This is my favorite time of year. The summer sun has wanted, Thanksgiving is on the horizon, and basketball season has begun.
It has been this way for over 41 years, ever since the Phoenix Suns’ first season. My family has had season tickets for the Suns since the very beginning, from the days in the old Veterans’ Memorial Coliseum when the coaching staff consisted of Johnny “Red” Kerr, one assistant coach and the twelfth player on the bench, Neil Johnson, a/k/a “The Clipboard kid” whose main job was to hold the coach’s clipboard so he could have it during the time outs.
Along the way, there have been many thrills and disappointments. The graceful swoop of Connie Hawkins who could cradle a ball in one hand as he dunked over Wilt Chamberlain. The sweet, graceful jump shot of Walter Davis on which Michael Jordan modeled his own beautiful jump. And who can forget Charles Barkley with one of the most expansive posteriors in the athletic world carving out space leaving nothing behind.
And twice in those 41 years we came very close, in 1976 when the Suns and the Boston Celtics played what is arguably the greatest game in the history of the National Basketball Association, the classic three over time thriller, and in 1993 when Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley battled.
Basketball can teach valuable lessons and I have seen many of them in those 41 years:
- A team needs a leader, but a good leader needs a good team;
- People from various nations, cultures and races can work together if they have a common goal and a shared system;
- There will always be blowouts where you will be on the opposite end of a laugh; how you react to them is what determines success. (Cotton Fitzsimmons, a former coach of the Suns) used to say after a bad game, “Let’s just flush that one down the toilet and go on to the next one.”)
- And I hope I don’t sound too much like a Cubs fan, but patience and hope are great allies.
If any of you have some more basketball memories to share, please give me a call. I would love to sit down for a cup of coffee with you to re-live them.
Have a great November and a Happy Thanksgiving. We have much to be thankful for.
Sincerely,