Killer Crossover, page 2
I remember one game during the 1990–91 season with Golden State, the team that drafted me. It was a Friday, December 7, against my idol, Isiah Thomas, the reigning two-time champ and future Hall of Fame point guard. He and I both grew up in Chicago, but he was five years older. I used to watch his high school games and pattern myself after him. Well, in Oakland that night, his Detroit Pistons were visiting my Warriors, and I had to give him something.
When I got to the league, Isiah used to let me come to his Detroit home when the Warriors played his Pistons. We would eat penne pasta together. I would say, “I don’t expect you to take it easy on me tonight.” He would nod and give that famous big, bright smile. So, when his team was in Oakland just a few weeks before Christmas, I gave him a gift of my own. During the game, Isiah took a shot from the top of the key and missed it.
Mitch got the rebound and passed me the outlet. I dribbled it up the court and Isiah picked me up. Quickly, I went behind my back and took him to the right side of the floor, near the baseline. Then I dribbled the ball back out close to the three-point arc, waited a moment, then put the ball between my legs with a hard dribble left. Isiah followed me that way, but I put another quick dribble on him that I was by him before he could process.
After I scored over the big Pistons center Bill Laimbeer, I ran back on defense. “He left Isiah just nailed to the floor!” the television announcer shouted. When you’re playing against a guy you idolized growing up, who you patterned your game after, and you can give him a move like that, it’s real special. Just months later, at the end of the season as we faced the Lakers in xxiithe playoffs, Magic blessed me with The Killer Crossover name. And the rest is history.
Where I grew up in Chicago, it gets so windy on the outdoor courts that you have to develop a good handle. Jump shots weren’t always possible in the elements, so you had to be a good one-on-one player and score at the rim when the wind wouldn’t let you shoot. In college, people knew I had moves, but they didn’t have a name for them. But ever since Magic, folks in El Paso at my alma mater started to take notice and invented their own term: the “UTEP Two-Step.”
I remember one especially hard practice at UTEP when we didn’t even shoot the ball, we just did defensive drills. But afterward, exhausted, I played one-on-one against a teammate. I don’t want to call him out of his name, but he was a long, 6-foot-4 guy who could really defend. In that matchup, I crossed him up so hard and got to the rim, dunking the ball. That’s when a custodian on the other side of the gym—we didn’t even know he was there—let out a real loud, “Ooooooo! Where did That come from?”
The seeds were planted then. And I can still see that custodian’s face. Shocked and proud of me. But even then, I didn’t think a lot about it. It took time to marinate. During my NBA career, I’ve hit game-winning buzzer-beaters. I’ve matched up with Michael Jordan. I won an Olympic gold medal. But it’s that crossover sums my career up best. It’s what I’m remembered for. It shows my will and my killer instinct, all of which were born from how I grew up in Chicago.
But when Magic gave out that scouting report, people paid even closer attention. An All-Star already, he allowed me to grow. And my reputation continued in Miami with guys like Pat xxiiiRiley and Alonzo Mourning. But I’ve had plenty of hard times, too (some even self-inflicted). I’ve gone through a lot and had to adapt over the course of my life. In that way, the crossover really resonates. This extreme move from one side to the other, that’s always been the way for me.
1
1 Donald and Gwendolyn Hardaway
My father Donald Hardaway was a playground legend in Chicago, the city where I grew up. Every weekend, he’d go from park to park with his guys and outduel whatever challengers they found. Often, I’d go with him, even as a little kid. I’d watch them dismantle the other players. My dad was a six-foot-four center who bested guys much bigger than he was. He could rebound with anyone, score on whomever. My dad, who was known around the courts as “Duck,” told me something important early on about the game. “There are no positions on the court,” he said. “You want to play with the big guys? You better bust your ass in the paint and play hard.”
