The Game is Not a Game by Jackson Robert Scoop;

Author:Jackson, Robert Scoop;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2020-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

ILLMATIC

The NCAA’s Fraud Perfection (A Novella)

A boy is born. In Hardtime, Mississippi.

Surrounded by a family not so pretty, a dollar and a dream. That dream? To be the next LeBron James, Baker Mayfield, or Hunter Greene. His Moms, still a teenager. Seventeen years younger than his grandmother. Got all his dad’s features but not his last name. Kid’s got big hands and feet for a newborn. The doctor notices. Labels the child before the umbilical cord is cut. “This kid’s going to be an athlete” are the next words out of the doctor’s mouth after he tells his patient that she has a boy. Predestined, predetermined, predicted.

The Mississippi life is no joke. Never has been. But for those that live it, it is what it is and it is what they make it. Jimmy Crowe (the kid’s name, no relation to Russell) lives that life. Grade school prodigy, high school phenom. Every SEC school wants him, damn near every coach has been to his house. Rich white families want to adopt him, richer shoe companies want to sign him. Both know that’s totally not possible, but it doesn’t hurt either from getting to “know” him.

Jimmy has no blindside. Nothing surprises him, nothing sneaks up on him. He has a capacity to soak up knowledge that is opposite of the stereotype placed on athletes who come from where he does. At an early age Jimmy opened a book and he liked it. Still Jimmy only saw one way out. Again, he knew others existed, but he only saw one. He only heard one. No one redirected his path, the one in their minds that God had planned for him. Him and them.

His life and the lives of those around him reflect Nas’s first-verse lyrics on “Echo,” just without the NYQB backdrop. Black and bleak, not bad or bougie. But still fulfilled. Everything Jimmy has comes from inside. Heart, warmth, spirit, soul. A good place. His friends call him “Chidi.” He’s dropping twenty-nine points per game. His team is ranked number three in the nation. At six-feet-seven and 228 pounds, the Baby LeBron comparisons are regular.

On selection day, he squashes a Kentucky New Era over his oversized twisted textured ’fro. Coach Cal had gotten to him in a way none of the other coaches had. Told him things he not only believed but knew would come true. Things he knew he could make happen without people at the school claiming, once he became an NBA star, they’d made them—or allowed them to—happen for him. The Mississippi grind that was Jimmy’s life outside of ball fostered a foundation of independence and severe self-sufficiency. To Jimmy, accepting a scholarship to play ball was a means to his endgame. He was taking advantage of them; they were taking advantage of him. One hand washes the other. Except they had more soap.

He wanted to keep it in the South, keep it close to home, to what he knew, to what he could control. Hardtime, Mississippi, remember, it never leaves one’s bloodstream.

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