응답했다. 한 시점에서, 요르단 셀틱스 센터 로버트 패리쉬 표시 과거에 담았었고, 누군가가, "야, 기능, 형! 그는 상사의 얼굴을 망칠 것"이라고 말했다.
"길들여 그 망할 놈의 얼굴,"또 하나있다.
"이놈의 큰 - 엉덩이가 파열 그의 얼굴."
"그는 그것을 잡은 것. 지금은 요르단의 흉상을 자신의 파울 - 사랑 큰 - 엉덩이 mama's - 소년은 마약의 검은 엉덩이를 가고있다."
테이프에서 요르단을 통해 농구대에서 공을 바닥에 구겨진 교구 맞자. 또 다른 아이들이 박수와 맹세, 펠리페 가까이 텔레비전 그리고 이사, admiringly, "오, 세상에"고 말했다.
펠리페의 생명을 유난히 잘 채워집니다. 그는 그의 가족에게 매우 가까운 거리에있습니다. 그는 루이스 펠리페, 그의 아버지의 이름입니다. 그의 형인 앤소니 라이스 한 고등학교 팀의 관리자 중 하나입니다. 안토니 20의 도미니카 공화국에서와 뉴욕에까지 그의 발목을 심하게 교통사 고로 다친 아마추어 농구 광장 - 어깨, 열렬한 사람 - 5이다. 지난달까지, 언제 그가 맨해튼 printshop에서 근무하며 누가 농구를 극명하게 해고와 안토니 팀과 함께 보낸 시간을 용납 보스했다. 안토니가 거의 떨어져 펠리페의 측면에서, 그리고 그가 도착했을 때 그는 일반적으로 방향과 논평을 스페인어와 영어의 하이브리드에 그와 peppering입니다 : "펠리페, 말, 루이 말 그렇게 잠자리에 공격적으로 가자! 코모 팔 - 최대? " 한 두어 번 정도 한 달, 안토니 평균 경우 B 조 견디고 있는지에 펠리페의 교사의 순찰을 도는데. "만약 그렇다면, 저는 돌아가서 내 백성을 알려하는 것은 아니다"안토니있다. "이건 슈퍼스타가 될 아름답지만, 그가 좋은 작동하지 않는 경우 재생되지 않습니다 힘들다." 때문에 설거지를 소홀히했다되면, 펠리페의 아버지는 그를 대회 여행, 금했다. 이걸 만든 펠리페 울고,하지만 지나고 그는 그것에 대해 철학적이다. "그가 옳았어"라고 말합니다. "내 요리하지 않았어." 펠리페도 루 DeMello, 라이스 장관은 자신의 감독, 데이브 존스, Gauchos, 브롱스 그는 여름 동안 연극에 농구 조직, 그리고 루이 디부 알메이다, Gauchos의 설립자와 그의 코치에 가까운 있다. 펠리페 그는 가끔 그의 어머니, 카르멘, 마우라 비티, 라이스에서 영어 과외 교사로부터 농구 그에게 조언을 얻습니다. 나도 그들의 활약. "그래고 그거 알어?" 펠리페있다. "그들은 뭔가를 알고있다." 그의 기본 취미지만, 그의 다른 취미가 자고 누가 미국, 브룩클린의 주민, 그리고 농구 팬이 자신의 여자 친구를 몇 시간 동안 전화 통화입니다.
가끔은 그의 인생 overpopulated 보인다. 그는 지금까지 대학 감독과 구인 피칭에서 그에게 구애의 편지를 4 개의 상자를 받았다. 일부는 경기장의 대형 좌석 용량의 매혹적인 언급을했다. 농구 - 캠프 감독이 전화를 정기적으로, 그들이 출석에있을 것이라고 펠리페 로페즈처럼. 푸에르 토리코의 농구 여름 리그의 관계자는 이번 여름에 그의 존재의 명예를 요청했습니다. 거기 누구 대단히 그의 친구가되고 싶습니다 기업 마케팅 간부이다. 모두가 그의 인생에 무리가 그를 잘 소원. 이미 누가 고의로 또는 무의식적으로 그를 오해의 소지는있을 사람들이다. 정말 수익성이 친자 확인 소송으로 그를 평가 것 때문에 그를 좋아하는 척 펠리페 예를 들면 어떤 여자들은 자신의 아버지에 의해 경고해온 콘돔없이 섹스를하지. 때문에 아무도 그 돈을 받아 상용 농구 규칙에 어긋난다고 경고했다 지난해 펠리페와 다른 선수 닌텐도 텔레비전 광고에 표시하도록, 그리고 그들이 비용이 거의들의 대학 체육 자격 상업, 초청됐다. 거기 누구 펠리페의 질투하는 사람들이있다. 거기서 그는 깨진 코치가 누구의 마음을, 왜냐하면 그들은 하나의 펠리페에 관심이있는 대학 - 플로리다 주립, 시라큐스, 아니에요 성 요한의, Seton 홀, 노스 캐롤라이나, 조지아 공대, UCLA는, 인디애나 주, 애리조나, 오하이오 주립, 캔자스. 거기에 누가 공에서 몰아내 펠리페 로페즈를 제외한 다른 모든 전략은 접어 두는 게 감독이다. 어떤 상대를 자신의 방식의 하드 그에게 놀러 갈 것입니다. 거기에 대해 앙심을 품은 사람은 펠리페 순간 자신의 팀에 아이가없습니다. 그리고 거기에 누가 반발심에 더 빨리 도착하고 천리안과 과대 보이는 - 저항력, 전용 및 고등학교 3 학년에 불과, 이미 18에서 그를 과대 평가와 같은 것이라고 선언함으로써 contrarians있다. 그의 반응이 모든 사람들에게 친절하게됩니다. 내가 그를, 또는 화가도 초조하게,하지만 본 적이 없어 그가 몸 전체로 처질 때 장난 아니야 그는 완전히 적어 보인다. 어쨌든 밖으로 섬에 있기 때문에 그렇게 보이는 그것은 놀라운 광경이다.