He might play in three or four games on a single Saturday. It would start at 10:30 a.m. and he’d be done by 5 or 6 p.m. Then he’d go out and hang with friends. As I got older, whenever anyone would talk about him, they’d say, “He’s a bad boy, Tim,” meaning he had immense skill on the court and was feared. 2Wherever they thought the best game was, they’d go out there to prove dominance. He and his guys were the best street players in the entire city. It was like that movie White Men Can’t Jump. They’d play in tournaments, parks, indoors, outdoors, and kick ass. They’d take your money and your spirit. But my dad was feared in other ways, too.
My dad was an alcoholic. He liked vodka best, but would drink it all. And he would beat my ass almost as often as we’d play pickup. When you grow up in a household like that, fear is everywhere. My brother and I feared him, though my mother feared him most. She was a small woman, and he would beat her to the point where she had to call the police. But it was a different time back then. The term “domestic violence” wasn’t in anyone’s vocabulary. And the cops didn’t help. That was how it was in the ’60s and ’70s—especially in my neighborhood. I remember this one woman from down the street. Her husband would beat on her so bad that she ended up shooting him dead. As they questioned her about it, she said she’d gone to the cops enough times that she had to take matters into her own hands. She couldn’t take it anymore. And she got off with no trial.
Life was hard in Chicago back then, for us and for everyone in the neighborhood where we lived. But as long as I can remember, I had basketball to turn to. Born on September 1, 1966, my dad put a ball in my hand back when I was just four months old. All I could do at first was roll it back and forth. I started walking before I turned a year old, and so I’d stand and pass the ball (or roll it) to whomever was around, and they’d pass it back to me over and over.
When my father took me around to the city courts, I’d sit on the ball and watch. During time outs, I’d roll it out there. And if 3he told me not to, I’d just keep sitting on it and stay on the sidelines. I learned the game by watching him. He told me to play wherever I wanted to, but if I wanted to be a big man, I’d have to do what big men did: rebound. Be nasty. Push, shove down low. Learn how to maneuver among the trees. Learn how to set a pick, learn how to roll. “A center can be a point guard if he wants to,” he told me. This was before Magic Johnson hit the league. “If you want to dribble up and down, make good decisions.”
Duck was a force. The opposite of flashy. He could dunk on people with either hand. He played down low, was bulky and did the dirty things. His buddies said that no one could budge him. He was the rebound king. Later, when I was in grammar school, my coach would teach me the fundamentals. But I learned about attitude from my dad. And when I got old enough, I would go out onto the courts and work on it by myself. I learned how to be tough with the ball. In pickup games, I learned how to thrive in structure-less basketball and then took those lessons to the structured games later in life. The playground influenced everything I did.
* * *
Dad was a truck driver. My mother, Gwendolyn, worked for the city government. They met way back at a mutual friend’s house during a small get-together. Six years after I was born, they had another son, my younger brother, Donald, who I always tried to look out for growing up. Our house was on the southeast side of Chicago, in the South Shore area of the city. It was a normal household, as far as I knew—including the violence. But as I got older, I would leave as often as I could to play around the city, 4from Hyde Park to Pocket Town (those parks can either build or snatch your confidence). I played at the West Side, North Side, wherever there was a good game.
My dad was hard to deal with because of his alcoholism. He was a tough and brutal man. When he came into the house, we would have to walk on eggshells. He wasn’t drunk all the time, but when he got that way, coming back from work or after playing ball with his friends, it was difficult for the rest of the family. You had to be church mouse quiet. Couldn’t say nothing. It was like that for as far back as I can remember. When he came through that door, we were scared. Didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. We didn’t want him to get upset. It was really tough— especially on my mother.
She worked during the day in downtown Chicago for the Board of Education until I was in high school. A secretary, she got a good paycheck. She did what she was supposed to do for the family and then came home and cooked and took care of us kids. She always used to say she wasn’t a very good cook, but I disagree. She made spaghetti and meatballs, fried fish, Salisbury steak. I used to love her pot roast and greens. There was a deep love in her food, simple but rich. Though, when things were tight, we had to settle for pork and beans out of a can.
