Rhodes and Carson Part Un

January 10, 2006. Mesa Jr. vs. Rhodes.

This game was the first of 10 in our division or region or whatever. We found out quickly they are the best team in our division or region or whatever.

16-8 after one quarter. 31-14 at half. 50-35 after three. 69-46 final.

I got in to play in the fourth quarter. I remember I was fighting for a rebound and got pushed out of bounds with the ball. I heard the whistle and thought it was just an out of bounds call. Little did I know they were waiting for me to get to the free throw line. I was shocked. All the starters on the bench were yelling at me to make sure I didn't airball it and stuff. It was a one-and-one situation, so I had to make the first one to earn a second. I went through my dribbling and breathing routine that I had practiced all season. And I bounced it off the back of the rim. Still, I can say I only missed one free throw all season.

As we left Rhodes, we were a 1-9 team. However, we felt like we played well against them. Well enough to beat them next time. We were confident.

January 13, 2006. Mesa Jr. vs. Carson.

This is a game we should've absolutely won. It was tied at 9 after the first quarter. We were up 17-14 at half. McEvers seemed especially emotional during this game.

I got about 20 seconds of action during the third quarter because McEvers was so mad at one of the other guys. Then I took an ill-advised shot and found my chair still warm from when I had left it.

Tied at 25 after three, we lost 41-35. 6 for 23 on free throws. That's a solid 26%. That's what McEvers pointed to afterward. That and foul trouble. Two things our team wasn't able to solve all year.

Stapley and Mesquite

January 5, 2006. Mesa Jr. vs. Stapley.
Christmas break brought good practices. Only problem was four of our top five guys never showed up. McEvers told the bench guys we would get to start the game against Stapley for showing up. However, when we were in the Stapley gym with the game about to start, he pulled us aside and said, "I wanna start my regular guys. I think it gives us the best chance to win. That ok with you guys?" The other four said yeah. I said screw that.

So, I started this game. After my guy scored two quick layups, I was on the bench until the fourth quarter. We were down 11-7 after one. 24-13 at half.46-21 after three.

Somewhere along the line I leaned over to assistant coach extraordinaire Max Hoshnic and said, "Put me in, and I'll foul them and injure them. Then I'll make a three." The ref heard it and called me for a technical foul. McEvers didn't like this at the time, but he learned to laugh it off later.

We wound up losing 63-29.

January 6, 2006. Mesa Jr. vs. Mesquite.
On the way to this game, McEvers had the bus driver stop at a Fry's or Safeway or somethin. He went in and came out with a big ol' Gatorade for each one of us.

Mesquite was probably the coolest gym we played in. The players had cushy seats and there were seats on both sides, and it was very well lit. I remember that.

We were down 8-6 after the first quarter. I got to play in the second quarter. I got a wide open shot. It was a long two. I took my time with it, and it barely rimmed out. I knew if I could've made that, I would've gotten to stay in the game. I got yanked. We were down 20-14 at half.

McEvers had a bunch of trouble with the refs in this game. We had seen the same refs a bunch of times playing teams in Mesa, but these were different ones and they wouldn't let him call a timeout. He was screaming for one and couldn't get it. Finally he wrote "TIMEOUT" really big on the back of his whiteboard and took 3 or 4 steps onto the court. Staring down the refs, he finally got his timeout. You could tell he wanted us to throttle Mesquite after that.

We were down 38-20 after three and lost 59-27.

On the bus ride back to Mesa Jr., McEvers was talking to someone and said, "I'm just looking at my situation, and would I rather be doing something else right now? The answer is yes."

Must be tough to coach a team to a 1-8 record.

Paradise Valley, Brimhall and Smith

December 6, 2005. Mesa Jr. vs. Paradise Valley.

First of all, this was the longest bus ride ever. It was even longer on the way back. McEvers only played six guys this game. I was still in his inner circle and was Guy #6.

We were still confident from playing Fremont closely for a quarter and had a 14-11 lead after the first quarter. Lorenzo didn't score and we had a lead. That's crazy.

Sometime in the second, I was standing under the hoop waiting for a rebound when Greg King inexplicably passed me the ball. I was open, sure. But I can't catch a basketball. And I sure can't throw one. I was too surprised to have any composure and just threw it where I thought the hoop was. It bounced high off the backboard and went in.

