Baylor Elgin - Hang time: my life in basketball

Copyright 2018 by EB Lakes 22 LLC

All rights reserved

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Baylor, Elgin, author. | Eisenstock, Alan, author.

Title: Hang time : my life in basketball / Elgin Baylor with Alan Eisenstock.

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2018] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017057002 (print) | LCCN 2017045607 (ebook) | ISBN 9780544618459 (ebook) | ISBN 9780544617056 (hardback)

Subjects: LCSH : Baylor, Elgin. | Basketball playersUnited

StatesBiography. | African American basketball playersBiography. |

BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Sports. | SPORTS & RECREATION / Basketball.

Classification: LCC GV 884.3. B 39 (print) | LCC GV 884.3. B 39 .A3 2018 (ebook) |

DDC 796.323092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017057002

Cover design by Brian Moore

Cover photograph NBA Photos / NBAE via Getty Images

Author photograph Neil Ricklen (Alan Eisenstock)

v1.0218

To Elaine

You mean everything to me

Reach up your hand... and take a star.

Langston Hughes

February 3, 2016

Im flying. Heading home.

Im going to D.C., where I grew up, to visit my family and retrace my roots, maybe for the last time in my life. Im eighty-one, and I havent been back in more than twenty years. Im not sure when Ill go back again. If Ill go back again. I hesitated to come on this trip, if you want to know the truth. I didnt know if I wanted to dredge up a lot of memories, to relive my time in D.C. Dont get me wrong: I have a lot of good memoriestime with my family and friends, and mostly, of course, playing basketball. But the District was a different place back then. A hard place. A racist place. Segregated parks, schools, movie theaters, lunch counters. I had run-ins with the police. I experienced ugly, unforgettable things. One event in particular changed my life. I told myself that once I left D.C., other than to visit my family, I wouldnt go back. A lot of people who grew up in D.C. at the same time as I did feel the same way. They love the people; they dont love the city. Something about it makes you uneasy. Youre always looking over your shoulder. The only place I ever felt totally comfortable was on a basketball court. That was home.

One time, I was walking from my house to school, Giddings Elementary. I was eight or nine. All of a sudden, a hawk swooped out of the sky and snatched a rat that had darted right in front of me on the sidewalk. Came right down, whoosh, grabbed the rat in its talons, and flew away.

Thats the D.C. I knew: Rat City.

Now, flying east, heading home, I feel something stirring inside me, a stab of memory, and I find myself suddenly yearning to take a look into my past, if only for these few days. One last look.

The captain announces that weve reached our cruising altitude, and I settle back in my seat. I tilt to my right and continue listening to the man across the aisle, the man whos talking to me. A man I know well: Jerry West.

I had no idea hed be on this flight and sitting across from me, aisle seat to aisle seat, nearly elbow to elbow. Jerry, who works for the Golden State Warriors, is flying to D.C. because the Warriors will be playing the Washington Wizards. The next day hell go to the White House to meet President Obama, who will honor the 2015 NBA champions. Thats become an annual tradition. You win an NBA championship, you get invited to the White House. At the moment, Jerry is talking about Steph Curry, the Warriors star, the leagues MVP, the greatest shooter in the world, the best shooter Ive ever seen. I played with the second bestthe man Im talking to across the aisle.

Oh, hes great, Jerry says. Except for the turnovers

I have to smile. Leave it to Jerry, an all-world perfectionist, to bring up Currys one flaw. I dont feel like mentioning that I, too, will be going to the White House to visit President Obama. Im not going with any teamIve never been on an NBA championship teambut I will be having a private visit with the president, just me and my wife, Elaine, who set it up.

Jerry and I talk for a while, then he reaches for a magazine in the seat pocket in front of him, rolls it up, and says, We had some team, Elg, didnt we?

We did.

We came close, what, how many times, seven?

I nod. We couldnt match up with Russell.

Jerry pauses, then rests his hand on my arm and whispers with an urgency I dont expect. You should have a statue.

What?

At Staples. There should be a statue of you. Believe me, I have asked... His voice trails off. Im going to keep on asking.

I dont say anything. I picture the Star Plaza at Staples Center, a cluster of eight life-size bronze statues of Los Angeles sports legends that greet everyone who enters the arenaWayne Gretzky, Oscar de la Hoya, Magic Johnson, Chick Hearn, Luc Robitaille, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille ONeal, and Jerry West. All deserving. All L.A. heroes. Funny, thoughI go further back than all of them. I was a Minneapolis Laker when the team was struggling to stay afloat. The owner, Bob Short, drafted me number one and later said I saved the franchise. He told me that I made it possible for him to move the team to Los Angeles.

I laugh to myself. I was a Laker when the name actually made sense. Minnesota, Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. L.A. is known for a lot of things, but lakes are not one of them.

Jerry, its all right, I think. I dont need a statue.

February 5, 2016, 2:30 p.m.

Sunlight bounces off a snowbank and causes me to squint. I shiver underneath the collar of my leather jacket, shove my fists into my pockets, and follow three D.C. police officers as we crunch across the snowy blacktop to the back door of the boarded-up building.

Spingarn High School, my old school.

One of the officers fumbles with some keys, shoves the door open with his shoulder. I take a breath, duck my head, and enter the dark-as-night hallway. The police lead the way with flashlights as I stumble behind them, stepping through a layer of rubble. In the hazy light I see that were walking through mounds of plaster and torn slabs of drywall. I step slowly, carefully. The air smells of smoke and dry rot. I feel as if were edging down the hallway of a bombed-out building. The officer in the lead shouts back, Watch your step, Mr. Baylor.

We go another few feet and turn right. Two officers pull open a set of double doors, pale light shimmering behind them. I lower my head and walk into the gymnasium, where more than sixty years ago I played forward for the Spingarn Green Wave.

It looks... smaller, I say, blinking into the funnels of daylight that pour through a half-dozen high, barred windows. The blond wood floor looks surprisingly shiny: not exactly polished, but in good condition. I start to walk toward the far basket, the floor squeaking beneath my loafers. I peer down the length of the gym. The light falls in orbs before me, splashing onto the floor. The effect is almost celestial. In comparison with the wreckage of the hallway, this gym feels like a cathedral.

You could almost still play in here, I say, and the people around me laugh.

I keep walking toward the far basket. Glass backboards, I say at half-court. We didnt have them. We had fans.

I take a few more steps, reach the top of the key... and my mind plays tricks on me... messes with me... because, ridiculously, I hear