Young Money a.k.a. Brandon Jennings

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Five Good Minutes with Brandon Jennings

Brandon Jennings graduated from high school in 2008 which makes him 20 years old. He was offered a scholarship to the University of Arizona but passed in favor of a plane ticket to Italy where he’d ultimately spend just one year preparing for a career in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

By rule, high school basketball players must be one year removed from high school before they can be eligible to enter the NBA draft. So Jennings circumvented college and found a lucrative pastime during his “one-and-done” year.

When a player like Jennings makes a leap like this the debated issue of skipping college saunters back onto the ethical stage. What about an education? What about a once-in-a-lifetime earning potential? What if he gets hurt? What if he’s the next Allen Iverson? Doesn’t his back say it all? Jennings feels that he’s “young money” and although not yet 21-years old, he’s already scored 55 points in an NBA game.

But why do discussions about young athletes skipping college for the pros always miss the point? We want to talk about how this guy is either phenomenal and/or grossly impatient. How about talking about this: “Brandon Jennings is a representative of a demographic that includes millions of young African Americans” who share the sentiments of his tattoo.

And what happens when one sliver of an ethnic group (Male African Americans) flood an applicant pool for a job in the NBA? What happens is that approximately 76% of the industry becomes made up of black men. And it takes an inordinate amount of resolve, commitment and focus to even make oneself a viable candidate for this job. This means that the members of this group have to spend countless hours over 10 plus years of repetition to create the illusion that only black men need apply for this job.

Jennings, an early NBA success story, shows us an emblem of a dichotomy that has existed for at least the 24 years I’ve been playing basketball. The dichotomy is this: that in an impoverished neighborhood like the one I grew up in you either excel at sports or make money the illegal way. This is a dominant paradigm for young black men no matter their G.P.A. I was a 3.8 student in high school and coasted through college as the touted scholar athlete who was thought of as more scholar than athlete. But I valued the social capital gained through basketball fame much more than the notoriety associated with being an academic. For every Brandon Jennings, there are droves of young black men who want to be him. Heck, Brandon Jennings wanted to be Brandon Jennings and I’m sure what he’s experiencing now is nothing short of surreal. But isn’t this alarming to someone?

It is to me and not because Jennings is thriving in the NBA only 18 months after high school. It’s alarming because athletics should be a tool, not an addiction. The athlete who squanders education, family relationships, moral responsibility, etc. to pursue a sport is a junkie. And we live in a culture that produces basketball addicts. Young black youth are victims of a perpetuated mentality that believes in the fallacy that you either “sling crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshot.”

I’ve never been overly concerned with the prodigious Kobe Bryants, Kevin Durants and Chris Pauls of the world. The NBA as an entity has much to offer these men and much more to gain from their participation. It’s what’s left in the wake of a wholesale one dimensional obsession with basketball that concerns me. Even with supportive family members I still deified athleticism and would have been willing to forsake education if a coach or scout had courted me. Somehow or another an infusion must occur in the basketball world of young African American males that shows them the complete marvel of the human creation. There’s an exciting reality in the realization that you might be Brandon Jennings but you probably aren’t. You can play basketball but you shouldn’t do it at your own expense. Where are the voices willing to interrupt the current trends in the basketball subculture of African American males with one that offers the hope of more than just Young Money?

What to say of Iverson the Retired

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Names become synonymous through connotation. I say “Notorious”, you say B.I.G. I say, “Cracker Jacks” you think, “Why bother if I’m at Dodger stadium where they grill the dogs.” Pardon the digression. What about when I say, “A.I.?”

Speaking of notorious, he is for his famous rant debunking practice given the fact that at the time he was the face of the Philadelphia 76ers. There’s the corn rows, the tattoos and the sleeve. There’s the persona of an egotist with the ability of a basketball freak. There’s an undersized human barely scratching 6-feet and weighing in at much less than 180 pounds.

