Kori Ellis
06-21-2005, 04:56 AM
Tale of Three Fathers
By David Aldridge
Inquirer Staff Writer
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/health/11943746.htm
SAN ANTONIO, Texas - The fathers worked late into the night Sunday. It was Father's Day, but there was no day off for these dads, so many of them, their professional lives intersecting at one moment, their lives about to change in 9.4 seconds, for good or for ill.
Late into the night, it was Robert Horry, on this day both father and son, who turned the NBA world on its ear, who seemed to turn back time. He scored all his 21 points in the final 18 minutes of regulation time and overtime, hitting the winning three-pointer with 5.8 seconds to go, to give his San Antonio Spurs an improbable 96-95 Game 5 win and a three-games-to-two lead in the NBA Finals.
And because of that, all the other fathers' lives shifted and changed like sand in a windstorm.
Horry's father, Robert Sr., was at the game, as was Horry's 6-year-old son, Robert Cameron.
"I've got the two important men in my life at this game," Horry said afterward. "I'm happy I was able to do this in front of them. My dad was like, 'You haven't given me but two [three-pointers] since I've been here. You need to give me more threes.' So I had to go out and knock a few down."
He made five three-pointers in six attempts.
Horry rarely talks about his older daughter, Ashlyn, who lives with Horry's wife, Keva, and his son in Houston. Ashlyn Horry has a neurological disorder that has rendered her speechless and unable to walk.
Do you wonder why Robert Horry doesn't take making or missing a big shot so seriously?
"My kids are still going to love me," he is fond of saying.
But Horry's shot made another father, Larry Brown, doggone near catatonic. Because of it, tonight's Game 6 may be the last time Brown coaches the Pistons. He says he wants to come back next season and coach in Detroit, but it may no longer be his choice.
The rumor that Brown already has committed to moving his family back to their friends in Philadelphia has persisted for weeks, regardless of whether he takes the Cleveland Cavaliers executive spot we've heard so much about. And his children - his son, L.J., and daughter Madison - are terribly important to Brown, who has adult daughters from a previous marriage.
"If I'm fortunate enough to keep doing this - because I do, in my mind, I still have the passion to do it - that would be great," Brown said Sunday. "And if I don't have the opportunity, I'll get to smell my kids and be around them a little bit more... . It will give me opportunities to not miss games and see my daughter skate or just hang out."
Horry's shot also made a chump of Rasheed Wallace. Wallace was guarding Horry, then inexplicably left him to double-team Manu Ginobili in the corner. It took Ginobili a nanosecond to throw the ball back to a wide-open Horry, Wallace's man.
Swish.
No one in the Detroit locker room had any explanation for what Wallace did.
One Pistons employee, in management, couldn't believe what he saw. There was, simply, no way Wallace could have misunderstood, with the Pistons ahead by two.
"Not in the Finals," he said in the hallway, 20 minutes after Horry's last shot found the bottom of the net. "Maybe in a regular-season game. But not in the Finals, not in the Finals, not in the Finals," the words certain to loop in his brain.
It will be hard to find in the reams of copy that will be dedicated in the coming days to branding him a fool - for it was a mindless play - but Wallace is a father, too. He has three boys and a girl.
The day before he decided to leave Horry, he decided to bring his children to a bowling fund-raiser in Detroit. He laughed with them and with - gasp - sportswriters, and lost more money than he won. And if you must know the truth, if there's a lockout, Rasheed Wallace wouldn't be all that broken up over it, because he could spend more time with his kids.
But that was the previous day, and in the present day, he had to explain just what in God's name he was thinking by leaving a guy nicknamed "Big Shot Bob."
"I just tried to double," Wallace said. "Basic defense."
And with that, Wallace was off into the night, defined for better or worse - likely worse, much worse. He was another father who had finished his shift and was ready to go home.
By David Aldridge
Inquirer Staff Writer
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/health/11943746.htm
SAN ANTONIO, Texas - The fathers worked late into the night Sunday. It was Father's Day, but there was no day off for these dads, so many of them, their professional lives intersecting at one moment, their lives about to change in 9.4 seconds, for good or for ill.
Late into the night, it was Robert Horry, on this day both father and son, who turned the NBA world on its ear, who seemed to turn back time. He scored all his 21 points in the final 18 minutes of regulation time and overtime, hitting the winning three-pointer with 5.8 seconds to go, to give his San Antonio Spurs an improbable 96-95 Game 5 win and a three-games-to-two lead in the NBA Finals.
And because of that, all the other fathers' lives shifted and changed like sand in a windstorm.
Horry's father, Robert Sr., was at the game, as was Horry's 6-year-old son, Robert Cameron.
"I've got the two important men in my life at this game," Horry said afterward. "I'm happy I was able to do this in front of them. My dad was like, 'You haven't given me but two [three-pointers] since I've been here. You need to give me more threes.' So I had to go out and knock a few down."
He made five three-pointers in six attempts.
Horry rarely talks about his older daughter, Ashlyn, who lives with Horry's wife, Keva, and his son in Houston. Ashlyn Horry has a neurological disorder that has rendered her speechless and unable to walk.
Do you wonder why Robert Horry doesn't take making or missing a big shot so seriously?
"My kids are still going to love me," he is fond of saying.
But Horry's shot made another father, Larry Brown, doggone near catatonic. Because of it, tonight's Game 6 may be the last time Brown coaches the Pistons. He says he wants to come back next season and coach in Detroit, but it may no longer be his choice.
The rumor that Brown already has committed to moving his family back to their friends in Philadelphia has persisted for weeks, regardless of whether he takes the Cleveland Cavaliers executive spot we've heard so much about. And his children - his son, L.J., and daughter Madison - are terribly important to Brown, who has adult daughters from a previous marriage.
"If I'm fortunate enough to keep doing this - because I do, in my mind, I still have the passion to do it - that would be great," Brown said Sunday. "And if I don't have the opportunity, I'll get to smell my kids and be around them a little bit more... . It will give me opportunities to not miss games and see my daughter skate or just hang out."
Horry's shot also made a chump of Rasheed Wallace. Wallace was guarding Horry, then inexplicably left him to double-team Manu Ginobili in the corner. It took Ginobili a nanosecond to throw the ball back to a wide-open Horry, Wallace's man.
Swish.
No one in the Detroit locker room had any explanation for what Wallace did.
One Pistons employee, in management, couldn't believe what he saw. There was, simply, no way Wallace could have misunderstood, with the Pistons ahead by two.
"Not in the Finals," he said in the hallway, 20 minutes after Horry's last shot found the bottom of the net. "Maybe in a regular-season game. But not in the Finals, not in the Finals, not in the Finals," the words certain to loop in his brain.
It will be hard to find in the reams of copy that will be dedicated in the coming days to branding him a fool - for it was a mindless play - but Wallace is a father, too. He has three boys and a girl.
The day before he decided to leave Horry, he decided to bring his children to a bowling fund-raiser in Detroit. He laughed with them and with - gasp - sportswriters, and lost more money than he won. And if you must know the truth, if there's a lockout, Rasheed Wallace wouldn't be all that broken up over it, because he could spend more time with his kids.
But that was the previous day, and in the present day, he had to explain just what in God's name he was thinking by leaving a guy nicknamed "Big Shot Bob."
"I just tried to double," Wallace said. "Basic defense."
And with that, Wallace was off into the night, defined for better or worse - likely worse, much worse. He was another father who had finished his shift and was ready to go home.