"이 아이가 올때까지 기다려요 시체가 도달하면,"코치 DeMello 말을 좋아한다. 연습하는 동안 때로는 DeMello "펠리페 자신을 큰 만들 어라!를 위아래로 펠리페 앞에서 소리 지르지 도약한다!" 내가 들어본 최고의 모욕 DeMello 펠리페에서 연습 도중 한 오후 펠리페 lazily 때 놀고 있었는데 던지다. DeMello 법원에, 스트로 펠리페을 올려 보았습니다, 그리고 acidly, "당신은 6 - 5 살이지만, 당신은 마치 5 - 11에 빠뜨리고있어." 펠리페 로페즈가 거의 때까지 시체를 가져옵니다 안토니, 그래서 가끔은 가파른 계단에 1백55번째 스트리트 지하철역에서 그를 데려갈거야 오프 - 시즌 동안 브롱스에서, 기다릴 수와 그를 30 단계 내려 100을 실행하게 몇 번 따라 프로세스의 속도를 보여주려고했습니다. 비록 더 많은 장점을 음미 일괄주고있습니다 펠리페이 운동에 대해 미친보다 적습니다 : "내가 여기 처음 왔을 때, 내가 말할 수있는 사람들이 날 생각에, 누가이 마른 체형의 아이인가? 그렇다면 그들이 말을 찾고 있었다 , '야, 한번'- 내 언어 변명 - '흉상 그의 엉덩이. "
펠리페의 시체 작품은 미완성 작품이다. 그게 사람들을 생각해 볼 문제입니다. 톰 Konchalski, 농구 누가 동북에 따라 고교 정탐꾼, 최근 펠리페 원했던 경우는 그가 세계 - 클래스 육상 선수가 될 수있는 농구를 포기했다. 나에게 한 번이 DeMello 감독, 그가 그걸 인정하기 싫어 정도로, 그는 완벽한 투수의 시체 펠리페 생각했다. 펠리페의 어머니 펠리페 비록 지금은 빨리 - 휴식 전문가는, 그녀는 그가 풍차 슬램덩크라고 그의 능력 바구니를 관통하고 대단원의 가게 - 선명하게해야한다고 생각 말해 줬어. 한번은 그녀가 그녀의 스타일을 흉내낸 펠리페 싶었던 연극의 요구, 그리고 그녀는 마이클 조던의 사진을 지적하고, 스페인어에서, "만약 더 먹을 것이라고 그는 뛰어든 사람처럼 될 수 있어요."
사람은 도미니카 공화국에서 아마추어 야구 펠리페의 아버지, 그는 1 루수의 그의 아들에 대해 간략하게보고, 생각하고 야구에 대한 어릴 때 펠리페 이끌었다. 하지만 펠리페 코에 던져 야생 치여서하고, 도미니카 공화국에서 자사의 인기와 성공에도 불구하고 미국에 있었 도미니카 ballplayers, 야구 경기가 아니라 자신의 결정을하게되었다. 마우라 비티, 녀석은 영어 가정 교사, 훌륭한 테니스 선수, 그리고 어느날, 그냥 재미를 위해, 그녀는 그녀와 함께 법원에 펠리페했다. 그녀가보고 궁금해서 펠리페의 경우 건설과 능력을 가진 사람 라켓 스포츠를 마스터 수있다. 그는 그녀를 꺾었다. 그가 그의 인생에서 열린 테니스 라켓 줄이 처음이다. 다른 시간, 두 사람의 로커 웨이에, 미니어처 골프와 펠리페, 누가 먼저 하나에 구멍을 만든 적이 퍼터를 개최했다. 몇 가지 조정이 뛰어나다고 하던데 엄청난 신체적 장점을 biomechanical의 탓일 수있다 키가되고 얇고 유연. 펠리페 로페즈는 확실히 타고난 선수입니다. 그러나 그는 또한 그 희귀 사례 중 하나 - 그냥, 누구의 인생의 꿈의 간편한 양도, 그리고 운이 좋은 것 같다 태어난 사람이있을 수있습니다 누구 다른 사람의 꿈을 준수합니다. 행운의 기운이 너무 그 시간이되고, 오래 동안, 펠리페 로페즈는 여전히 사우스 브롱크스에서 무서운 동네에 살고 있고 할렘에서 고등학교를가는 그저 쉽게 잊지 강력한 이민 10 대 어디에 나쁜 일들이 매일 일어나고있다.