When she and my father met, they were deeply in love. But then things began to break apart. It starts with one slap across the face and snowballs from there. A woman makes a police report. Then the police come back for another. But they don’t do shit for you. And after the police come, it only gets worse. He gets upset and takes it out on you. If you left, he’d come find you. It was just like those episodes on television, on the news, 5in the movies. That stuff is real, and we lived it. So when I see people talk about it on TV nowadays, it makes me cringe. I understand how they feel and what they’ve been through.
It was hard, worse than any blistering Chicago winter. That behavior can wreck your brain and make you ill—both mentally and physically. Back then there was no one to talk to, nowhere to share your feelings. You just had to deal with it. The toughest was having to watch our mother go through all of it. Dad would pull her hair. She’d run into my room and he’d pull her out. Abusive shit. I wasn’t strong enough to do anything about it, either. I tried to get involved, especially as I got older. But he was six-four and I’ve never been a big person. He outweighed me by 150 pounds. These days, my brother and I never talk about it. Not a word between each other.
We hear stories like ours and just look at each other and keep moving. So far, I haven’t sought therapy. I always thought, What’s therapy going to do for me? Keep me safe? I grew up understanding how to be patient. How to understand people and what they go through. It was as if I got a PhD in sociology. In the streets, at my house. I understood what life could look like from all angles. Books can’t prepare you, I don’t care how many you’ve read. It’s about what you’re going to do in this instant, right here, right now. You have to know when to keep your mouth shut. How and when to diffuse a situation. How to move around a house without being heard. How not to get slapped, how not to get your ass kicked. Because my father wouldn’t even wait to get into the house—he’d whoop you in front of the neighbors. When you’re an alcoholic, anything can set you off—especially if you need your liquor. To this day, I can walk into any room and immediately tell who is on edge, who should be avoided at 6all costs. It’s a sixth sense that’s born and grows quickly. You’d think a childhood like that would’ve pushed me to never leave my bedroom. To hide or be a wallflower. But I had a spirit that even my upbringing couldn’t contain.
I would always get in trouble. One day my dad said not to cross these certain railroad tracks by the house of one of his friends off 126th Street. We’d gone there to spend time with his family. “Don’t play with the trains,” he said. “You could lose a limb, or worse.” But later that day, he saw me out near there messing by those tracks. He came right up to me and slapped me so hard in front of people. Then I had to sit in time out while the other kids played. He was right to be angry, but that hit really smarted. It was his way of trying to teach me a lesson and I had to learn the hard way (no pun intended).
Another time he beat my ass at my friend’s house and told me to stand in the corner for the rest of the day while everyone else was out playing. If he caught me in a lie, he’d whoop me. In the summers, he’d tell me not to let any of my friends in the house. But one day when I was in sixth grade, I tested him. As a kid, you always think you can outsmart your parents but, on this occasion, I was wrong. I’d invited a friend over, thinking Dad wouldn’t be home for a while, but he came home early from work and found us. He waited until that night, but made sure I felt my mistake. “I’m going to beat your butt nekked,” he told me. “You’re going to beat me nekked?” I repeated. “Yes,” he said. And he did just that. He made me take all my clothes off and he beat me. From then on, I never went against his word. It’s not like I was a bad kid—I wasn’t setting things on fire or hurting anyone. It’s just how it was with him. It’s hard for me to even talk about it now. Today, my parents are still alive and this isn’t 7information I’ve volunteered often. I fear if someone reads this, they may look at them differently and they’ll feel ashamed.
Understand, I’m only saying this to show that I didn’t come from a place of ease. And for those out there like me, it’s okay. It’s not your fault and you can make a different life for yourself. Like I did in the NBA, putting all my efforts into the game of basketball. I don’t want my parents to feel embarrassed for this. Because I know they already do. But I also can’t help that this is my story. That this is my brother’s story. This was what we saw as kids and how we got introduced to the world. Thankfully, over time, things changed (Dad has been sober since 1996). But it didn’t happen all at once, and it certainly wasn’t easy.