We went into the locker room up 22-21. That was an excited locker room. It was our first lead of the season! We were super giddy. Unfortunately it was short lived. I don't know if it was because Mesa High's JV squad and coaches had arrived to play after us and were watching, but we got outscored 14-5 in the third quarter. One Adrian Bernal trifecta and one Lorenzo Velazco field goal. That's all we could muster.

Our fourth quarter efforts were matched by Paradise Valley. 46-38 was the final. We were pretty ticked off after this one to say the least.

December 9, 2005. Mesa Jr. vs. Brimhall.

As you can see, we'd slowly been building confidence and learning how to play together. Honestly, during pregame warmups, I looked at Brimhall's team and thought we were gonna lose. Greg sat this game out. He said he was sick. Load of crap. I got the start because of that.

I don't remember much of the gameplay in this one. We were up 14-4 after one. 24-15 at half. After getting some third quarter minutes, I was replaced. As I went to sit down, McEvers had his hand out toward me. I didn't notice. After sitting, he came and towered over me with his hand extended. I was tired and my mind wasn't functioning properly. "I don't know what that means. I'm sorry," I said.

"Shake his hand!" yelled Luis Hernandez, our 'manager', from behind. So, I shook his hand. He squeezed as hard as he could, leaned in and said, "You will sit the rest of this game."

With his nicotine-laced breath hanging there, I said, "Ok," and checked out mentally. He must've seen this as bad sportsmanship by me. As me being pissed off that I was being taken out. I honestly was just tired and not very cognizant of the situation. This was the turning point of the season for me. I had been given a lot of playing time up to this point. I had been the sixth man up to this point. This mental slip moved me straight to ninth man and official benchwarmer.

We were up 41-27 after three. With Greg out, McEvers only had nine players and was forced to put me in the fourth quarter to get one of his starters out. I couldn't focus though. We ended up winning our first game of the season 56-40.

December 13, 2005. Smith vs. Mesa Jr.

The guys gave Greg crap about not playing. Telling him he shouldn't play anymore and we might keep winning. I think we may have been a tad overconfident coming off our first victory.

We were up 7-4 after one and 17-12 at halftime. Trailing 29-26 after three, we felt like we could win.

I really only remember one thing about this game. In the closing minutes, we were trailing. I don't recall the exact score and situation, but we needed a three. Adrian Bernal, our sharpshooter, was literally four feet in front of me. I had as good a view as anybody. He caught a pass on the right wing, pump faked, took a dribble and repositioned to the left to take an open three. The ref called him for a travel. Awful call. I saw it as good, if not better than that ref. There's no way that was a travel. He would've made that shot and we would've been right back in the game.

We wound up losing 44-38.

Taylor, South Mountain, Shepherd and Fremont

We had almost exactly three weeks from the first day of tryouts until the first game. Let's face it, it ain't easy to get a group of 14 and 15-year-old kids who haven't ever played real basketball to look good. McEvers and the point guard from his old championship team Max Hoshnic did their best to teach us plays and get us ready.

November 21, 2005. Taylor vs. Mesa Jr.

Bottom line: We weren't ready. First of all, they had Donte Medder and Jamar Johnson. Those two alone matched all of our offensive output. I still wonder what happened to Jamar. Donte's playing for Tulsa these days.

It was 21-11 after the first quarter, so we weren't totally out of it. 41-23 at half. 57-30 after three, and 77-42 final score. I had the most unforgettable play of the game. Jamar and Donte brought it up to me more than two years later. I, being a scrawny wimp, ended up on the floor. I had the ball under our basket. I looked around and I swear all my teammates were on the other side of the floor already. I was afraid I'd get whistled for a travel if I stood up, so I just threw the ball up. It nearly went in the hoop, bounced around the rim and into the enemy's hands.

One more thing to show how unprepared we were. In high school basketball, after a certain number of fouls in a half, the team fouled gets to shoot a "one-and-one." They shoot a free throw, if they make it they get a second free throw. If they miss the first, it's a live ball. Well, Taylor had a one-and-one situation. Dude missed the first and the ball bounced right to me. Everybody was just standing there, so I bounced it to the ref who jumped out of the way and let it go out of bounds. He blew his whistle and rewarded Taylor with possession. I had no idea. Apparently neither did anyone else.

The girls team was at Taylor and walked in just before our game ended. They had put up five points in their game.

