The White Shadow: 2009

It was like an episode from that CBS drama "The White Shadow." Remember? The caucasian guy coaches the all-black high school basketball team?

The difference here was that my 13-year-old son was the only caucasian on an all-black AAU basketball team coached by four black men. They played in a tournament up in northern Sacramento and southern Placer County -- in the Rocklin, Roseville area.

Things were cool playing at Foothill High just off I-80, not far from the ghetto that stands where McClellan Air Force Base once stood proudly. It's a mixed-race area and the only racial delineation came on the court where 10 white kids from Rocklin ran and passed circles around my kid's team.

The little kids on my son's team are told to do one thing and one thing only when they get the ball, "Push it! PUUUUUUSH it! Run! Faster!" Great concept, but lack of body control and plan really makes the balls-out fastbreak problematic. Then, on defense, they press -- for 32 minutes. They're a quick, scrappy bunch but, again, lack of body control and an incredibly well coached team from Rocklin routinely beat the press without the ball ever touching the court...pass...pass...pass...layup! Impressive.

My son looked like Shaquille O'Neal out there. He's 5-foot-1, 155 pounds and he's gone through puberty...he's going through the tail end right now. When he was in the game, it just didn't look right. Everything changed. He seemed too strong and seemed like he got too much higher than the other kids. Not in a good way, either, it got me to thinking because...my son should never, not for one second, dominate a basketball game involving kids his age.

Ah, then I remembered...the guy who recruited him hemmed and hawed about ages and birthdates and said, "Oh, every team has one or two bigger, older kids." My son's a seventh grader. The Rocklin team plays in the sixth-grade division.

"He's illegal," the coach said, thus explaining why my son looked like he was so much bigger, stronger and older.

It didn't matter if he was a year too old, the team's not very good. So, they headed for Rocklin -- an affluent, almost solely white enclave just off I-80. It's a sea of cookie-cutter homes, in sparkling new subdivisions. Rocklin High School is beautiful and clean and ... it's not like Fairfield or any school in Fairfield.

The Warriors played another well-coached bunch of white kids. I got to see why, sadly, normally clear-thinking white folks are put off by equally well-intentioned black folks. There's a societal difference -- we're all just people, but...we're different in how we communicate and how we, oh, cheer at a kids basketball game.

The black folks, and their kids, cheered and played like teams from inner-city black neighborhoods. The coaches yelled a lot, and really loud, and the kids couldn't understand them. They knew, "Push it!" and "Pressure!" That was it.

What comes off as everyday speak between the coaches and kids sounds really harsh to the people who live in Rocklin or Lincoln or Auburn, you know?

Hey, we all speak some form of broken English. Bloggers have made broken English into a writing style. But, when the Rocklin fans heard the coach shout, "C'mon, use your head! Come over and sit on the bench. You're not giving full effort," it came out sounding like:

"What'chew doin' out there! Git yo'self on the bench where you belong! You ain't even tryin'!"

And, it echoed in the gym.

Parents in the stands shouted advice to my son. "Get your arms up. You're so big ... can't nobody get the ball from you!" (But, can't always get that ball and hold on to it when you haven't played much basketball either.) I got the distinct impression that my Fairfield-based peers feel that every kid on their team should know how to play basketball and should play it well. And, they seemed to give the white kids (yeesh, I know this sounds racist) no credit for moving the ball around, being dead-eye shooters and playing a disciplined brand of basketball that some high school teams couldn't manage. (When you pay $1,000 to get your kid good coaching...you get really good coaching.)

The poor little point guard from Fairfield felt he'd been fouled...a lot. When his dad finished hollering at him and the lady behind me finished shouting that her son, "Needs his minutes" -- the kid stormed off the floor and blurted, "This is bullshit!"

The fans from Placer County let out an audible gasp. It didn't phase me or my son. We curse, er, I curse around him and he's heard and said every curse word imaginable. Yet...he's an honor student, so...go figure.

I just knew those affluent, white adults were thinking, "Typical! That's why I moved out of the city! Those people are ..." Then they added what they think minorities in general, and blacks specifically, are doing to society.

They're making it ... more colorful. They're no different and it pissed me off thinking the people looked down on them.

Then, after a huge loss, the coaches did a deal that you would see in a Will Ferrell movie, or maybe something where Jonah Hill plays a team manager. The kids were all sitting on the curb, tired and defeated...and a father who likes amazingly like the comic Cedric the Entertainer started talking...and, I've heard him talk...he's a really bright, articulate man. He explained the basketball team's offense to me and I couldn't have understood every word more clearly. Somehow, though, in front of all those kids in public...he started shouting things like, "Lemme' axe you sumthin'..." and, "Ya gotstuh' represent Fairfield" and...other stuff white kids in Placer County say to emulate the black kids in Fairfield who, once they hit high school dominate the teams from Placer County.

My son might never been in a team meeting where's urged to "represent," but those Placer parents will hear another coach talk to another group of players and completely misunderstand everything they hear.

I think basketball in the inner city is a bit of a lifestyle choice, maybe an avenue out of bad times. If my son's see an NBA game...they see hope and they see heroes...they only see guys who look like them. You know? We have a black president, but it's going to take time for sixth-grade kids to start aspiring to become Barack Obama. They will, some do now, but it'll take time. For now, they all want to be Kobe and LeBron -- and their parents are digging the idea.

So, basketball's just another game...another activity to the folks in Placer County. It's a lifestyle...it's THE game...to the folks who run with the Warriors.

It's too bad we judge each other without knowing each other.

It's also too bad I sort of expect my son to follow the rules and that, thus, his time with the Warriors was brief. There's no misjudging breaking the rules in youth sports.