There’s all of this and his first Thanksgiving as a retiree marking, for now, the end of an era. Allen Iverson hangs it up after having epitomized the underdog who triumphs in a land of giants. At 27 points per game he ranks 5th in career scoring average among players who lasted ten years or longer in the NBA.

But when a person is remembered, I mean if they got to choose the epitaph, it should at least be written with this in mind: According to the Associated Press (2006), “Allen Iverson paid for the funeral of a man who died three years after he was shot in southwest Philadelphia because he refused to hand over his Iverson jersey to a group of teens.” Kevin Johnson was the 22-year old victim and of the incident. Here’s a quote from the “The Answer” himself after the death of Johnson:

If they were that serious about that jersey I would have given them 100 jerseys if they wanted it,” Iverson said. “It was just tough, just to see somebody die for something senseless like that, over a jersey, over something material.”

I believe every word. Blessings to you A.I. Play your 6ixth Man.

Brakes

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Are some Stop signs easier to run than others? Maybe they’re all runnable. It’s not the same as a stop light is it. A stop sign generally appears on streets in residential areas where traffic ebbs and flows but is not a constant and furious stream. Stop signs are red and usually prominent enough but they’re often ignored in favor of expeditious travel or wantonness toward the minor fixtures of structure in society.

It’s interesting that both stop signs and stop lights are not meant to necessarily deter but rather meant to shift your focus from self to safety. Isn’t the stop sign a reminder that there is much at stake for not considering the whole picture?

In the past I’ve officiated weddings for people who don’t want counseling prior to. Yesterday I refereed a basketball game and a 15-year old girl kept mouthing off until I had to give a technical foul and nearly expunge her from the gym. I believe the words she used were, “F— him,” in reference to me.There are female and male body builders who do it clean and those who do not. There are parents who argue with coaches over their kid’s playing time.

In each of the aforementioned scenarios, the couple, the basketball player, the parents and the cheating body builders are wrong. They are wrong because “wrong” is the result of running a stop sign. Not stopping at a warning indicates a destructive ill regard for how we’ve been created and who created us. It’s bigger than safety. It’s about recognizing that selfishness is an aberration and a defect. Equivocate as we may, we can’t change the structure of the universe to accommodate an attitude that turns the pinnacle of creation (humans) into monstrosities. I don’t do it perfectly but I’m learning to mind the stop signs.

Freedom to Create

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Soap-Sink-Dryer in ONE...That's mad creative!
Soap-Sink-Dryer in ONE...That's mad creative!

The ingredients of creativity can probably be boiled down to three elements: Time, Regimen and Fun. Let’s start with the 86,400 seconds (TIME) we all have in a day. Beauty, fame nor fortune can buy you extra and once it’s spent, that’s a wrap. Time spends energy and creativity hinges on the energy to think outside of familiar patterns. The case in point is going on vacation or leaving a home for a couple of weeks. Suddenly you write more, read more and think about possibilities that never cross your mind during the grind.

REGIMEN is the quintessential sign of commitment. Without routine there can be no freedom to create. In a game situation variables are everywhere forcing you to react and respond based on instincts. But if those instinctive reactions are not matched with muscle memory, the result is failure because creativity is missing necessary fuel. Simply put, you have to practice basics to be able to freelance later. The true professionals in sports are exceptional because they are inventive, not necessarily because they are more athletic than their counterparts. And they are inventive because they’ve familiarized mind with body.

FUN is our black sheep. It is the expendable component because we separate work from fun living for a weekend that sure enough comes but definitely doesn’t stay. But here’s a question, “If fun is a necessary part of creativity how can you ever expect to enjoy what you do for a living, for a ministry, for a charity, etc. if it’s all drudgery?” You can’t and you never will.

I’ve learned that I come alive when I set aside time, establish regimen and involve fun in my vocation – the thing I was born to do. I never thought I could write and maybe you say, “You can’t.” Point taken, but every morning I make time and I think every morning constitutes a regimen. And I’m having the time of my life writing about the things that matter most to me as Christian/Jock/Husband/Coach/etc.