November 29, 2005. South Mountain vs. Mesa Jr.
These guys were way late for this game. They thought they were supposed to go to Mesa High and it took forever to figure out it was lil' ol' Mesa Jr. instead. We were down to seven guys because Alex wanted to do some baseball thing instead. Greg and Erik both decided to pretend to be sick. When the South Mountain guys walked in, we were intimidated. These dudes were figgin huge!!!!!!!!!!!! Huge and black!!!!!!!

I got my first start of the season because the guys didn't wanna play. We were thoroughly outmatched. They had a full-court press on that we had no idea how to break. And they kept it on through at least three quarters.

20-4 after one. 47-9 at half. In the locker room at halftime, all seven of us were sitting on the island in the locker room, McEvers walked in and shook the hand of each of us.

"You're playing them like gods," he told us.

As proud as he was, it couldn't have lasted long. It was 55-19 after three. I gave us our first points of the 4th quarter with a straightaway three. The next possession I threw a three off the backboard. Anyway, we lost 73-26.

December 1, 2005. Mesa Jr. vs. Shepherd.

Our first road game. We didn't have all the kinks worked out yet, so we weren't able to take our scorekeeper.

All I know is the final score was 57-41, and that we outscored them in the second half. A tiny momentum builder.

December 2, 2005. Fremont vs. Mesa Jr.

Fremont had some nice lookin purple jerseys. We had some momentum from the night before and were down 19-16 after the first quarter. I distinctly remember looking at the scoreboard and seeing it be Fremont 19 Mesa Jr. 18. I don't know what happened exactly, but I can imagine we stopped giving the ball to Lorenzo and started taking bad shots.

I incurred an intentional, flagrant foul in this game. One of their bench guys was on a fast break. We were already down by at least 27. I pushed him down. He was classy about it. He defended me the entire fourth quarter and didn't retaliate. He just never gave me an opportunity to get the ball.

50-24 at half. Outscored 31-8. I don't know. 66-32 after three. 82-40 final. Even though we got trounced, we felt good because we kept it close for an entire quarter. That was a HUGE accomplishment for us.

The Good Ol Days Part III

I don't remember winning any awards at the end of eighth grade. My production didn't slip, the teachers just liked me less or something. Ninth grade was just a ton of fun. I would gladly relive ninth grade.

By this time I was officially the coolest white guy at Mesa Jr. And that reputation was only gonna grow.

I wanted to do sports, which required 6th hour P.E., because I wanted to run cross country, wrestle and play baseball. I was too late deciding on 6th hour P.E. for football. Outside of football, there were about eight guy 'athletes.' Out of those about eight, I was the only one who wanted to run cross country. Therefore, Mesa Jr. didn't have a boys cross country team that year. I was forced to either change my schedule or play tennis.

I had never given tennis a chance. I think it's great now. It's my fourth favorite sport to watch. I was one of the worst on the team. The matches I played didn't count until after grades came out and all the guys above me flunked out. I did legitimately beat a kid. I think he was from Kino. Good match. Lost the doubles match because Alejandro Rivera sucked it up. I was pretty frustrated to say the least. On the ride over, Coach Arbo told us that if we won he would take us to Pizza Patron. I did my part.

I didn't get to try Pizza Patron until about four years later. Pretty good little place.

So, after both the football and tennis teams failing to produce a victory, it was lookin like another run of the mill year for Mesa Jr. athletics. I don't know how girls cross country and tennis did. I really don't care. At that level, sports with girls playing really are irrelevant.

I decided to try out for basketball before going to wrestling. The coach, James Todd McEvers, was my 3rd hour world history teacher. He liked me in class, so I thought I had a chance. On the first day of tryouts he pulled me, Alejandro Rivera and some other guy aside and basically told us, "You guys suck. Maybe if you keep practicing you can make it next year, but right now you suck too much."

That was tough, but I stuck around. I asked McEvers if I could help out. He liked that idea. By the third day of tryouts he had a pretty good idea of who he wanted. Only, a lot of the guys he wanted stopped showing up. He had 13 guys there that day, three of whom would stop showing up soon. He had us stand on the baseline and told us, "Everyone here is a part of this team. Even Andy." And just like that I was on my first and last basketball team.

