Archives for August 2020

In Defense of Scottie Pippen
August 23, 2020

Like many sports fans, I spent ten hours of the early days of quarantine life watching “The Last Dance” documentary on ESPN, which documented the last year of the Chicago Bulls’ championship run, with plenty of backstory regarding the years that led up to it. One of the episodes highlights the 1993-94 season, when the Bulls played their first season without superstar Michael Jordan, who had retired after three straight title runs to play minor league baseball. That season, the Bulls were led by all-star forward Scottie Pippen, who had been the second-best player on the team behind Jordan, but then stepped up to the status of best player while also stepping into the role of undisputed team leader. Experts and fans expected the Bulls to bottom out and become a lottery team without Jordan, but instead they won 55 games—only two less than they had the previous year—and made it to the Eastern Conference finals against the New York Knicks, whom they had beaten in the playoffs on an annual basis during their championship runs in the early part of the decade.  read more

Just Chillin
August 16, 2020

So what have I been up to the past few months since the coronavirus smacked us all in the face? In the words of Brotherman from the Martin TV show, “just chillin.” The small private school where I teach high school English went virtual last March, and stayed virtual through the end of the year. So I was home pretty much all day after that, and stayed home all day throughout the summer. 

When I wasn’t playing Solitaire on my phone, I was either napping, working on a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, or working on the biography I’m writing on Renaldo Nehemiah. (If I have to explain to you who he is, then you don’t belong on this site). 

I found a website that lets you upload a photo that they convert into a puzzle, then they ship you the puzzle so you can put it together. Over the summer I finished ten 1,000-piece puzzles. The first one was of a photo of my dad and a friend of his from when they were in their twenties. In the photo, taken in 1953, Dad’s friend is holding a 78 rpm record as they both are looking at it and smiling. Dad was who I got my love of jazz from, so that one means a lot to me. The second puzzle was of a photo of my mom taken just a few years before she passed in June 2019. In the photo, she is wearing her winter coat and stylish hat, looking upwards and smiling. That puzzle and the puzzle of my dad are side by side on my bedroom wall. It’s a way of keeping them with me. I also did puzzles of a few of my favorite sports heroes, like Dr. J, Randall Cunningham, and Nehemiah. And of course, I had to do one of the one and only John Coltrane.  read more