The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth

By Brian McLane

I love basketball.  That much is rock-solid certain.  In fact, among the three principles that have long guided my life – faith, family, and friends – the odd little game invented by a graduate student named James Naismith on the Winter Solstice of 1891 to give the boys of the Springfield YMCA something fun to do all winter, ranks a very close fourth.

Almost everything good in my life, you see, somehow traces back to (or at least brushes up against) basketball.

My friendships, some of my most precious memories, my current hopes and dreams, the moments I continue to anticipate as much than any, all have at their heart one thing: basketball.  In fact, I’ve long contended the main reason I fell in love with politics was that it so remarkably resembled basketball.

When I was in Albany, for example, and my candidate was running for office, or my bill was up for a vote, it was very much like a game, and I got every bit as nervous beforehand.  Because, at the end of the day, everything came down to one thing: who won and who lost.  There were even points in politics.  They called them votes.

And the preparation, practice, groundwork, pre-game analysis, strategizing – all those things I did best in politics – were the very things I loved most about basketball.  Because, as someone who’d spent his life in a wheelchair, those were the only things I knew I could do as well as any able-bodied person, regardless of how tall, quick, strong, or skilled he was.

Those things, in other words – all of them far more mental than physical – allowed me to stand tall and to beat anyone, anywhere, and at any time, regardless of the odds.  That’s why I so loved politics.

You may have read a recent guest post on this blog of mine from a dear friend, Larry Bashe.  Larry, who graduated a couple years ahead of me from Syracuse, went into wonderful detail about how basketball had, initially anyway, introduced the two of us. He then told how, over time, the game had allowed us to grow into the best of friends.  As such, he somewhat beat me to the punch.  Because, you see, I wanted to write what I’m writing now just after the last game of this year’s NBA Finals.

That was the last time I saw Larry.  And the reason our seeing one another that time was possible at all was because, Larry, knowing how much I loved basketball, knowing how the game had brought us together, and knowing how small my world had grown since my body began breaking down on me, jumped on a train one morning and rode it all the way up to Central New York.  He did that, he said, because he wanted to watch the final few games of the NBA Championship with me.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.  That’s why I love basketball.  And, in no small measure, it’s because of basketball that I find my life blessed with people whose presence in it still somehow, every now and then, manage to evoke in me feelings not unlike the proverbial "luckiest man on the face of the earth."

People like Larry Bashe.

I love you, Larry.  God bless you, my friend. And thanks for everything.  ###