My first basketball team.

I was 8 years old when I joined my first basketball team. Our church, First Baptist - Arlington, had a 9-10 year old RA (Royal Ambassadors) basketball team that played other churches in Tarrant County. I turned 9 during the season.

Our coach officially was my Dad, but my Mom was real active as well. She had played high school basketball in Sudan, Texas. Dad had never played any sport. He checked a book out of the library to learn the rules and how to set up an offense and defense. This is a prime example of my Dad's selflessness and his desire to see that my brother Gary and I had all the best opportunities. He recognized that the athletes got better treatment in school and wanted us to have that advantage.

Before the season started against the other 9-10 RA teams we played in a 12 & under tournament against other Arlington churches. We lost the championship game to our church's 11-12 team. We won our other games. The games were played on "The Slab", an outdoor concrete court a the church. My Dad and Mr. Schrader had to paint the free throw lane and other markers because, prior to then, it was just a concrete slab that had basketball goals at either end. My one memory of the tournament was Cary Don Risinger totally wiping me out across the court on a charging foul in the last few seconds of the game. It scratched up the face of my watch and skinned me up pretty good. I missed the free throw because I couldn't see well through the tears.

We played our 9-10 league games in Fort Worth, mostly at the Southside Recreation Center on East Rosedale. Our uniforms were cotton gym shorts and white cotton undershirts that my Dad had painted on black numbers in our garage. The first team we were to play was Broadway Baptist Church. At that time they were the largest Baptist church in Fort Worth and they had fancy red uniforms that were all shiny and definitely not numbered in the garage. They also had one real tall kid. "We're gonna get killed," was what we were all thinking. Our players included Tommy Pope, my brother Gary, Mike Manire, Verne Hargrave, and me. There were others but I can't remember their names.
As I said, Broadway had these fancy, shiny uniforms and we thought we were going to get killed. The final score was 42-1, we won! The tall kid made their only point on a free throw that he threw like a softball throw.

We won every game but one. We lost 18-17 or 17-16 to Lake Worth in a game where we got ripped off by the Fort Worth refs. We were winning until the calls all started going against us. For example, Mike and Tommy ran into each other at mid court and knocked each other down. The ref called a double foul against us and gave them 2 free throws. In the last minute or so with us up by one, I was driving for a game clinching, fast break lay-up. I slowed down a little to make sure of the shot and got absolutely obliterated by the Lake Worth guy from behind. No problem, I was a very good free throw shooter and would make the free throws. The only problem was the referee called the foul on me! How absurd! They scored a basket, went ahead by one, and the scorekeeper said the time was now out. The last minute lasted forever until they scored, and the zip, it was over.

My Dad was also our coach in the 6th grade YMCA league. Our main players were Mike Nicole, Gary, and me. We lost 1 game in league play to Rankin when I was out sick with 102 fever. Rankin also failed to play all of their players one full quarter as required by the rules, but they were given the win anyway. That was our only loss and Rankin had a couple so we advanced to the playoffs. Rankin's coach was Dalton Walker, a great fast-pitch softball pitcher. I'll tell you other stories about him later. The championship game was played at Kooken Elementary against South Davis. I don't remember the score but we won. City Champs!

My Dad's coaching got me started in basketball and I went on to play in Junior High, High School, one year of college and many years of intramural and city rec leagues.