We old athletes carry the disfigurements and markings of contests remembered only by us and no one else. Nothing is more lost than a forgotten game.

In sport the mind serves as the acolyte and apprentice of the body. Nothing interferes with the flow of the game more than the athlete who obsesses about his every move on the court. You move, you react, you recover, you drive, and the thinking is seamless and invisible in the secret codes of your game.

When we cuss each other out, call each other the vilest names on earth, and put each other down with thoughtless cruelty, it is the only way we know and the only language we have to express our ardent love for each other.

I bet they love those games on Friday night more than they do segregation.

If not for sports, I do not think my father would have ever talked to me.

Basketball allowed me to revere my father without him knowing what I was up to. I took up basketball as a form of homage and mimicry.