현재, 거기에 미국에서 높은 - 18000 남성 학교 농구 선수 5백아르. 이 중 19,000 유일한 대학 팀들에 끝날 겁니다 -조차 4 %. 1 % 미만의 선수 부문에 대한 한 대학 - 가장 경쟁력이있다. 현재 NBA 드래프트가없습니다 명단, 각 40 또는 50 년 새 3 일 및 60 - 100을 기록한 선수이다. 이 숫자 전조가 많은 높은 - 학교 농구 선수에 대한 실망감을 무엇입니까. 그 실망 흑인 청소년들 사이 불균형이다. 동북 대학의 학회에서 스포츠 센터의 연구에 대한 높은 - 학교 학생 중 최근 실시한 여론 조사에 50 - 9 %가 흑인 십대 선수들은 팀 플레이를 계속 대학, 30와 비교 - 9 % 줄 것으로 십대 백인 - 대를. 유일한 백인 선수들이 프로 선수; 40 - 3 %, 흑인들은 예상하고 모든 아이들이 그것에 대한 흑인 남성의 거의 절반 전문가가되기 쉬울 거라고 생각했다 예상의 16 % 변호사 또는 의사가되기보다 농구 선수. 팀 라이스의 모든 정찰병 그 아마 농구에 의해 무료로 대학 교육을받을 수있을 것이며, 나한테 말했어야 지금까지 모든 선수가 여러 학교에서받은 편지를 모집하고있다. 또한보다 펠리페 NBA에 승천하는 그 어떤 팀을 위해 다른 남자의 노력이 필요했다 괭장히 정찰대가
모든 너무 자주, 대원 '예측 잘못입니다. 경이로운 일부 선수들이 부상을 고등 - 학교에 걸리거나 또는 약물 게을러 또는 FAT - 썩은하거나, 지루하거나 단순히 레벨에서 다음 스포츠에서, 그리고 사라지다, 동일한 토큰, 아니 특정 명성의 선수가 한번에 등장하면서부터한다 밑도끝도없이 성공했다. 그 연속 NBA - 사건이었다 칼 말론과 찰스 바클리, 모두 고등학교를 통해 무명에서 스타 선수;하지만 대부분의 다른 NBA 선수들의 standouts 십대 초반에서 시작했다. Most people who follow high-school basketball teams that are filled with kids from poor families and rough neighborhoods encourage the kids to put basketball in perspective, to view it not as a catapult into some fabulous, famous life but as something practical — a way to get out, to get an education, to learn the way around a different, better world. The simple fact that only one in a million people in this country will ever play for the NBA is often pointed out to the kids, but that still doesn’t seem to stop them from dreaming.
Being told that you might be that one person in a million would deform many people’s characters, but it has not made Felipe cynical or overly interested in himself. In fact, his blitheness can be almost unnerving. One evening when we were together, I watched him walk past a drug deal on 125th Street and step off the curb into traffic, and then he whiled away an hour in a fast-food restaurant where several ragged, hostile people repeatedly pestered him for change 있다. He hates getting hurt on the court, but out in the world he is not very careful with himself. When you are around him, you can’t help feeling that he is a boy whose body is a savings account, and it is one that is uninsured. But being around him is also to be transported by his nonchalant confidence about luck — namely, that it happens because it happens, and that it will happen for Felipe, because things are meant to go his way. This winter, he and the Rice Raiders were in Las Vegas playing in a tournament. One evening, a few of them went into a casino and attached themselves to the slot machines. Felipe’s first quarter won him a hundred quarters. Everyone told him to stop while he was ahead, but he continued. "I wanted to play," he says. "I thought, I had nothing before I started, now I have something, so I might as well play. So I put some more quarters in, and — oh, my goodness! — I won twelve hundred more quarters. What can I say?"
At three o’clock one afternoon this winter, I went over to the high school to watch Felipe and the Rice team practice. I hadn’t met Felipe before that afternoon, but I had heard a lot about him from friends who follow high-school basketball. As it happens, Felipe’s reputation often precedes him. Before he moved to this country, he was living in Santiago, in the Dominican Republic. The Lopez family had been leaving the Dominican Republic in installments for thirty years. A grandmother had moved to New York in the sixties, followed by Felipe’s father in 1982, and then, in 1986, by his mother and Anthony. For three years, Felipe stayed in the Dominican Republic with another older brother, Anderson, and his sister, Sayonara. At age eight, he started playing basketball in provincial leagues, sometimes being bumped up to older age groups because he was so good. He already had a following. "I would hear from a lot of Dominicans about how good he was getting," Anthony says now. "It made me curious. When I left him in the Dominican Republic, he was just a little kid who I would boss around. He was my — you know, my delivery guy." When more visas were obtained, in 1989, Felipe and Sayonara moved to New York. Anthony took Felipe to a playground near the family’s apartment and challenged him one-on-one, decided that the rumors were true, and then took him to try out for the Gauchos. Lou d’Almeida says that people were already talking about Felipe by then. Many high-school coaches had intelligence on Felipe by the time he started school. Lou DeMello first saw him in a citywide tournament for junior-high players. Felipe was in the Midget Division. "He looked like a man among boys," DeMello says now. "If I could have, I would have taken him then and started him then on the Rice varsity. I swear to God. At the time, he was in eighth grade."
Rice High School is a small all-boys Catholic school, which was founded in 1938 and is run by the Congregation of Christian Brothers. It is the only Catholic high school still open in Harlem. Currently, it has about four hundred students. Tuition is two thousand dollars a year, which many of the students can afford only with the help of scholarship money from private sponsors, including some basketball fans. At school, students have to wear a tie, real trousers, and real shoes, not sneakers. There is also a prohibition against beepers. The school is in a chunky brick building with a tiny, blind entrance on 124th Street, close to some Chinese luncheonettes, some crack dealers, and some windswept vacant tenements. A lot of unregulated commerce is conducted on the sidewalks nearby, and last year a business dispute in an alley across from the school was resolved with semi-automatic weapons, but the building itself emanates gravity and calm. Inside, it is frayed but sturdy and pleasant. There is an elevator, but it often isn’t working; the gym, which occupies most of the top two floors of the school, is essentially a sixth-floor walkup. The basketball court is only fifty-five feet long instead of the usual ninety-four, and the walls are less than a foot away from the sidelines. It would qualify as regulation-size in Lilliput. Rice has to play its games in a borrowed gym — usually the Gauchos’ facility, in the Bronx.
