More Than Basketball

The New York Knicks are going to the NBA Finals.

If you told 12-year-old me in 1992 that sentence would become reality, I probably would have screamed before you finished it.

I thought I’d feel joy.

Pure joy.

Instead, I needed space.

Silence.

A moment.

Because my first instinct wasn’t to celebrate.

It was to call my brother.

Dave and I had what brothers sometimes have when life gives you enough years together.

A language.

Not spoken.

Understood.

One word.

One look.

One reaction.

Especially when it came to the Knicks.

John Starks was my favorite Knick ever.

There’s a core memory burned into me.

Madison Square Garden.

A game against the then Jason Kydd led-Phoenix Suns.

Come-from-behind win.

Starks' heroics of a 3pt end of regulation game winner.

The Garden exploding.

I remember carrying Dave out of his seat cheering wildly- I was 16.

Dave was 12.

That memory belongs to us.

For over three decades, Knicks basketball wasn’t basketball.

It was brotherhood.

Shared suffering.

Shared optimism.

Shared loyalty.

Waiting.

Always waiting.

So when the Knicks finally punched their ticket to the Finals, something surprised me.

My happiness felt capped.

Not because I wasn’t grateful.

Not because I wasn’t overwhelmed.

Because joy had a destination.

Good Knicks news?

Tell Dave.

Big Knicks moment?

Tell Dave.

Finals after waiting since 1992?

Tell Dave.

Only now, there’s nowhere for that instinct to go.

So it stays with me.

My daughter Raylee made me a Knicks headband from scratch.

She knows Knicks basketball means something to Dad.

She expressed herself the way kids do when they love someone.

She made something.

Something I could wear.

Quietly, privately, I took that headband and placed it beside my brother’s picture.

I didn’t tell anyone.

I think I needed Dave to know.

Heather saw.

Of course she saw.

My wife has mourned Dave not as a brother-in-law.

As a brother.

She knows.

She always knows.

My youngest daughter Kyla asks questions adults spend years avoiding.

“Why do bad things happen to good people?”

“Is Uncle Dave okay?”

“Do you miss him?”

My oldest, Raylee, does something different.

At church, sometimes she wraps her tiny arm around my waist.

“Daddy, are you okay?”

For a second, she becomes older than her years.

Love changes shape.

That’s what I’m learning.

Dave used to be in the obvious places.

The phone call.

The joke.

The game.

Now he shows up differently.

In oversized stuffed animals Uncle Dave bought.

In my daughters knowing his name.

In my wife seeing me without explanation.

In silence.

In memory.

In love.

When Game 1 tips off, I’ll think about my brother.

Not because basketball matters more.

Because it never was basketball.

It was always love.

Love your people.

Watch over each other.

Stay close.

That was us.

Brothers.

—

Dedicated to Dave.