The Good Ol Days Part II

I went into eighth grade having lost most of my friends because they were mostly ninth graders. So, I made new ninth grade friends, Amy Root (now Hale) being the primary focus.

With the departure of so many Drama Kids, I became one of the main players in the program. I was the dude who got to sit in the booth in the back and screw with the lights and microphone levels. It was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed doing that.

Mrs. Peralta was the drama teacher. Bless her soul. She is one of the nicest and most understanding women ever, but she was a pushover at times and often found to be unorganized. Needless to say, I felt she leaned on me a lot for support of making sure our productions would come through.

For P.E. that year, I had Coach Humes. According to my brother Mark, he's a big joke. However, to scrawny, eighth grade me, he was intimidating with his bulging muscles and booming voice. I was scared he would actually hurt me if I didn't do everything he barked at us. He had us running countless miles and rolling all over the dead grass in that field doing exercises. He got me into, to that point, the best shape of my life.

I gotta admit, I felt pretty good. I felt like I could run forever without stopping and do one million push ups. It didn't hurt that I got to walk a pretty girl home everyday as well.

The second semester of that year I got into intramural wrestling. Partly because I wanted to be like Mark. Partly because one of my better friends, Alex Villapondo, was also doing it. I was nothing short of atrocious. I wrestled five matches and lost four. But that one I won, I DOMINATED that kid!! Also, I can honestly say I've wrestled with Anthony Robles and lived to tell the tale.

The Good Ol Days Part I

I wanna put on here my recollection of the best year ever. Ninth grade was awesome. I don't wanna forget it.

Start in seventh grade. The summer prior had me worried. Everyone kept telling me how terrible Mesa Jr. was and how I would get beat up everyday for being caucasian. I tried to persuade my parents to enroll me at Taylor, which was deemed to be safer and far superior.

Needless to say, I was in Mrs. Goff's class during the first hour of the first day at Mesa Jr. Mexicans weren't anything new to me. My best friend at Lindbergh was Mexican. I was surprised to hear all the new swear words that cool junior high kids knew.

Anyway, I wasn't into sports much at all. I liked the stage. Drama and theatre. That's who I hung around, The Drama Kids. They eventually let me into their group and I would stay after school, watch rehearsals and learn the finer things of a play production.

Junior High P.E. was a whole new thing. They were finishing up new locker rooms the first part of the semester, so we went to the pool everyday. The coaches seemed like they expected us to get naked and change clothes and shower in front of each other. "We all have the same plumbing." That was their song. It was weird and awkward. And swimming everyday got pretty tiresome.

Once the locker rooms were finished, we started doing other things like basketball, dodgeball and running around the track. I was one of those kids who walked the whole time and ended up with a solid 13 minute mile.

Sports and physical competition just wasn't what I was into. I was the kid who made a strong case to Mrs. Dennison to allow me, a seventh grader, into Biology, a strictly ninth grade class. She considered it, but ultimately left me to deal with the dregs of Seventh and Eighth Grade Science classes.

I missed a lot of P.E. that year because I suffered a fracture of both the radius and ulna in my left arm. When this happens, they send you to the library to do a report for every day missed. I read a whole lot of sports magazines and wrote a whole lot of crappy reports. I even attempted to count the ceiling tiles in there. Well over 700.

As far as getting beat up every day, there was only one kid who was hostile toward me. I don't remember his name, but he was a short Mexican kid with ugly hair. The type who won't do anything unless he has five or six other kids behind him. He pushed me around one day before some of my ninth grade friends saw and came to the rescue. In junior high, the ninth graders are typically A LOT bigger than the seventh graders. Basically Tracy Cipola stood between me and the kid and called him a bunch of bad names. The kid never came near me again.

At the end of the year, there was an awards assembly for each grade class. I was startin to feel a little dejected when it was nearing the end of the hour and I hadn't gotten an award. Turns out they saved the best for last. The winners of Seventh Grade Boy of the Year and Seventh Grade Girl of the Year were me and Cathy Sadar.

I guess my teachers liked me.

MLB regular season, NBA playoffs and NFL Draft 1st round

My guy, Stephen Drew, hit his first grand slam last night. A hanging fastball over the plate got deposited in the right field stands to give the Diamondbacks a 4-0 lead with zero outs in the first inning. He gets no respect. This Diamondbacks team is difficult to figure out. They blasted through Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt of the Formidable Phillies to end a five game losing streak. Joe Saunders continues to suck and suck some more. I don't know. This team may not make the playoffs, but they'll definitely be a deciding factor in what teams do make the playoffs.