At the time Coach DeMello first heard about Felipe Lopez, the Rice Raiders had a win-loss record of eight and thirteen, tattered ten-year-old uniforms, and an inferiority complex. Catholic League basketball in New York City is a particularly bad place for any of these. Since the early eighties, the Catholic schools in New York have had ferocious rivalries, fancy shoes and uniforms from friendly sporting-goods companies, and most of the best players in the city. College teams and the NBA are loaded with New York City Catholic League alumni: Jamal Mashburn, now at Kentucky, attended Cardinal Hayes; the Nets’ Kenny Anderson and the Houston Rockets’ Kenny Smith went to Archbishop Molloy; the Pacers’ Malik Sealy, Syracuse’s Adrian Autry, and North Carolina’s Brian Reese all went to St. Nicholas of Tolentine; the Pistons’ Olden Polynice attended All Hallows; Chris Mullin, of Golden State, went to Xaverian; Mark Jackson, now of the Clippers, went to Bishop Loughlin. Rice had won the city Catholic-school championship in 1966 and proceeded to become steadily undistinguished over the next few decades. Four years ago, Lou DeMello took over as head coach. First, he persuaded Nike — and later Reebok and Converse — to donate shoes and uniforms to the team. Then he started scouting Midget Division players who might have a future at Rice. The Gaucho coaches have a cordial relationship with DeMello and began pointing players like Felipe his way. Last year, the Rice Raiders reached the finals of the city championship. This year, they are ranked in the top twenty high schools nationally — the first time they have been ranked there for twenty-seven years.
Coach DeMello is short and trim, and has bright eyes and a big mustache and an air of uncommon intensity, like someone who is just about to sneeze. His usual attire consists of nylon warmup suits that are very generously sized. The first time I saw him in street clothes, he looked as if someone had let his air out. He speaks with a New York accent, but in fact he was born in Brazil, and played soccer there. His motivational specialty is the crisp reprobation wrapped around a sweet hint of redemptive possibility — stick before carrot. When addressing the team, he is prone to mantra-like repetitions of his maxims, as in "Listen up. Listen up. I want you to go with your body. Go with your body. Go with your body. I want you to keep your foot in the paint. Your foot in the paint. Your foot in the paint. In the paint. And put the ball on the floor. The ball on the floor. On the floor."
This particular afternoon, Coach DeMello was especially hypnotic. The team was getting ready for its first out-of-town tournament of the year, the Charm City/Big Apple Challenge, in Baltimore, which would be played in the Baltimore Arena and televised on a cable channel. The Raiders would be facing Baltimore Southern High School, one of the best teams in the area. When I arrived at the Rice gym, the Raiders had been scrimmaging for an hour. Now, during a break, Coach DeMello was chanting strategy. "You guys are ina funk," he said. Someone dropped the ball, and it made an elastic poing! sound and rolled to the wall. "Gerald, hold the ball," DeMello went on. He clasped his hands behind his back. "Hold the ball. OK You guys are in a funk. You got to get your head in the game. Your head in the game. We’re going up against a serious team in Baltimore. They do a hell of a job on help. A hell of a job. A. Hell. Of. A. Job. We need leaders on the floor. Leaders on the floor. All we want to do is contain. Contain. Contain. So you better hit the boards. Hit the boards. The boards."
Everyone nodded. The Rice Raiders are Felipe, Reggie Freeman, Yves Jean, Gerald Cox, Melvin McKey, Scientific Mapp, Gary Saunders, Gil Eagan, Kojo Lockhart, Rodney Jones, Robert Johnson, and Jamal Livingston. Melvin, the point guard, is usually called Ziggy. Jamal, the center, is known as Stretch. Gerald, who also plays center, is known as G-Money. Scientific, the reserve point guard, is known as Science. All of them are known, familiarly, as B, which is short for "bro," which is short for "brother." During practice, they are solemn and focussed. During a game, they are ardent and intense, as if their lives depended on it. Before and after each game, they stand in a circle, make a stack of their right hands, and shout, "One, two, three, Rice! Four, five, six, family!"
Most of the Raiders live in the Bronx or upper Manhattan. Once, after a game, I rode in the van with an assistant coach as he dropped the team members off at their homes. A few of them lived in plain, solid-looking housing projects and some in walkups that, at least from the outside, looked bleak. No one lived in a very nice building. Some of the kids have families that come to all their games and monitor their schoolwork; some have families that have fallen apart. Six of the twelve live with only their mothers. Ziggy lives with his uncle, and the five others have a mother and a father at home. Each of them has at least one person somewhere in his life who arranges to send him to attend a disciplined and serious-minded parochial school. Sometimes it’s not a parent; the Gauchos, for instance, send a number of basketball players to school. The coaches and teachers I met at Rice are white. Most of the teachers are Catholic brothers. The basketball team is all black, and none of its members are Catholic, although Gary told me once that he was thinking of converting, because "being Catholic seems like a pretty cool thing." There is currently a debate in the Catholic Church about financing schools that used to have Catholic students from the surrounding parish but are now largely black and non-Catholic, their purpose having shifted, along with neighborhood demographics, from one of service to the Church to one of contribution to the inner city. The debate may also have a flip side. I had heard that for a time one player’s father, a devout Muslim, was unhappy that his son was being coached by a white man. But Coach DeMello resisted being drawn into an argument about something no one on the team ever paid attention to, and the crisis eventually passed. I didn’t think of race very often while I spent time with the team. I thought more about winning and losing, and about how your life could be transformed from one to the other if you happened to be good at a game.
