An All American Boy

An All American Boy

I guess it must have been about 1951 or 1952 when I had my chance to achieve basketball glory.   I was in my Junior year at Lowell High School in San Francisco at the time. Lowell, still in the "Old Brick Pile" on Stanyan Street, was what was known as a "college-prep" school. There were no shop classes, just college-prep classes. No shop classes, and no football team. Oh, we fielded a team alright, but we were never very good. We were a basketball powerhouse, though. That suited me to the ground because I was a basketball fanatic.

I was sure that I was going to make the varsity soon, though I still hadn't manage to advance beyond the Junior Varsity. It was going to be, first, varsity, and then on to play in college, and maybe even in the AAU. I practiced every day. My Dad had built a basketball hoop in our driveway. Every afternoon I shot hundreds of shots. This year was going to be MY year. I was sure of it. I was undeterred by the fact that I was only 5'8" at the time and pretty uncoordinated. I was going to make up for my obvious shortcomings with zeal: zeal and dedication. 

On weekends I'd bike around the city looking for pickup games. One of my favorite places, not to far from my home in Ingleside, was the City College of San Francisco gymnasium down at the end of Ocean Avenue.

The basketball coach at CCSF opened the gym on Saturdays for pick-up basketball. Basketball players from every high school and junior high school in the city showed up there to take on everyone else in 3 on 3 basketball games, first team to 21 won. The unwritten rules were that if your team won, you stayed on the court for another game. If you lost you were off the court and had to take your place at the end of the queue of teams waiting to play. If you won two in a row you had to leave anyway so that one super strong team couldn't monopolize the floor for the whole day. It was fun, and it was pretty good basketball, too. 

Sitting out wasn't so bad either because the stands were usually full of the player's girl friends or other high school girls scouting out the basketball players. There were always other guys from Lowell there too. Like I said, Lowell was a basketball school and we had a lot of good players who loved the game almost as much as I did. 

One Saturday I showed up as usual and found the stands buzzing. George "Bird" Yardley had showed up to play a few games. "George Who?", I hear you think. Understandable. After all, this all took place about 70 years ago and I doubt that many of you will have ever even heard of George Yardley.

George "Bird" Yardley: All-American

George Yardley was an All-American basketball player from Stanford. He'd just graduated, I think, and was probably on the verge of joining the AAU team, the Stewart's Chevrolets, that he led to a national championship. Later he'd go on to play for the Detroit Pistons and eventually be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. In 1951 (or maybe it was 1952) he must have been just out of Stanford and looking for some basketball action. Whatever the reason, there he was, playing at CCSF on a Saturday.

He was a fairly tall - about 6'4" or 6'5" - but really skinny guy. He'd more or less invented the "turn around jumpshot" and was a scoring machine. Everyone was excited to see him play, and as chance would have it, eventually I found myself on a team trotting out on the court to play his team. 

I was really conscious of all the eyes in the stands. I was also determined that I wasn't going to be intimidated. I wasn't going to be made to look foolish.  I was going to play the game of my life and we were going to beat George Yardley, All-American. If we could pull that off it would show me that I was destined for bigger things on the basketball court.

For some reason I was assigned the task of guarding George Yardley himself, and I took on the task with a vengeance. I became an irritant. I swarmed around Yardley like a demented mosquito. I pushed him, I pulled him, I tried to step on his toes. Every time he went to take a shot I was in his face, every time he went to get a rebound I was there trying to block him out, elbowing him and backing into him. 

He didn't say anything; he just went on scoring jumpshot after jumpshot. I was getting a little irritated: he was making me look pretty feeble. But then my opportunity came. Someone took a shot and missed, but it was one of those freakish misses that bounces off the rim of the basket and goes straight up in the air and then straight down again. This was my chance, my chance at redemption, my opportunity to show everyone that one day I might be an All-American too.

I got the inside position on Yardley. I backed into him, pushing him away from the basket, and I crouched to take the biggest jump of my life. I was determined to jump higher than I'd ever jumped before. I was going to get the ball come what may. I timed my leap to perfection. I sprang off the floor like a leopard. Up, up, I soared. 

"Ha," I exulted to myself, "I've got you THIS time, Mr All-American."

George Yardley didn't even jump. He just waited until I went soaring into space and as I jumped he hooked his index fingers in the elastic waistband of my basketball shorts. I was at the pinnacle of my all-time jump when I realized that, for some reason, my shorts were now down around  my ankles and I was soaring clad only, in a Bicyle brand jock strap. 

I actually caught the ball, but it didn't matter. When I came down my shorts were around my ankles and as I tried to catch my balance I took a step and down I went. The basketball went flying and George Yardley corralled it and scored a basket. I realized pretty quickly that that was why he was an All-American and I wasn't, but it still seemed like a dirty trick.

The laughter from the stands, amplified in the huge cavern of the gym sounded louder than a waterfall. 

I pulled up my shorts, collected my jacket and my gym bag, and left. I didn't go back for about three weeks, but it was no use, anyone who'd been there for my "pantsing" hadn't forgotten. Even people who hadn't been there for my "denouement" had heard about it. I just had to grin and bear it.

Strangely, I became a George Yardley fan, and whenever he was playing for "Stewarts", or later when the Piston's played anywhere in the area, I was usually in the stands. 

I never got to be an All-American, but I competed against one once.