The Window

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NBC Pix 09 415I always think randomly about questions like,  “If you had the president’s attention for 5 minutes on a subway train, what would you choose to say?” I know you’re thinking that Secret Service would never allow that ride in the first place but just imagine. Isn’t the thing we want most a captive audience? In young people, you have it.

I’ve coached kids as young as 8 years old to be disciplined while away from their parents for the first time. Those kids can be taught in a week’s time to groom and feed themselves while mastering a jump-stop pivot or jab-and-go move to the basket. Several things make young people the perfect captive audience. They adore coaches and parental figures, they have no money, they have no transportation and everything is new to them.

Whenever I talk to parents after a camp or before a season begins I thank them for trusting me with their most prized possession – their kids. I’ve learned that there’s a short window of time in the life of people where they’re willing to listen to instruction. Young people are in that window from birth to about 14-15 years, it seems given my classroom experience. When I think about what people chose to say to me in my most impressionable years I’m amped about the opportunity to say what should be said while it’s most likely to be heard.

The Right Rumble

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One alteranative version of a famous quotes goes, “It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s where you place the blame.” I chuckled upon first read.

On the other end of accusation is often a person, a breathing target at whom I can point fingers when I am displeased with anything from a drive-thru order to the embarrassing behavior of my favorite professional athlete. There is ease in holding a person responsible after the fact because I know I can easily separate (usually) myself from the offense committed by saying, “I would never do something like that.”

But I was having a discussion with some men smarter than myself yesterday and the conversation made me think, “What if there’s something wrong with sports structure that funnels young people into destructive behavior?” It was a different take for me. Consider the family vs. the NBA season. In the blue corner we have an 82-game season not including playoffs and preseason vs. mom and the children in the red corner. The NBA season boasts a record of say, 1000 marriages destroyed due to infidelity while the family has suffered defeat every season since and maybe even before the likes of Wilt Chamberlain.

Blame is not all bad because it can identify a target and targets are needed if you plan to wage war. But maybe it’s not just the Michael Vicks (former Atlanta Falcons quarterback convicted of dog fighting) who should be blamed. If we’re to pick a fight that will fault the appropriate culprit, the structure of athletics might be worth it. What is it about sports that creates an egotist, infidel, violent menace, etc.? Change the structure; redeem sports. Where’s Michael Buffer when you need him.

Real Relevance

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On one of those days when I felt irrelevant to young people I had a conversation with a young African American basketball player that reminded me otherwise. He and some friends were in the gym while I was working in my basketball office and they were behaving much like I used to at their age – cursing, talking loudly, using the “N” word, etc.

The boys came over to my office and one in particular arrested my attention because he’d already become notorious around school for various foolish infractions. So I jumped into his vernacular and confronted him in language I knew he’d understand. You won’t agree with this one. The young man, a basketball player, was bragging about how he was going to scrimmage against the varsity girls and beat up on them. He ranted on and on until I said,

“You sure talk a lot. “N” are you harder than everybody else because you talk that way? You say you can’t wait to beat the girls’ team. Man, you’re over 6′ tall and pushing 200 lbs. Are you not supposed to dominate the girls? Or what about the trouble you’ve been in here at school – fighting and threatening people? Anyone can do that stuff. Any young boy can act like a pimp, use the “N” word and get bad grades. Some might even expect that from you. I’m not sure what a “N” is but it’s time for you to start becoming a man. You’re better than that. You understand?”

And with that my tirade ended. Wouldn’t you know that this young brotha stood there for my entire speech not batting an eye or offering the slightest response. It was proof that “REAL” is always relevant. I took a chance but only because I care and because it’s clear that without intervention, young people are left to their own natural recourse. That day I just stepped in hoping I could do for him what the big homies (Older guys) did for me once-upon-a-time.