The seniors on the team are Yves Jean, Gerald Cox, and Reggie Freeman. Yves has signed a letter of intent to go to Pitt-Johnstown, which is a Division Two school; Gerald and Reggie are going to the University of South Carolina and the University of Texas, respectively, which are both in Division One. Yves grew up in Lake Placid. He was more fluent in ice fishing than in basketball when he moved to New York, but he is big and strong and has learned the game well enough, even as a second language. Usually, he looks pleasantly amazed when he makes a successful play. Gerald and Reggie are handsome, graceful players who would have been bigger stars this year if it weren’t for Felipe. Gerald is dimpled and droll and flirtatious. Reggie has a long, smooth poker face and consummate cool. At times, he looks rigid with submerged disappointment. I remember Coach DeMello’s telling me that when Reggie was a sophomore he was waiting patiently for Jerry McCullough, then the senior star, to leave for college, so that at last he would be the team’s main man. Then Felipe came. Reggie and Felipe now have a polite rapport that fits together like latticework over their rivalry.
The team is a changeable entity. Some of the kids have bounced on and off the squad because of their grades. One of the players has had recurring legal problems. The girlfriend of another one had a baby last year, and because of that he missed so much school that for some time he wasn’t allowed to play on the team. When I first started hanging around with the Raiders, Rodney Jones wasn’t on the roster, having had discipline problems and some academic troubles. Sometimes the boys get sick of each other. They practice together almost every day for several hours; they travel together to games and tournaments, which can sometimes last as long as two weeks; and they see each other all day in classrooms, at the Gaucho gym, and on the street. Usually, they have an easy camaraderie. During the other times, as soon as they are done with practice they quickly head their own ways.
"Are you guys listening to me? Are you listening?" DeMello was saying. He was now joined by Bobby Gonzalez, an assistant coach, who was nodding and murmuring "Uh-huh" after everything he said. Gonzalez handed DeMello a basketball. DeMello curled it to his left side, and then held his right hand up, one finger in the air, as if he were checking wind direction. "One more thing. One more thing. If there’s one player you guys want to be looking up to right now, I’ll tell you who it is."
"Uh-huh," Bobby Gonzalez said.
"That guy is Reggie Freeman. Reggie Freeman." No expression crossed Reggie’s face. Felipe, who was standing on the other side of the circle, flexed his neck, rotated his shoulders, and then stood still, a peaceful expression on his face. "Reggie is the most unselfish player here. He is the most unselfish. I want you to remember that. He’s grown a lot. That’s who you should be looking at. OK"
"Uh-huh."
DeMello bounced the ball hard, signalling the end of practice. The boys circled and counted: "One, two, three, Rice! Four, five, six, family!" They straggled out of the gym, talking in small groups.
"I never been to Baltimore."
"Let me ask you something. You think Larry Bird’sa millionaire?"
"Larry Bird? I don’t know. A millionaire. Magic’sa millionaire."
"Magic’sa millionaire, and he didn’t have fifty-nine cents to buy himself a little hat and now he’s going to die. The man’s stupid."
"I don’t know if Larry Bird’sa millionaire. I do know he’s never been to Harlem, and he’s never done the Electric Slide."
Felipe on his development as a player:
"Back in my country, I was just a little guy. I tried to dunk, but I couldn’t. I tried and I tried. Then, one day, I dunked. Oh, my goodness. Three months later, I was dunking everything, every way — with two hands, backwards, backwards with two hands. I can do a three-sixty dunk. It’s easy. You know, you jump up backwards with the ball and then spin around while you’re in the air — and pow! I’m working all the time on my game. If Coach DeMello says he wants me to work on my ball handling, then I just work at it, work at it, work at it, until it’s right. In basketball, you always are working, even on the things you already know.
"When I come to this country, I was real quiet, because I didn’t speak any English, so all I did was dunk. On the court, playing, I had to learn the words for the plays, but you don’t have to talk, so I was OK My coach used his hands to tell me what to do, and then I learned the English words for it. There aren’t too many Spanish kids at school. I know a lot of kids, though. I meet kids from all over the country at tournaments and at summer camps. If you do something good, then you start meeting people, even if you don’t want to. Sometimes it’s bouncing in my head that people are talking about me, saying good things, and that some people are talking about me and saying bad things, saying, like, ‘Oh, he thinks he’s all that,’ but that’s life. That’s life. I don’t like when it’s bouncing in my head, but I just do what I’m supposed to do. I’m quick. I broke the record for the fifty-yard dash when I was in junior high school — I did it in five point two seconds, when the record was five point five seconds. I also got the long-jump record. It feels natural when I do these things. In basketball, I like to handle the ball and make the decisions. I can play the big people, because of my quickness. But I got to concentrate or the ball will go away from me. At basketball camp, I’m always the craziest guy — people always are walking around saying, ‘Hey, who’s that Dominican clown?’ But on the court I don’t do any fooling around. I got to show what I got.
"In life, I don’t worry about myself. My brother will run defense for me. I got my family. Some kids here, I see them do drugs, messing around, wasting everything, and I see the druggies out on the street, and I just, I don’t know, I don’t understand it. That’s not for me. I got a close family, and I got to think about my family, and if I can do something that will be good for my whole family, then I got to do it. I think about my country a lot — I want to go there so bad. In Santiago, everyone knows about me and wants to see me play now. If I’m successful, the way everyone talks about that, I’d like a big house there in Santiago, where I could go for a month or two each year and just relax."
