Fast Break (Part 2)

The score is 27-7 and there is less than a minute left in the first period. The Elks are killing their arch rival, the Loggers, and exactly one person in the stands loves it when animal-themed mascots (such as Otters, Gulls, Bears, Wolves, Banana Slugs or Beavers (!) crush human-themed mascots (such as Fishermen, Crusaders, Cheesemakers, Generals, Pioneers or Engineers) in an athletic competition.

That one person is a writer on the road researching a book about Oregon's homeless crisis. Why is he here, in this particular obscure place? It was random. He just opened a map of Oregon, placed it on the floor, and then tossed a penny into the air. It landed, spun around, then dropped on this river town with its dead lumber mill, dilapidated high school, its dinky gymnasium supported by massive beams the size of busses, and ungrammatical mascot primarily known for its antlers and that it segregated itself by gender until rutting season. (Human beings should consider this arrangement.) He wanted to see if there was any homeless living in this rural town, whose citizens loathed liberal Portland and its homeless losers living in squalor.

Of course there were homeless in this rural town. About two dozen were living in tents, shanties and 90s sedans down by the river, fucking around with meth and booze, or working at the convenience stores. One of the churches (there were11 total) fed them a sack lunch once a week and that was it for Christianity. Can't coddle these “undesirables,” as the Mayor said at city council meeting. He wanted to pass an ordinance banning the church from handing out the lunches, but someone reminded him of the First Amendment.

The writer is in the stands because he has nothing to do this Friday night and he'd found a decent motel with a room that overlooked the river and the encampment. He'd been watching the encampment from the balcony with his binoculars all afternoon and seen all sorts of strange sights, such a two men playing foos ball, another man sleeping in an igloo-shaped doghouse, and a woman throwing darts at a dartboard and missing every single time with the darts splashing tip first in the river, a bullseye every time.

He arrives at the gym right after the tip-off, sits down on the bleachers across from the scorer's table, takes a sliver in his right palm, munches on some popcorn, and prepares to take some notes for his book. A minute later, he sets down his notebook, watches the game, and cannot believe the basketball he is seeing.

Here is what he is watching: the moving manifestation and perfect execution of Jack Ramsay's fast break offense, the very offense that he employed to coach the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977 to their only NBA championship. The writer could not believe it because the offense had long gone extinct at every level of basketball, male and female, thanks to the popularity of three-point shooting, which computers had figured out was a more efficient way to score and thus, win games. No kid or adult wanted to run the floor and shoot a layup anymore. They wanted to fire away from behind the arc and show off their 25-30-percent shooting prowess all over social media platforms.

It is absolutely the most boring basketball ever played, and that includes even the pre shot clock, Dean Smith, four-corners offense.

The writer wonders how in the world the fast break offense he is witnessing with utter astonishment could have possibly landed and rooted in this Oregon backwater. He also speculates the Elks are the only basketball team in the world running a fast break offense.

Somehow the coach knew of Jack Ramsay's offense, the history of the Trail Blazers' legendary team featuring Bill Walton that defeated the Philadelphia 76ers and their superstar, Dr. J. The Blazers were a team like no other in the history of the NBA. They played a coordinated, unselfish, ego-free style of fast break basketball in the era of the one-on-one, run and gun, shake and bake, playground game.

The Blazers ran and ran and ran. They ran 3 on 1, 2 on 1, 3 on 2, 4 on 3, it didn't matter. It was about continuous motion, good execution, a relentless attack. They passed. A rebound and outlet pass or blocked shot that led to an easy score was just as valued as the score itself. They flowed. They knew their roles and relished their specialties. They also had the last player in the history of the NBA to wear Chuck Taylor's (guess who?) in the playoffs and the last team to have two vegetarians in their starting five.

