Biggie once rapped that to survive the streets you got to sling crack rock or have a wicked jump shot.  The story I'm about to tell you is about a group of guys whose only failure in heeding that advice was in not specializing in one or the other.

They were addicts and hustlers, men who were as weathered and warped as the gnarled gym floor we stood on.  Most had wandered into the Milwaukee Rescue Mission homeless and hopeless, with nowhere else to go.  And I suppose it was for ones like those that the Mission existed, handing out the one thing that government programs were not allowed to distribute: faith.  

But chapel had been cancelled that morning.  The MRM Men’s Division was holding their annual 3 on 3 basketball tournament, and as an intern I had been invited earlier that week to enter a team and round out the numbers.    

I accepted the invitation, desperate to gain inroads and insight beyond the boundaries I was already trespassing on.  Though the hope I had to blend into the background as a casual participant had been shot a few days earlier as my roommate Clint (another intern) walked throughout the cafeteria talking trash in a yellow Kobe Bryant jersey and an even louder Iowa twang.      

By the morning that tournament day finally arrived, things had grown beyond anything us participants had anticipated.  It was not however, larger than Big Maurice, who could not squeeze into a jersey.  I made a joke about the ghetto diet ("I'm gonna ghetto me some burgers, then I'm gonna ghetto me some cornbread, then I'm gonna ghetto me some...") and the benches were laughing like I was on stage at the Apollo. 

The camaraderie only lasted a moment though, and before I was even done tying my Nikes I looked up with an even better joke to discover I was all alone.            

Nevertheless, something unusual was going down.  Tourney day was proving to have its own set of rules.  For the first time all summer, the facility was more recreational than reformatory.  Streetwise, sin scarred men flashed gap toothed grins instead of gang signs.  It was a day for them, maybe the only day when the neighborhood was behind them instead of against them.

I know this because the neighborhood quickly banded against me. 

As the whistle blew and the games began, each participant played with a fierce intensity.  This was their turf, and these guys learned at an early age to protect the little they saw as their own.  Despite a summer of good deeds and timely humor, I was still very much an outsider.   

Amidst all the bleachers, officials, and team entries there were only three white people in the gym… my two teammates and I.  We were not from the streets, at least not the same side of town that those folks were from.  We were not favored to win any games; the crowd didn't extend us favor of any kind. 

As the biggest and whitest guy in the gym, any misstep drew laughs; any serviceable movement showered my opponent with impromptu coaching.  The audience followed my every move; I had been cast as the villain.  Like Othello, but with contrasting casting.  This time the monster’s eyes were blue instead of green.    

Near the climax of our first round game, I had been burned by most every playground dribble and acrobatic pass imaginable.  We had drawn the previous year’s champion, and the crowd was in a frenzy anticipating our certain demise.  They were more athletic than my teammates or I, and the intensity of the crowd was a bit intimidating to say the least.  Cameron Indoor meets Cook County Correctional.     

As the game went on, the crowd got more and more involved.  And the attention and outside contact stimulated the players in ways that their typical Saturday chores did not.  It was tournament day.  Everything was upside down.  No pastor or case worker would give out a demerit for cursing or slouching.  The doors were propped open, the directors were nowhere to be seen, yet the warm city air blew in and no one ran out. 

The crowd and opposing players relished the rare opportunity to work out some built up aggression – on me.  My team found itself tied at ten if you were scoring by baskets (down 4–0 if you’re going by cuts and bruises).   

But that wasn’t the kind of summer internship you take if you’re content to take a beating.  And even a future pastor can only turn the other cheek so many times.  Clint and I nodded, setting up a sequence that likely had not played out in that gym since years before the streetball craze had forever changed the urban game.

Clint dribbled across the key to the right, setting up a reverse pivot to the left.  The defender stayed with him step for step, but only until my chest knocked him to the ground.  I immediately cut to the hoop and finished off a lob pass by slapping the backboard. The old timers howled “pick and roll, pick and roll" with delight.  I glanced down at the trash talker who was silent for the first time.  He shook his head with a faint smile and mouthed “white folk”…

The crowd erupted; the villain would be appearing in act II.

The second game got a little easier.  My teammates started to play more confidently.  We beat some teens from the youth program 11–3.  Suddenly the squads that were recently so eager to play us were in full damage control.  Guys started bowing out with phantom injuries.  Someone asked if I played for Marquette.  The crowd wasn’t dogging us as much.  A few even started to woof for the underdogs.

The third game was rougher than any other.  The guy who was guarding me was also the tournament organizer, main referee, and resident tough guy.  His teammates were two Mission security guards.  We couldn’t match up with their physical strength.  And as grown men who had come up watching Oscar Robertson and Sidney Moncrief, they were more fundamentally sound than us as well. 

Speed and athleticism were the only advantages that we had.  So we delighted the crowd with crossover dribbles, unconventional passes, and hard drives to the rim.  Richard, Mo, and the boys did not appreciate going out like that to three white kids, and communicated as much with an elbow to the my jaw at game point.  Somehow it did not shatter.  But a few stereotypes did when we moved on to the next round.  

We would go on to win two more games, eventually losing in the finals.  And though the ragtag, under matched teams usually win it all in the feel good Hollywood sports movies, we didn't even come close.  The winning team demolished us in every facet of the game, assuring that I wouldn't leave the summer with too big a head – unless you counted the lump on my temple or swollen cheek.

At the conclusion of the tournament, the program members got a special pizza dinner.  And for the first (but not the last) time that summer, they pushed out a chair at their table and nodded an invitation.  They even called me by name.  And from the new vantage point my perspective was different, too.  I finally saw myself with the boys, not the bums; the fellas, not the felons.     

I finished that August with plenty of tangible things to add to a resume: literacy training, case load management, preaching experience, etc.  But my greatest lesson came from that tournament.  I had accomplished what Othello could not through war or marriage.  Basketball, if only for a moment, had bridged cultures. 

You see sports can accomplish far more than a temporary escape or a miscellaneous trophy.  They can also open doors, push out chairs, and let a little extra light shine in.