WORDS FROM W.W. May 14, 2019
When our basketball team from Judson College (Elgin, Illinois) played Olivet Nazarene College the result was usually painful! We had a small college All-American named Tom Randall and… eleven other guys who wore the same uniform! We weren’t very good!
For example, our center was short (six foot two inches), but he complimented his lack of size by not being able to jump or shoot! He did, however, make good use of his five fouls each game, and was usually sipping on a water bottle as he sat on the bench to watch the last eight to ten minutes.
We tried! Tried really hard before we were deep fried! Olivet Nazarene had already beaten us on our home court in January by about thirty…okay, 36! Now it was February, we had lost ten in a row, and had to go to their gym and play them again on a Saturday night.
“The Lion’s Den” as we called it was always jam-packed. A balcony with an iron railing ran around the entire gym and spectators hung on it as they yelled at the players of the visiting team. We cranked up the myth by talking about they would spit on us if we strayed to close to the edge of the court. We weren’t “moisturized”, mind you, but somehow it gave us an excuse for having our butts kicked up and down the court.
My senior year someone came up with an idea to help calm the nervous anxiety that made us play tentative. We would all get our hair done in Afros. Somehow it seemed like a good idea, like a dimwit getting a tattoo on his arm saying “I Love Betty”, but then having Betty dump him like a bad habit.
Afros! Most of us were whiter than angel food cake. Afros were not our identity or calling, but for one game, one night, we’d provide the Nazarene faithful with a sight that would cause mouths to drop open in amazement and horror
That morning several female classmates prepped our hair. The school yearbook has a picture of several of our teammates sitting at a lunch table, eating with hair adorned with bobby pins and curlers.
And so we hopped on the team bus and traveled south to Kankakee. I was a five foot eight inch shooting guard, but my Afro made me a sweet-looking 6’2” that game. I had it flowing as I ran up and down the court.
We played loose and carefree, like champions! It was the days before three point baskets, but we still were shooting long range jumpers. I hit three jumpers for six point that game and could feel the wind of the Tiger fans blowing through my hair as I sprinted from one end of the court to the other.
It was a sight and an adventure!
And another lop-sided loss! The final score caused cringing when it was relayed to our campus and the local newspaper, but, to us, it didn’t matter. We had risen to the occasion, played without fear, and, most of all, enjoyed having young ladies play with our hair for several hours that day.
Olivet Nazarene went on to winning our conference championship and playing in the small college national tournament while we went back to being students who also happened to play basketball.
And we knew…we knew…the Tiger players could only wish that a few college co-ed’s would play with their hair! They were too good to be able to look different! We, however, were bad enough to be allowed to do the unthinkable!
Words from WW Blog 