I saw the first Memphis Grizzlies jersey ever this week. Some dude at MCC had an OJ Mayo jersey on in light of the Griz possible upset of the Spurs. I'm rooting for them. Danny Granger disappointed the heck out of me in his series against the Bulls. Are you or are you not the leader of your team? Rise up and lead your army to victory, young warrior!!!!!!

Celtics v. Heat should be fun. I'm takin Celts in 6.
OKC will beat either Memphis or San Antonio, no contest. (Update 5/2/11: I've already been proven wrong.)
Lakers will crush the Mavericks.
Bulls should blast through the Hawks.

The Cardinals selected studmaster Patrick Peterson with the fifth pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. This is AWESOME! Make DRC realize he has to work for playing time. Make DRC realize he isn't all that. Make DRC play to his potential. This really helps the Cardinals.

Restin Bones

Bickley wrote a recent column re-enforcing what I've been trying to tell everyone for three years. The best thing he says in there is "The facts are indisputable, and the blame ultimately rests on one person: the businessman running a basketball team, even though I'm sure Sarver wouldn't let an NBA executive run one of his banks." What a freaking solid point. I've never thought of it that way, but how correct is that? Frikin solid, Bickley!

The Suns are off restin up. The NBA owners are gonna lock out the players in July. No summer camp for rookies and sophomores. Probably no training camp and preseason. Likely a shorter season because of games in November and maybe even December being missed.

Steve Nash has one year left on his contract. He's expressed interest in staying here for at least two years after that. He feels slightly responsible for turning this team around and leaving it in good hands.

The Diamondbacks are gonna be really good in two years. Give the pitching staff time to grow up and mature and this team will be difficult to beat.

On The Coattails Of A Dead Man

Who would've guessed Marcin Gortat would be this good?? Seriously, this guy is GOOD. Once he gets his offensive game under control (hoping for this summer), he will be a Top 5 center in the game.

Grant Hill and Steve Nash both say they would like to stay with the Suns. What idiots!!! I respect them both, but that's just stupid!! This team is dead! Leave it to Jared Dudley, Marcin Gortat and Channing Frye to rebuild. Just retire with nice careers that may land both in the HoF.

Here's what Bill Simmons wrote in his most recent column:


"17. Phoenix Suns
An incredible ten months that included …

A. Owner Robert Sarver pushing Steve Kerr out after Kerr miraculously got his Suns under the luxury tax AND to the cusp of the Finals.

B. Sarver replacing Kerr with agent Lon Babby, who acquired two of his clients (Hedo Turkoglu and Josh Childress) at a prohibitive cost. One never plays; the other got traded within a few months. So that's worked out great. And for the record, Sarver allowed Amare Stoudemire to leave (defensible), then spent 80 percent of what it would have kept to keep Stoudemire on Channing Frye, Childress and Hakim Warrick (indefensible).

C. The team trading Turkoglu and Jason Richardson for Marcin Gortat and Vince "Half-Man, Half-Amazingly Washed Up" Carter, which ended up being a steal (Gortat emerged as the franchise's first legitimate center since … Alvin Adams?) and a disaster (Carter single-handedly murdered their playoff hopes).
Who knows what Steve Nash did in a past life to deserve playing with the Ghost of Vince Carter?

D. Nash suffering through a brutally tough season off the court. To be honest, I wasn't talking about his divorce, I was talking about the fact that every morning, he had to wake up thinking, "Oh my goodness, I have to play with Vince Carter."

E. You realize Grant Hill quietly just had one of the most incredible seasons in the history of the league, right? He played 135 games total from 2000 to 2006; in the past three seasons, he's played every game but three and averaged 30 minutes a night. This season, he tossed up 48-84-39 percentages for FG/FT/3FG, scored 13 a game, played the best perimeter defense of anyone other than Andre Iguodala and even wrote a takedown essay of Jalen Rose for The New York Times. He's 38 years old! This shouldn't be happening.

But hey, at least Sarver was consistent; he's like Nic Cage, you can always count on him to do the wrong thing."

Solid stuff.

Diamondbacks seems optimistic. This team is gonna scrap and fight to win every night.