Like a lot of kids around the southeast, I grew up watching Dean Smith’s Tarheels play basketball. Phil Ford, Dennis Wuycik, Bobby Jones, these were the names we knew during our formative years. For us, the Tarheels represented the metaphor for how people should be. Team first, unselfish, play within the system, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts; all values that we knew would be important later in life. We knew how they playted the game: play defense, make the other team foul early so that UNC would get to the 1 and 1 first, always make a least two passes before looking for the shot. Taking charges was a higher art form, and the source of much cheering and team celebration.
At least that’s how I remember it.
Today’s New York Times has a long piece by Michael Lewis (available online and in print) on Shane Battier, a former Duke player whose name I had, frankly, parked in a forgotten corner of my memory. The piece enlightens, and honors the player that is the latest manifestation of those principles that we adored, and thought important, as 17 year-olds.
This sentence captures the essence of the man and the basketball player:
Here we have a basketball mystery: a player is widely regarded inside the N.B.A. as, at best, a replaceable cog in a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win.
Take 20 minutes and enjoy the story.