Somehow, this coach, who's an English teacher, and wearing checkered slacks and a tan corduroy blazer on the sideline, and whom the writer feels is probably in his mid 50s, did the impossible. He convinced his players to run an ancient fast break offense and not in some weird act of nostalgia replete with tube socks, sweat bands and tight short shorts. They were still modern kids who did the same narcissistic things with their phones as city kids, as well as adults in all regions across the country.

Yes, the coach had somehow convinced them to buy into this throwback cooperative offense in the Great Age of American Individuality because it worked and worked without fanfare. Individualists can't abide that.

You know, it needs to be stated here: it's actually more fun to work successfully together at some endeavor than it is working alone. It's called collaboration. One sometimes wishes Thoreau would have written about the merits of collaboration, but then again, perhaps that's what Walden is really all about—successful collaboration with nature. The coach often raised that point to his students when he had them read passages from Walden on their phones when they were hiking in the woods behind the high school. Then he'd teach the concept of irony by highlighting they were reading Walden on their phones in the woods and it was written by one of the greatest anti-technology Americans of all time. Double irony. STOP! Feel that rumble beneath you! That's Henry writhing in his grave. The triple irony, the coach also taught, was that Thoreau's fierce and uniquely American individualism as espoused in his writings, had been hideously warped by the forces of greed and social media into a sinister and self righteous narcissism that threatened to destroy American civilization from within, and generate colossal profits in the destruction.

And to think: the 5' 7,” wiry, wilderness-tested, pencil mad, Thoreau would have performed so incredibly well as a scrappy, hustling point guard for the Elks. He would have routinely posted statistical lines such as: 10 points, 18 assists, five rebounds, eight steals. Now that's a stat line to help the greater good.

The writer would love to see the coach expound on the philosophy of collaboration and cooperation and the needs of the many versus the needed of the few in practice! He also wonders if the players took those lessons home and discussed them with their parents, most of whom had lost all notions of cooperating for the civic good but sure worshiped a mindless freedom that was ripping the country apart.

That fast break offense! Surely, the writer thinks, the coach must have read Ramsay's strange and rare book, The Coach's Art, published in 1978, with its sentences like: “A great team playing within itself, playing with control and purpose, is beautiful to watch. Good play seems almost effortless. Five separate wills blended into a single whole playing with one purpose—to win, yes, but by playing its own game in which it believes.”

Or this one: “Success in the fast break game I coach requires good rebounding, sharp outlet passing, deft ball handling, quick land filling, accurate shooting, and great speed getting down the floor.”

Yes, the coach must have read it and committed it to memory. How he had come to find the book was a total mystery, unless someone asked him No one ever had.

He also probably showed his players Fast Break, the cosmic and cult film documentary of that triumphant Championship season and its far out aftermath. Fast Break is only the greatest stoner, Zen Buddhist, cloud nine, sports documentary of all time and opens with a stoned Bill Walton down by a salmon-choked river explaining the concept of playing perfect groovy basketball, team-oriented socialist basketball. There's animated butterflies in it, too!

And the coach also probably told his team how close the Portland Trail Blazers came to becoming only the second publicly-owned (i.e. socialist) professional sports franchise in American history. A public stock offering was almost held to raise the required $3.7 million fee to join the NBA, but at the last minute, private California money stepped in with the dough. It was soooooooo close. (FYI: The Green Bay Packers are still the only publicly-owned professional sports franchise in the country, quite possibly the world.)

All of these things the writer knew about the Portland Trail Blazers and their 1977 Championship season because he was the nation's leading authority on the subject and because he knew there would never be another team like that one in the history of American professional sports and that greatly saddened him. The unselfish ethos demonstrated by that red hot and rollin' team was one that had the ability to transform every aspect of a deeply selfish American society. The 76ers may have lost that series but their ethos eventually prevailed, only no pundit calls it one-on-one anymore.

You need evidence of this? Simply watch any basketball or football game played at any level and observe players pointing to themselves after every accomplishment, routine or not, and asking the crowd to notice them, worship them.