duncan228
09-08-2009, 11:35 PM
You Got Schooled: Mr. Robinson's neighborhood was a great place to grow up (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/You_Got_Schooled_Mr_Robinsons_neighborhood_was_a_g reat_place_to_grow_up.html)
By Chris Ferrell - Express-News commentary
For a generation of kids growing up in San Antonio who were too young to see George Gervin light up the NBA, we only knew the Spurs as a bad basketball team.
A Nerf basketball hoop hung on my bedroom door with a homemade backboard featuring a Detroit Pistons logo. The wall next to my bed had a couple of Michael Jordan posters that came with the boxes of Wheaties I begged my mom to buy, even though I wasn’t crazy about the taste of the cereal.
On the blacktop, I threw up shots at the buzzer in my head while pretending to be Jordan, Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.
The Spurs just didn’t seem like a big deal. Well, not until David Robinson showed up.
When the Spurs won the lottery and the rights to draft the star center from the Naval Academy, it was the first time I could remember the team being a national story. The day Robinson signed his contract was like Fiesta.
I also remember that two years feels like an eternity when you’re in elementary school. It felt like he was stationed at that submarine base forever.
To an 11-year-old in San Antonio, the Admiral’s arrival in 1989 was the biggest thing to happen in the city since Pee-wee Herman tried to find his missing bicycle in the basement of the Alamo.
We had sat in a half-empty HemisFair Arena for years watching the Spurs lose. The most entertaining thing on the floor was usually the Coyote. That changed after San Antonio became Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood.
The Spurs started winning, and the Pistons backboard came down. The Michael Jordan posters were replaced by one featuring Robinson. (Hey, it’s fine to be a fair-weather fan when you’re 11.)
And there was no bigger thrill that year than opening a pack of NBA Hoops basketball cards with No. 138 inside — the rookie card with a picture of Robinson holding up a Spurs jersey after signing his first contract.
There are certain teams from your childhood that stay with you forever. You can still name the starting lineup (Robinson, Terry Cummings, Sean Elliott, Willie Anderson and Rod Strickland, who replaced Maurice Cheeks). Their successes still make you smile, and their failures still haunt you (where was Strickland throwing that pass against Portland?).
The 1989-90 Spurs are that team for me.
Since then, there have been far more good times for Spurs fans than bad ones.
And there were few role models in any city in America who were better than Robinson was for us impressionable youths in San Antonio. He was a giant — an MVP, an All-Star and an Olympian. He was a military man in a military city. He always seemed to do and say the right thing.
He could even make math cool to an Eisenhower Middle School student who struggled mightily to pass Algebra I.
But it never seemed like the rest of the country fully appreciated what we had here. Even when he’s enshrined into the Hall of Fame on Friday, Jordan will steal the show.
Maybe that’s why the final seconds of his final game rank among my favorite sports memories.
I had grown up by then and was out of school dealing with a real job and adult responsibilities. But on June 15, 2003, for a few minutes anyway, it was easy to forget all that. With a crowd on its feet and a second NBA championship secured, the eyes of the sports world were on the Admiral as he left the court with a storybook sendoff.
And I felt like a kid again.
There will probably be a time Friday when that feeling comes back.
By Chris Ferrell - Express-News commentary
For a generation of kids growing up in San Antonio who were too young to see George Gervin light up the NBA, we only knew the Spurs as a bad basketball team.
A Nerf basketball hoop hung on my bedroom door with a homemade backboard featuring a Detroit Pistons logo. The wall next to my bed had a couple of Michael Jordan posters that came with the boxes of Wheaties I begged my mom to buy, even though I wasn’t crazy about the taste of the cereal.
On the blacktop, I threw up shots at the buzzer in my head while pretending to be Jordan, Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.
The Spurs just didn’t seem like a big deal. Well, not until David Robinson showed up.
When the Spurs won the lottery and the rights to draft the star center from the Naval Academy, it was the first time I could remember the team being a national story. The day Robinson signed his contract was like Fiesta.
I also remember that two years feels like an eternity when you’re in elementary school. It felt like he was stationed at that submarine base forever.
To an 11-year-old in San Antonio, the Admiral’s arrival in 1989 was the biggest thing to happen in the city since Pee-wee Herman tried to find his missing bicycle in the basement of the Alamo.
We had sat in a half-empty HemisFair Arena for years watching the Spurs lose. The most entertaining thing on the floor was usually the Coyote. That changed after San Antonio became Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood.
The Spurs started winning, and the Pistons backboard came down. The Michael Jordan posters were replaced by one featuring Robinson. (Hey, it’s fine to be a fair-weather fan when you’re 11.)
And there was no bigger thrill that year than opening a pack of NBA Hoops basketball cards with No. 138 inside — the rookie card with a picture of Robinson holding up a Spurs jersey after signing his first contract.
There are certain teams from your childhood that stay with you forever. You can still name the starting lineup (Robinson, Terry Cummings, Sean Elliott, Willie Anderson and Rod Strickland, who replaced Maurice Cheeks). Their successes still make you smile, and their failures still haunt you (where was Strickland throwing that pass against Portland?).
The 1989-90 Spurs are that team for me.
Since then, there have been far more good times for Spurs fans than bad ones.
And there were few role models in any city in America who were better than Robinson was for us impressionable youths in San Antonio. He was a giant — an MVP, an All-Star and an Olympian. He was a military man in a military city. He always seemed to do and say the right thing.
He could even make math cool to an Eisenhower Middle School student who struggled mightily to pass Algebra I.
But it never seemed like the rest of the country fully appreciated what we had here. Even when he’s enshrined into the Hall of Fame on Friday, Jordan will steal the show.
Maybe that’s why the final seconds of his final game rank among my favorite sports memories.
I had grown up by then and was out of school dealing with a real job and adult responsibilities. But on June 15, 2003, for a few minutes anyway, it was easy to forget all that. With a crowd on its feet and a second NBA championship secured, the eyes of the sports world were on the Admiral as he left the court with a storybook sendoff.
And I felt like a kid again.
There will probably be a time Friday when that feeling comes back.