After practice, Felipe and I walked down 125th Street in a cold rain. First, he bought new headphones for his tape player from a Ghanaian street peddler, and then we stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken to eat a pre-dinner dinner before heading home. He was dressed in his school clothes — a multicolored striped shirt, a purple-and-blue flowered tie, and pleated, topstitched baggy black cotton pants — and had on a Negro League baseball cap, which he was wearing sideways and at a jaunty angle 있다. In his book bag were some new black Reebok pump basketball shoes; everyone on the team had been given a pair for the Baltimore tournament. Felipe was in a relaxed mood. He has travelled to and played in big tournaments so often that he now takes them in stride. He has become something of a tournament connoisseur. One of his favorite places in the world is southern France, where he played last spring with the Gauchos. He liked the weather and the countryside and the fact that by the end of the tour French villagers were crowding into the gyms and chanting his name. This particular evening, he was also feeling pleased that he had finished most of the homework he needed to do before leaving for Baltimore, which consisted of writing an essay for American history on Brown v. Board of Education and the Fifteenth Amendment, preparing an annotated periodic table of the elements, and writing two poems for his Spanish class.
One of his poems was called "Los Dientes de Mi Abuela," which translates as "The Teeth of My Grandmother." Sitting in Kentucky Fried Chicken, he read it to me: " ‘Conservando la naturaleza se ve en aquella mesa los dientes de mi abuela, que los tenia guardados para Navidad.’" He looked up from his notebook and gestured with a chicken wing. "This is about an old grandmother who is saving her special teeth for Christmas. In my country, it’s funny, old people will go around without their teeth. So in the poem the grandmother is saving the teeth for Christmas, when she’ll be eating a big dinner. The teeth are brilliant and shiny. Then she gets impatient and uses them to eat a turkey at Thanksgiving — ‘GRRRT . . . suena la mordida de la abuela al pavo.’ " The other poem Felipe had written was about a man about to enter prison or some other gloomy passage in his life. It is called "La Primera y ‘Ultima Vez . . ." As he began reading it, an argument broke out in front of the restaurant between a middle-aged woman in a cream-colored suit and two little boys who were there on their own. First, the boys were just sassy, and then they began yelling that the woman was a crack addict. She balled up a napkin and threw it at them, shouting, "Why don’t you respect your elders? What are you doing out at night all alone? Why don’t you get your asses home and watch television or read a fucking book?" Felipe kept reciting his poem, raising his voice over the commotion. When he finished, he said, "It’sa sadder poem than the one about the grandmother. I like writing poems. In school, I like to write if it’s in Spanish, and I like to draw, and I like math. I’m good at math. I like numbers. How do I write the poems? I don’t know how. They just come to me."
Done with dinner, we went back out onto 125th Street and caught a cab up to Felipe’s apartment. The apartment was in a brick walkup, on a block with half a playground, a bodega, some unclaimed auto parts, and the depopulated stillness of urban decay. Walking up the four flights to the apartment, we passed an unchaperoned German shepherd napping in the vestibule, a stack of discarded Chinese menus, and someone’s garbage, which had toppled over in a doorway. Felipe took the stairs three at a time. He used to dribble up and down the staircase until the neighbors complained that it was driving them crazy. For that reason and many others, the Lopezes were looking forward to moving as soon as they possibly could. Ironically, Felipe has been discouraged from playing in Puerto Rico this summer, on the ground that the basketball league there has a reputation for attracting prostitutes and drug use, when the fact is that spending the summer in Puerto Rico would help him get out of a neighborhood that attracts prostitutes and drug use.
One reason I decided to go home with Felipe was that I thought it might reveal something I hadn’t yet seen in him — impatience or embarrassment at living a very humble life when he has been assured that such a rich and celebrated one is virtually in his grasp. That turned out to be not at all the case. In fact, Felipe loves to have people come over to his apartment. That night, he had invited Coach DeMello and his tutor, Maura Beattie, to drop by. When we arrived, they were already there. So were Mrs. Lopez; Felipe’s brother Anderson, who moved to this country last year; Anderson’s girlfriend, Nancy; Anthony; and Felipe’s father. Felipe’s sister, Sayonara, was expected as soon as she was through with a meeting at church. The Lopezes are an exceptionally good-looking and unusually large-scale family. Felipe’s father, a construction laborer, is broad-chested, dignified, and well over six feet tall. His mother, Carmen, who works in the Garment District, is leggy and vigorous. She competed in track and volleyball as a girl in the Dominican Republic. That night, she was wearing a long flowered dress and black Reeboks. In the Dominican Republic, the Lopezes had a middle-class life. In this country, that life did not change so much as compress. All its hallmarks — Luis’s exacting discipline, Carmen’s piety, the children’s sense of honor and obligation — came over intact, and then intensified in contrast to the disorder of the neighborhood they found themselves in.
The Lopez apartment was a warren of tiny dark rooms. One wall in the living room was covered with plaques Felipe had won — among them the Parade All-American High School Boys Award, the Five-Star Basketball Camp Most Promising Player, and the Ben Wilson Memorial Award for Most Valuable Player at ABCD Basketball Camp — and one corner of the room was filled by an old broken television set with what looked like a hundred basketball trophies on top. There was also a new television set, a videocassette recorder, a shelving unit, a huge sofa, a huge easy chair, a huge coffee table, some pretty folk-craft decorations from the Dominican Republic, some occasional tables, big billowy curtains, several floor lamps, and a life-size freestanding cardboard cutout of Michael Jordan. It was an exuberant-looking place. It was also possibly the most crowded place I’d ever been in. The television was tuned to a Spanish soap opera when we walked in, and Maura Beattie and Coach DeMello, were sitting beside it, ignoring the show and eating pizza. The Michael Jordan cutout was propped up behind DeMello, blocking the back door. Anderson and Nancy were squeezed together on the couch, looking at one of Felipe’s scrapbooks, and Anthony was pacing around the room and talking to his father, who was reclined in the easy chair. Felipe said hello to his mother and they chatted for a minute in Spanish, and then she led him to a seat at the kitchen table and set a stockpot in front of him that was filled with chicken stew. There seemed to be a lot of people coming and going, and the conversation perked along:
DeMello: "I’ll never forget when Anthony brought Felipe to Rice. He couldn’t speak a word of English. I thought, How on earth is this kid going to take the entrance exams? Maura, do you remember that?"