* * *
My father’s father wasn’t an alcoholic—though he used to run moonshine from Chicago to Mississippi. He used to give us little presents like new headphones back in the day, too. My father’s mother, Julia Hardaway, who passed away just a few years ago, also never drank. Neither did Dad’s two sisters. His mother would wonder where my father got it from. His anger, his drinking. It was unexplained. My father would get pulled over for DUIs but, like domestic violence, they weren’t given the same credence they are today. I mean, it wasn’t even until 1973 that the Supreme Court ruled women had the right to abortion (though the same court has since nullified that). It wasn’t only my mother who was terrified. Women were scared. There was nowhere to turn.
I mean, I guess it could have been worse. There were even more awful eras in American history. Times when entire families 8were slaughtered. But knowing that doesn’t make our situation any easier. There was another time when I left the house as a twelve-year-old. Dad told me to be back before the lights in the house came on. I was a mile or two from home, hooping. And, of course, I forgot about the time. So, when I got back, he asked, “Do you want to be on punishment, or get a butt whooping?” The first would be easier but last longer. So I told him just to beat my ass.
The next day, I went to Rosenblum Park and he told me to be home before dark. We were having a good run. I was going against grown men, not kids my age. They were in their twenties, thirties, forties. And I was out there holding my own. But I got home late and got another butt kicking. He said, “Where were you!” And I told him the truth, but I guess he didn’t believe me. He thought I was out causing trouble, being reckless. The next day, I went to the courts at the park again. About an hour into the game, I saw my dad’s truck pull up. Oh lord, I whispered to myself. The guys heard me and asked what was wrong. I started shaking. “That’s my dad up there,” I said. “He’s going to beat my ass.”
But the guys just looked around as if they couldn’t see him. “Who?” one said. “Duck?” That confused me. “I don’t know no Duck,” I said. But then they pointed to my father. “Him?” I nodded, “Yeah, that’s my dad.” They were surprised to find out my dad was one of the local legends. “That’s Duck!” My father called me over to his truck. “Tim,” he shouted. “Come ’ere!” So, I went over, scared. “You can ask them,” I said. “I’ve been here the past two days hooping. You can ask them!” The guys spoke up for me. “Yeah, Duck. He’s been here the whole time! You might have something there. He’s good!” Dad looked at the group. “For real?”
9 The guys vouched for me. Then my old man looked down at me in my eyes and said, “I’m sorry.” That was the first time he’d ever said those two words to me. “I owe you,” he said. Suddenly, he felt a moment of shame for having kicked my ass so bad those two times, just for playing ball and losing track of the time. It’s hard to look back and think about those moments, hard to talk about them. But that’s how I got my tough skin. I’m not grateful for it. That would be sick. But I can see the cause and effect. To this day, it surprises me that he apologized that afternoon. It must have been during a moment of sobriety.
Apologizing is hard. It means you messed up, but also that you may have messed up dozens of times before. I can forgive a man for wronging me, even my father. But I won’t ever forget it. I grew up in what felt like a warzone at times thanks to him and the gangs in Chicago. Violence was everywhere. It wasn’t just gangs, though. Even my own cousins tried to pick on me. I’m not saying this to engender sympathy. I don’t need that. I’m just telling it like it is. My cousins were bigger and we’d wrestle. They’d give me frogs on my arm. Sometimes they’d take to tickling me until I was in tears (that’s why I’m not ticklish today).
I wanted to be big like them, but I was always smaller. I had to learn to get them on the sly. Before they got me. I’d have to slap them on the head and run out of the house in a rare chance at freedom. But they’d get me back, push me up against the wall in the house and sometimes punch me in the stomach. They’d say, “Don’t cry! You better not cry or I’ll give you another one!” The adults would be upstairs, but I couldn’t go to them to tell on my cousins. So I kept my mouth closed. That’s how I toughened myself up. How I got stronger, for better or worse. That was just the way it was. You always had to be on the lookout.
