Compelled by the truth of Reggie Bush, Nina Simone and Toni Morrison, a former Clemson cornerback confronts the ghosts that come for all athletes
Imagine the little silver thing, instead of erasing your memories, it stores them. And the flash doesn't take away what you remember but gives you only a glimpse. And when you get that glimpse, that glimpse feels real and then it leaves and you are only left with a fragment or snapshot.
Then I remember riding in the ambulance. My right shoulder is swollen. The knots in my head are like the ridges of a mountain. I place my right hand to the back of my scalp and feel an open wound where my hair should be. I have to pee so bad."Am I going to be able to play football?" I ask the paramedic, sitting at my feet."Am I going to be able to play football?" I ask again. She smiles."That's the least of your worries," she says.
"Daddy, that's you?" my five-year-old son Asa asks one August day when he catches me watching it again."Yep," I say."I was himmmmmmmmm." Miles Davis'"Flamenco Sketches" plays a few minutes later. The song begins slow, like most blues do, a voyage into what James Baldwin calls"the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are." The upright bass drones a bit. The piano mimics a walk alongside, almost behind, the bass. The drummer hits the ride cymbal twice just before Miles' trumpet comes in.
The thing was, while our parents and pastors and teachers thought the problem was the boys and girls behind the songs,problem was the world their songs were speaking of. There was an adage I often heard as a young Black athlete in one of the Blackest and poorest and most determined areas in South Carolina.
There's another reality about Clemson that I'm not prepared for. The winters are dark. The wind blows steadily as the temperatures drop to a bitter shock. The stadium goes empty, and the talk of the town centers on the season before. After my freshman season, that talk is angry, as we lose 70-33 toin the Orange Bowl, the culmination of a season in which I take the field just twice, at the end of blowouts, its own kind of blur., 17, is shot dead in Sanford, Florida.
Of course, I hope he wins. Of course, I hope he gets his Heisman back and that the NCAA has to pay him millions, more, all of it. Of course.
I can hear the sounds of"wooooo" and"lehhhhgooo" and"it's time." I can taste the plastic of my mouthpiece. I can feel the tightened straps of the shoulder pads gripping my chest. I can feel my heart rate slowing down and then speeding up the closer we get to the hill. I can feel the warmth of the body of my teammate who sits next to me on the bus, both of us dreaming of what we were about to do and show and be.
This is how I tell the story now, because it's all I remember: I went to Clemson with dreams and ambition and heart and guts. I left Clemson with sadness and regret and motivation and will. I transferred to Western Carolina with dreams and ambition and heart and guts. I left Western Carolina with regret and anger and fear and sadness.
X, 1999, Zora Neale Hurston said,"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." Nineteen ninety-nine did both. I head out into the darkness, and begin mile 1 and then mile 2, listening to the sound of my breath and the beat of Marshmello's"Joytime II," wondering if this is just the lot of life: run, run, run, breathe, cry, run, remember, forget, run, run, run. I'm the only person in sight, just me, my thoughts, and my beating and broken heart. Mile 3 goes by and then 4 and then 5; I push through.
In 1986, two researchers from Emory University conducted a study that asked college students what they remembered about the day the Challenger exploded. The students were first asked a few days after: How did you hear it, where were you, what were you doing, who was with you, how did you feel? Two and half years later, the students were asked those questions again.
It's our magic, the power to defy a world that tries to limit our possibilities. A power that's traveled through time. A power that's changed the course of history. A power that's told it how we remember it, in the infinite imaginations of what we could become, the staggering awareness that, had it not been for grace or chance, we were made Black and beautiful and loud and proud. It's sacred. It's a wonder. It's a spiritual virtue. It's a verb. It's a noun.
"I don't know if I have," I say. I look at myself on the screen. My black Saints helmet rests on the bookshelf behind me, next to the medals hanging on the wall, alongside framed pictures of the"Big Four," as my son calls them: James Baldwin, Katie Cannon, James Cone and Toni Morrison."I came here to play ball and now I'm not and I'm just struggling with what to do," he says.
David was a former NFL receiver from South Carolina; he caught a touchdown pass from Tom Brady in the Super Bowl once. David was also my mentor. The first time we talked, he was 31, and I was 13; he took me under his wing, and gave me a dream of playing in the NFL, and massaged my head in the hospital after my accident, and got me believing again.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
Similar News:Vous pouvez également lire des articles d'actualité similaires à celui-ci que nous avons collectés auprès d'autres sources d'information.
At Least 14 Shot Friday into Saturday Night Across Mayor Brandon Johnson’s ChicagoSource of breaking news and analysis, insightful commentary and original reporting, curated and written specifically for the new generation of independent and conservative thinkers.
Lire la suite »
Mesa County deputies shot man Friday nightA critical incident response team is investigating an officer-involved shooting from Mesa County.
Lire la suite »
Namor Cosplay Recreates Wakanda Forever's Anti-Villain In Vibrant DetailAn MCU fan has put together a striking take on the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever anti-villain, Namor, complete with vibrant foam accessories.
Lire la suite »
Eagles' Jalen Hurts, Dolphins' Tua Tagovailoa forever linked, forge respect for tenure at AlabamaHurts and Tagovailoa, who go head-to-head for the first time in the NFL, will forever be linked by their tenures under coach Nick Saban at Alabama.
Lire la suite »
War hero's plane parts unearthed 80 years later, gifted to museum and familyA war hero will forever be memorialized by an air museum in Portland, Maine.
Lire la suite »