They say impersonation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, SNL does a pretty good job at flattering our own Stephen A. Smith. How do you think they did.
Category Archives: member stories
Shaun Powell: Remembering the best day I ever had
“My brother died on 9/11, but Sept. 10 stands out because I don’t remember it at all”
By Shaun Powell
ESPN New York
My daughter Victoria awakened early that Tuesday morning and put on a rose dress, the color of her mood. She was eager and also nervous, because it was her first day of pre-kindergarten, Christmas in September for a 3-year-old. Let’s go, daddy, she said. Can’t be late. She took me by the thumb, dragged me out of the house, pulled me into the gorgeous and, as it turned out, deceitful sunshine that kissed us on the doorstep.
The school was less than a quarter-mile from our New Jersey home. I walked. She skipped. She was too short to notice the view from the road, a panoramic snapshot of the tip of Lower Manhattan, 14 miles away. It was a speck in the distance except for the Twin Towers, permanently aligned together like a middle and index finger. The peace sign.
She didn’t want me to return home. At that age, kids are clingy, and she stayed tattooed to my right calf in the schoolyard for five minutes. Then 10. I suddenly knew how Alonzo Mourning felt years ago, trying to shake his shin free of Jeff Van Gundy. It will be OK, I gently assured Victoria, before she reluctantly released, allowing my blood to resume circulation. That’s all I thought about on the way home, laughing at her terrified reaction, totally oblivious to the updated view of the Towers, the peace sign suddenly transformed into a pair of matchsticks.
Poured a glass of juice, turned on the radio for two seconds, then rushed out of the house, back to the street, to the curb to look eastward at the charcoal New York sky. Then ran back into the house just in time to hear the Pentagon was hit, too. The Pentagon! That’s where my younger brother Scott works.
“He hasn’t called yet, but don’t worry,” my mother assured me from Washington, D.C. “The phone lines are down. Your brother will call. He always does.”
Durant duels LeBron
By Michael Lee
The Washington Post
About an hour before the most star-studded summer league game tipped off at Morgan State’s Hill Field House, I spotted Goodman League commissioner and master of ceremony for the night, Miles Rawls, and asked him about when his team was going to have a rematch against the Drew League in Los Angeles. Rawls again mentioned that they are looking at getting together on Sept. 25, but added that the Drew League is still trying to get Kobe Bryant involved in some way.
“K.D. wants Kobe, doesn’t he,” I asked Rawls, since District native Kevin Durant had already told Brandon Jennings the night before on Twitter that he wanted to see Bryant playing for the Drew League the next time the teams square off.
Rawls nodded and said, “You know K.D. ain’t ducking nobody.”
Rawls words would prove to be on point later in the evening, as the late-arriving Durant eagerly accepted the challenge of being the lone all-star for the Goodman League against the all-star trio of LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul that led the Melo League.
“Playing against those guys was a lot of fun for me. I’m excited I got that opportunity playing against some great players, playing with some great players as well,” Durant said after his team lost, 149-141, in a game that was lopsided until the final five minutes.
Read Michael Lee’s full story on the Washington Post’s website.
