1. I spent a lot of time today writing capsule accounts of great things I got to do with Terry Turner because of our friendship and Denny Crum being his brother. I texted some more with Terry. I am a very lucky guy.
2. Debbie returned home as soon as she could from school this afternoon, walked in the door, and went straight to bed. She had to return to school around 5:30 in order to organize her students for a short music concert all the school's children gave. She returned home again around 7:00 or so. I fixed her one rye whiskey, fresh squeezed orange juice, Cointreau, and fresh squeezed lemon juice cocktail and once she slowly finished it, Debbie went right back to bed.
3. Byrdman sent me a link to a documentary film about 30 minutes long telling the story of Detroit basketball legend, Curtis Jones. Curtis Jones played at North Idaho College (then NI Junior College) and Dad and I saw him play at the end of the 1968-69 season in Coeur d'Alene.
The game matched NI(J)C against junior/community college powerhouse College of Southern Idaho.
I was in the ninth grade.
I'd never seen a basketball player like Curtis Jones. He was quick. He was fast. He had surreal peripheral vision -- it was literally as if he had eyes in the back of his head. He was a pass first, shoot second point guard with extraordinary ability to penetrate the key and make perfectly timed passes to teammates. His favorite target was a leaper named Rob Young.
CSI was long and strong. Their center was 7 footer who later played at Creighton and Long Beach named Nate Stevens. They had a rugged power forward who later played at Drake named Tom Bush. Their best guard was from Central Valley High in Spokane Valley, named Ron Adams, and he later played at the U of Idaho.
If I didn't understand before how quickness, speed, and precision passing could overcome size and strength in a basketball game, I sure learned it that night.
With their quickness and the magic of Curtis Jones wheeling and dealing the rock, NIC defeated CSI that night in one of the most thrilling basketball games I had and have ever seen.
The Curtis Jones story, however, was a terrible one.
Curtis Jones was illiterate.
The schools he attended in Detroit passed him along and for nearly two years he figured out ways to fool his instructors at North Idaho Junior College.
In the end, though, because he couldn't read or write, he never played college basketball again after his stint at NI(J)C.
He returned to Detroit, was a legend playing in rat ball games featuring Dave Bing and other Detroit superstars, but he lived out his short life unemployed, supported in his family home by his mother.
If you'd like to watch this short film, Fouled Out, here's the link: https://bit.ly/3pzxZ82
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