Ms. Beattie: "I’ma math teacher. I’m not an English tutor. But I figured this would be something interesting to do. I didn’t want the Lopezes to realize I wasn’t really a tutor."
Anthony, walking through the kitchen: "Felipe, are you ready for tomorrow? You got your books with you? You planning to play?"
Nancy, translating for Carmen Lopez: "She says Felipe would rather play than eat. Otherwise, he don’t give her no torment."
DeMello: "You should see the tape of the commercial Felipe and Robert Johnson did for Nintendo. They had a lot of fun, a lot of fun. Someone gave them bad advice, though, and it almost cost Felipe his eligibility. He turned down the money, and the commercial has to stop playing when he gets into college."
Ms. Beattie: "You want more pizza? Should we get more pizza? Felipe, would you eat more? He doesn’t eat. I don’t think he eats."
Nancy: "Would you look at this, all these trophies! Felipe, you got all these trophies?"
Anderson, to Nancy: "One of those is mine. Yeah, really. Nancy, look in the middle of the table and you’ll find mine."
Anthony: "Everything everybody tells you is so beautiful — you know, be on TV, score thirty points, be the MVP, have the fame, all right — but you got to pay attention. There are a lot of rules. The NCAA rule is that no coaches can talk to him while he’sa junior. They’re willing, they’re dying to talk to him, but that’s not going to happen. When he’s ready, we’ll meet and talk and see. I had these dreams to be a great player, and I had my ankle broken, so it was all over for me. Felipe is my chance to see it happen for someone in my family, but it’s going to happen the right way."
Felipe, coming in from the kitchen with Sayonara, just back from church: "Mommy, hey, Mommy, didn’t I grow all these inches over here? One day, remember, I went to my closet and found these little pants and I said, ‘Mommy, whose pants are these?’ They were only this big — just little short pants — and she said, ‘Felipe, those are your pants!’ I couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t believe I ever wore those pants! I just looked at them and thought, Oh, my goodness."
DeMello: "Hey, Felipe, are you ready for tomorrow? Because anyone who isn’t ready with their homework done, Brother is going to hear about it, and we’re not going to be going to any other tournaments. Are you ready?"
Felipe: "DeMello, I got one thing I got to do tomorrow. I got to type my essay."
Sayonara: "Felipe, I think you’re better at basketball than at typing."
Nancy, translating for Carmen Lopez: "She says he has to do the essay. She says they’re so proud of him, and with the help of God he’ll go to the top, he’ll be a great dunker. That’s what she imagines for him in five years. For now, though, they don’t soup him up. He has to do right. They still walk to Felipe — they’re not running."
We drove to Baltimore the next night in a car rented by the tournament sponsors and a beat-up van used by the school. The tournament sponsors were also providing rooms for the whole team in a posh hotel downtown. The following day, after breakfast, the Raiders went for a pregame practice. The Baltimore Arena is big and windy, and it had a depressing effect on the team. They ran some bumbling fast-break drills and then had shooting practice for forty-five minutes, banging the balls against the rim. The clanking sound floated up and away into the empty stands. Coach DeMello called them together toward the end of practice. "I don’t know where you guys are," he said. "I don’t know where you are. You got to get your heads here by tonight. By. Tonight. This team, this team is going to give us something. They’ve got No. 53, he’sa beef, he’s six-five. Six. Five. And there’sa fast point guard. He looks really young, he’s probably a sophomore, but he does a hell of a job on help. They don’t gamble. They get a lot of shots off. They help and recover." Pause. "Help and recover. Help and recover. And, Felipe, I saw you start to drop your head because you missed some shots. I don’t want to see that. I want to see you lift your head and go on. All right, let’s head out. I want everybody to relax and be dressed and in my room at 6 pm, understand? Understand? OKOK"
The arena is near Inner Harbor, a fancy shopping development in downtown Baltimore, so everybody walked over there to get some pizza and kill time. Twelve tall black boys, wearing bright yellow-and-green warmups, the pants hanging low and almost sliding off their hips, made for a sight that was probably not usual at Inner Harbor. Shoppers were executing pick-and-rolls to avoid them. In the mall, there were dozens of nice stores open, but the boys seemed reluctant to go into them. We ended up in a sporting-goods shop that specialized in clothes and accessories with college- and professional-team logos. Felipe disappeared down one of the rows. Kojo posted up in front of a rack of jackets, took two down, looked at the price tags, and then put them back. Reggie and Gerald found hats featuring their future colleges. "Yo, I like this one," Gerald said. "It’s fly, but what I really want is a fitted Carolina hat. They only have the unfitted kind."
Reggie glanced at him and then said, "Why don’t you wait till you get to Carolina, man? They going to have everything you want, man, just wait."
"I don’t want to wait." Gerald put on an unfitted hat — the kind with an adjustable strap across the back — and flipped the brim back. Gary Saunders came over and looked at him. Gary is a sophomore. An air of peace or woe seems to form a bumper around him. Some people think he will eventually be as good as Felipe, or even better. He pulled Gerald’s brim and then rocked back on his heels and said, sadly, "I wish I had a hat head. I can’t wear a hat. I look dumb in a hat." Felipe walked by, wearing three hats, with each brim pointing in a different direction. He was smiling like a madman. He admired himself in the mirror and then took the hats off. "I’ve had enough," he said to no one in particular. "Now I’m going to my room."
