Do you care about basketball? If you're reading my blog, you probably like playing it, but would rather listen to me ramble on about Russian poetry than watch five minutes of NBA basketball. One of these days, you might get interested in caring about what goes on the court, but pro ball is much bigger the Rose Garden, Madison Square Garden, or any other piece of flowery hardwood. There're also dreams and desires at work. Not the players' desires, they've got it made, but the dreams of the kids watching them. Specifically, black kids coming from the wrong sides of the tracks. The borderline geniuses of Free Darko (if you don't believe me, read this) have a great post about these kids. It's probably the best thing I've ever read on any blog about any topic. Here's an excerpt:

"For so many of the kids I taught, dreams of basketball and dreams of college were mutually exclusive. For those convinced that a life of fame and wealth on the court awaited them, seeking higher education was construed at best, as irrelevant, and at worst, as an indication that they had failed in their quest to reach the league as soon as possible. I’m not sure that any amount of rational discourse might have persuaded these kids to find an alternate dream, and maybe the fact that I couldn’t bring myself to try indicated a failing on my part as well, but dreams of future success didn’t vary much in Indianola, Mississippi; almost no 7th grade boy aspires to be a young black doctor, lawyer, or entrepreneur because he’s never seen one and has been inundated with subtle and overt cues, practically from birth, that he can never become one."

The writer is in favor of the new restrictions against high schoolers jumping to the NBA without first going to college. This is a heated issue, as some people have declared to be racist. But this has more than a "human angle" to a story; this gives the issue a soul. There's so much more than incredibly small number of athletes getting to the top of the world a year early. This is about kids who are being told they can't succeed except by making it to the big leagues.

This problem isn't restricted to Mississippi. Portland may be one of the whitest cities in the world, but still I'm clueless in how I can take four class at Portland State, and have the grand total of 3 black classmates, and one of those being from Africa. At PSU black=athlete and athlete=black, so there's definately happening well before the college years.

I'm grateful for FreeDarko's post, and for David Stern's efforts to encourage kids, especially black students, to look beyond basketball and to dream about college.