#151. Riotless High School Basketball Games

A previous entry pontificated upon Black people and their love of rioting. Black people do not like to be out-rioted.

Black people love basketball as the sport offers the chance for Black people to showcase their running, jumping and ball handling skills to audiences large or small. From the Harlem Globetrotters to the any National Basketball Association (NBA) team on down to most National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) teams, Black people have long been the majority of the players competing in the games.

Basketball is a simple game with an uncomplicated concept: get the ball in the basket and deny your opponent that same goal. Black people, who some say have a genetic advantage in running and jumping - which might correlate to their numeric superiority in the NBA and NCAA - have been able to perform this task since the days of Bill Russell, Dr. J, Michael Jordan, etc. With the occasional white anomaly thrown in, such as Larry Bird or Brent Barry (more on him later).

Black people however, love to conjure up memories of their high school basketball playing days, as it is well known any person of color played and excelled in basketball in high school. All Black people at one point in their lives played and bested other people at basketball and were it not for an unfortunate injury or not making the grades, more Black people would be in college playing basketball.

Take for instance the popular show, The Office. In season one, Michael Scott (played by a funny white comedian, Steve Carell) gets a basketball game going and immediately puts the corpulent - and only Black guy in the office - Stanley as one of his starting five:

Michael: Ok, let’s put together a starting lineup shall we? Stanley…of course.
Stanley: I’m sorry?
Michael: What do you play, center?
Stanley: Why “of course”? What’s that supposed to mean?
Michael: I don’t know. I don’t remember saying that…
Jim: I heard it.
Michael: Well people hear a lot of things man. Um…other starters…me, of course! I heard it that time.

The moral of this story: never assume Black people are great at basketball, although the empirical evidence would lead to that conclusion.

All Black people fondly remember their high school basketball playing days, more vividly than even Uncle Rico did his glory years of throwing the pigskin over the mountains in Napoleon Dynamite. Thus, the reasoning behind one of the most spectacularly documented riots in Montgomery history, all because Black people wanted to recall their high school playing days.

During a game in 2008 between G.W. Carver and Valley - two nearly all-Black schools in Alabama - a massive fight broke out between the two teams and thousands of Black people in attendance:

"With 6:23 remaining in the fourth quarter and a 52-37 lead over Valley, Carver was on its way to a lopsided win.

Carver players rushed the court as fans poured over the stand onto the court. Carver players entered the melee, as more fans rushed the court to get into the fight.

The result was an hour-long delay, the arrest of several participants and a Valley forfeit.

Once things on the court were calmed, the fighting continued in the stands. At three separate intervals, fights ensued after the on-court fight ended."

Another story reported that:

"Kenneth Mullinax, Director of University Relations for Alabama State University, said "...no one was hurt. We had some over enthusiastic high school fans who got involved in an altercation..."Over enthusiastic" might be an understatement to describe the scene, as WSFA 12 News cameras captured video of players and fans being repeatedly kicked, punched and shoved throughout the event...While the exact number of police officers and security guards is unknown, video shows a scene in which officers struggled to regain control of the spiraling situation, some even appearing to give up and step back as fans in the audience rioted."

A previous entry delineated the well-known fact that Black people don't like to be out-rioted. This factoid can be carried over to High School basketball games, as all Black people fantasize about returning to the court, lacing up their Air Jordan's and playing ball one more time.

Thus, the reasoning behind Riotless Highschool Basketball Games being yet another entry in Stuff Black People Don't like.