Some things at the tournament did not bode well. For instance, the program listed the team as "Rice, Bronx, NY" instead of placing the school in Manhattan. Also, Jamal Livingston had decided to shave his head during the afternoon, and the razor broke after he had finished only one hemisphere. The resulting raggedy hairdo made him look like a crazy person. He was so unhappy about it that he told Coach DeMello he wouldn’t play, but Science finally persuaded him, saying, "Stretch, you look cool, man. You’re down with the heavy-metal crowd now." The Raiders got their first look at the Southern players as they warmed up. They were big kids, and they looked meaty, heavy-footed, and mean. Damon Cason, the point guard DeMello had warned the Raiders about, had powerful shoulders and a taut body and a merciless look on his face. Beside him, Felipe looked wispy and hipless. Warming up, he was silent and unsmiling. The fans were loud and found much to amuse them. When Jamal stepped onto the court, they began chanting "Haircut! Haircut! Haircut!" and then switched to a chant of "Rice-A-Roni!" and then back to "Haircut!" every time Jamal took a shot.
The game begins, and in the opening moments I focus only on Felipe. Rice wins the tap, but Southern scores nine quick points and looks ready to score more. Three Southern players are guarding Felipe. They struggle after him on the fast breaks, but he slips by and, still skimming along, makes a driving lay-up from the right. Then a fast-break lay-up, off a snappy pass from Ziggy. Then, thirty-two seconds later, a driving lay-up from the left side. The guards are looking flustered and clumsy. Felipe gets a rebound, passes to Reggie, gets the ball back, and then suddenly he drifts upward, over the court, over the other boys, toward the basket, legs scissored, wrists cocked, head tilted, and in that instant he looks totally serene. Right before he dunks the ball, I have the sensation that the arena is silent, but, of course, it isn’t; it’s just that as soon as he slams the ball down there is a crack of applause and laughter, which makes the instant preceding it seem, by contrast, like a vacuum of sound, a little quiet hole in space.
The final score is Rice 64, Southern 42. Leaving the floor, Felipe is greeted by some of the white men, who have come down to Baltimore to watch his game. One of them comments on how well he played and wants to know what he did all afternoon to prepare. Felipe is mopping his face with a towel. He folds it up and then says, "Oh, my goodness, I didn’t do much of anything. I sat in my room and watched ‘Popeye’ on television and listened to merengue music. I just felt good today."
The last time I spent with the team was the night before they were to leave on a trip to two tournaments — the Iolani Classic, in Honolulu, and the Holiday Prep Classic, in Las Vegas. The flight to Hawaii was so early that Coach DeMello decided to have the boys sleep at the school. After practice, they spent a few hours doing homework and then ordered in pizzas. Reggie had brought a big radio from home and set it up under a crucifix on the second floor, tuned to a station playing corny soul ballads. Coach DeMello had set up a video player and lent the team his NBA-highlight tapes. "You guys going to keep it together up here?" he said. "Let’s keep it together up here."
One of them yelled out, "Hey, Coach, I got to ask you something. Are there any girls in Hawaii our age?"
Someone told Reggie to turn off the radio, because the music was awful.
Reggie said, "Bro, you bugging."
"It’s stupid, man. Find something better."
"Get your own radio, bro. Then you can be the dj"
"Reggie Freeman’s got a problem."
"Hey, Gary, where’d you get that shirt?"
"Macy’s."
"Macy’s! What, you rich or something?"
"Put on the tape. I want to see Bird and Magic play."
"Bird’sa white guy."
Gerald turned on the video player and put in the tape.
"Bird could be a purple guy, bro. He’s got a game."
"Here’s Magic. This is the gospel, B, so you better listen up."
They sat in rapt attention, replaying some of the better sections and reciting the play-by-play along with the announcer, Marv Albert. After a few minutes, I realized that Felipe wasn’t sitting with us, so I wandered down the hall, looking for him. Except for the vestibule where the boys were camping, the school was still and empty. I went upstairs to the gym. One window was broken, and a shaft of light from outside was shooting in. Someone’s jersey was looped over the back of a chair in the corner, and it flapped in the night breeze. I walked from one end of the court to the other. My footsteps sounded rubbery and loud on the hardwood. After a moment, I heard a grinding in the hallway, so I walked back across the court and out to the hall. The elevator door opened, and there was Felipe, his shirttail hanging down, his hat on backward, his hand on the controls.
"Were you looking for me?"
"I was."
"I don’t want to hang with the guys." He started to let the door slide shut, then pushed it open and leaned against it, grinning. "I just want to fool around. I don’t want anyone to find me. I know what I got to do when we get to Hawaii. I just want to go up and down tonight."
Early the next morning, they left for Hawaii. They had a luau for Christmas, won three out of four games, flew to Las Vegas, ate too much casino food, again won three out of four games, and won a lot of quarters in the slot machines. The blustery, bright day they got back to New York, they celebrated Felipe Lopez’s eighteenth birthday.
The rest of the season was a breeze until February, when Gil, Jamal, Kojo, and Rodney were taken off the team on account of bad grades. Still, going into the city Catholic-school championship, the Raiders had a record of nineteen and four. They then played St. Francis and won, 72-54, to get to the quarter-finals, and then beat Molloy, 46-36, to advance to the next round. On a cold night last week, they played Monsignor McClancy and lost in the last few minutes, 39-36, and so their season came to a close. The white men were following Felipe in every game. He had been playing so well and so steadily for the last few months that it now was as if some mystery had lifted off him and he was already inhabiting the next part of his life, in which he gets on with the business of making the most of his talent and polishing his game. In the meantime, the white men started taking note of a few young comers, like Gary Saunders, and also some skinny wisp of a kid at Alexander Burger Junior High. He’s only an eighth grader, but he already dunks. They think he’s worth watching. What they say is that he might be another Felipe someday.
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