michael chin

The KH and Other Things, of Beauty and Otherwise

Now, most people call me Mike, but in high school I was Chin. Chin because there were a lot of Mikes in my class. Chin because I was the only Chin. Chin because teenage boys call each other by their last names sometimes, maybe because it sounds tougher. Chin played a lot of basketball those days.

Chin’d have been content to have spent whole days at the playground. To have shot free throws and practiced the KH, a through-the-legs scooping layup Chin named after the prettiest girl in school because, Chin boasted to his closest friends, this layup, too, was a thing of beauty. When other kids arrived, Chin would play with them, one-on-one, pick up, the every man for himself game of Rock, or a game of HORSE. Stay long enough, and there would be other kids around. Kids Chin recognized from the school bus. Kids who went to private school. There was a little kid named George, probably eight or nine years Chin’s junior, who lived in a house a mere steps from the basketball court, who’d join Chin some days. When there were other guys around, closer to Chin’s age, he’d poke fun at George for his lisp or the clumsy way he dribbled a basketball.  When it was only the two of them, though, Chin felt something like a big brother to him, trying to teach him how to dribble better, how to position his hands so only the right was shooting, with a flick of the wrist, so the left was there to keep the ball straight and protected from defenders. Most of the times Chin let him get his hands on the ball, George ran with it, leading to a chase around the playground.

When Chin was alone on the court, he gravitated to the hoop that was slightly askew, bent, maybe ten degrees at an angle. He figured if he could shoot well on this basket, then shooting on a perfectly level one would be a cinch. Parallel thinking to how he’d seen in a movie that legendary street ball player Earl Manigault used to practice with ankle weights on, so when he took them off at game time, his legs were stronger, so when he took them off he could soar.

There were days—mostly when Chin was alone—when he imagined someone might be watching him, maybe from one of the cars parked on the street, maybe through binoculars through the windows of one of the houses. A local coach or, better yet, a scout for some college or NBA team. Maybe his personal, hoops-inclined Mr. Miyagi who might take this child of the 1980s under his wing based on the untapped potential he recognized in Chin’s movements on the court. There was little reason to believe Chin had any future in basketball. At six-foot-one he was relatively tall but not basketball tall. He was a faster runner than most kids but undisciplined, untrained. His hand-eye coordination wasn’t great, and he was scrawny. His vertical leap was overwhelmingly average—high enough, on a good day, he could touch midway up the net on a regulation hoop, but he never came close to dunking.

My wife sent me a text message when I was working at home during the pandemic. The message contained a photograph of our toddler son’s child-sized basketball, wedged between the rim and the backboard on the court at our neighborhood playground. I hadn’t dealt with a stuck basketball in at least a decade, probably closer to twenty years, but recalled how this specific problem was one I’d faced at least once a week as a teenager. I suggested my wife use one of the big, decorative rocks on the side of the court to heave it up to knock the ball loose, though there was every possibility our son would put himself directly in harm’s way beneath the ball, if not the rock on its descent. Chin would usually rely on other boys who’d inevitably bring their own balls to the court, too. Knock one against the other, billiards style, and they could usually get the ball loose within a couple tries. I came downstairs and found a child-sized soccer ball, intending to go out and meet them, to play the hero when I knocked the basketball free. Before I could get out the door, my wife texted again. She’d found a stick in the bushes, long enough to get on her tip-toes and knock the ball loose. I went back to work.

I don’t work in basketball. I was never paid for my love of the sport in any recognizable way, though I like to think the discipline of returning to the court day after day may have offered some life lesson, or the way I inevitably talked with some of the other kids who played helped me overcome the overwhelming shyness that boxed in years of my youth.

Chin had a good friend, Zegarelli, who shared in his hoop dreams. One lunch period–– spring, senior year––Chin and Zegarelli and a group of friends talked about their career ambitions. Zegarelli was one of the few in the crew not headed to college the next fall. When his turn came, he proclaimed he wanted to be starting center for the New York Knicks. It was the kind of dream any of us might have spoken about as children, the same way we might have believed in Santa Claus or thought one of us would one day be president. It was Kenoski who responded. Kenoski aspired to be, and would one day end up being, a practicing attorney. Kenoski told Zegarelli he had no chance and made him feel pretty bad about it in the process.

Chin didn’t speak up.

If I could reach back through time, I might give Chin a ticket stub. In my mid-twenties, I found myself in Manhattan on business. I’d stopped following the NBA faithfully around the time I stopped playing. But I discovered, serendipitously, the Knicks had a big game that night in New York. I used my iPhone to navigate on foot to Madison Square Garden after work. The game was sold out, so I haggled with a scalper outside who sold me the ticket for two hundred dollars in cash. I’d like to show Chin—maybe Zegarelli, too—it was possible to have a life that put us in The Garden, back in a time when a distance of 250 miles from our front doors to MSG’s entryway might as well have been 250,000. I sat in the cheap seats, I’d concede, via a ticket I’d overpaid for. From that far away from the court, the bright lights blurred the hardwood into a beautiful, fuzzy glow. I’d reassure Chin basketball might still be a part of his life all those years later. I think Chin might like to hear this as his hands burned on their way to going numb, playing outside too deeply into the snowy season, freezing but also smelling of playground dirt and sweat after a long session dribbling the length of the court, making himself do it over and over again if he missed the layup at the end.

Chin, I might say, you’re going to make it. And maybe Chin would never take steps away from basketball. Maybe he’d work his crossover move he loved up to a respectable speed and keep it there. Maybe he’d not only make a KH layup but deploy it successfully in a game while some scout was watching or, better yet, a pretty girl. Weren’t these Chin’s wildest dreams? Maybe, then, he’d never again need reminding about the value of play.