Blacksmoke and The Slave

Whoa! This article reminds me of a story from college. We were in an intramural basketball league where once a year our fraternity would play a friendly game against the black fraternity's basketball team. It had a very high turnout of both houses to watch the game and then we would go drinking until some awkward incident would happen then we would all go home until the following year.

In our house there was an elected position called "House Manager." If you won an election you were basically the fix-it bitch to 22 drunk, loud, and violent students. When something broke (which was always an "accident") we would yell for the HM to fix it. It was a bad job to have (although the HM proper never thought so.

One year we had a repeater. A House Manager that was good and calm and able to fix things himself. Dave would actually fix things within a week of them being broken. After a while we started calling him "Slave." Y'know as in "Slave, the hot water went out!" or "Slave, there are firework marks on the roof."

I think we all see where this is going. The drunk 30 or so spectators at the game did not. When Dave hit a big three pointer to bring us within 15 at half we all went crazy. After all, that was the closest we had ever been at half. We were on our feet chanting, "Slave! Slave! Slave!" Suddenly, one of the members of our house, probably a non-drinker, informed us that the "awkward moment" had come early this year. There was silence. The second half saw about 10 spectators from our side all pretending that we were yelling "Dave!"

Our teams were never good. We specifically had one team named "Blacksmoke" that was especially inept. We were so bad we stopped trying to win. In fact, we prided ourselves not on the game so much as the ability to pull off a play or two a game. Our big play had a name I cannot recall. It consisted of three of us doing a weave drill from the back court. Then Bubba (poster Raging Bulls) would attempt a between the legs pass to Killre who would promptly (if we were lucky) lob the ball at the basket from half court. No one could (or wanted to) defend it.

In the penultimate game of the season we found ourselves within two points with about a minute left. We called a timeout. On the sidelines there was a Blacksmoke vote. Should we try to win a game? It was a close vote so it was decided that we would try to win it but we would do so with our big play. "Killre," we spoke very sternly to him, "give us your word that you will try your hardest to sink the half court shot." He did.

The play was on! One member gave a little behind-the-back pass during the weave that was successful. We were getting cocky. After an amazing jump pass between the legs from Bubba, Killre got the ball at half court. Then Killre threw us for a loop. He grandma-shot the ball. You know when you shoot the ball underhand from between your legs? Yea, one of those. In teardropped in a perfect arc towards the hoop. So beautiful was the shot that the rest of the team watched the ball instead of rebounding or boxing out or well, playing. It bounced off the rim straight up. It came back down on the rim and went up, off the backboard, back on the the front rim and away from the basket. Missed.

At the opponents free throw line, our defensive specialist (he got winded running to play offense and we figured we were fine without him) lit up a cigarette and stared at Killre, "I thought you were going to try."

Two unrelated notes: you may remember a few weeks ago I did a little number on drinking games. Well check this one out. I would like to add: "Remembering the rules: 2 seconds."

Finally, I gotta enter the World Series of Poker. Just sit, fold weak hands, and take pictures.