The Day That 41 Is Too Old Is the Day the Coach Says It Is

Nobody, with the possible exception of Kareem himself, realizes how old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is more clearly than I do.

That’s not just because I’m roughly the same age. A lot of people are that old. It’s because of a package I received in the mail, the contents of which graphically drove home my--and therefore Kareem’s--basketball age.

Kareem’s back is crowded these days with sportswriters and fans clamoring for him to retire, to get out of basketball before he starts embarrassing himself. They all point out how old Kareem is. Forty-one.

He never seems old to me. Until now, anyway.

Until the package. It contained the team basketball score book from my senior year in high school. Apparently my old coach, Bob Miller, found the book while cleaning out an attic or something and thought I would enjoy seeing it. I can’t imagine why he thought that, unless it’s because he’s a cruel and sadistic man, which, now that I think back to his practice sessions, seems a reasonable hypothesis.

Let’s face it, most of our high school activities are better looked back upon through a gauzy lens. With a little imagination, you can fondly remember great times in Stretcher Crew Club. But this score book ripped the gauzy lens off my basketball career and put it under a microscope.

I won’t bore you with a lot of details. The most startling thing about the book was its age. The pages are musty and almost crumbly, not unlike my athletic skills. The book statistically chronicles the 1964-65 season of the Mark Keppel High Aztecs, in Alhambra.

Kareem, sporting a different name and hair style than he does now, was also a high school senior that season, at Power Memorial in New York.

And that was a long, long time ago. Twenty-three basketball seasons ago. Jerry West and Elgin Baylor were Laker stars. Walt Hazzard was a Laker. So was Cotton Nash. Kareem was rooting for Knick center Willis Reed. Cliff Hagan had the best hook shot in basketball. The Beatles were recording their first album. I had a part-time job for $1 an hour. Pat Riley was stealing hubcaps.

And the gritty Mark Keppel Aztecs were battling through a courageous 6-17 season.

It was John Cheever, I believe, who wrote, “What is the past but a vast sheet of darkness through which a few moments, pricked apparently at random, shine?”

I thought the score book would bring memories flying back, but flipping through, the only moment that shone clearly through my vast sheet of darkness was one field goal attempt.

A kid named Fair Hooker from Monrovia High was guarding me. He was a marvelous athlete who went on to become a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns. I got the ball on the low post and gave Hooker a head fake. I recall vividly my amazement as this prep superstar went for my humble fake and soared into the gym rafters.

I recall even more vividly my humiliation as I leaped high above Hooker and put up a line-drive airball.

The score book says I outrebounded Hooker that day, 9-5. It says we lost. I don’t remember any of the nine rebounds. I don’t remember any of the 89 shots the score book says I took that season, but I remember that one airball.

A guy named Lonnie, who mailed me the score book on behalf of Coach Miller, was kind enough, or cruel enough, to total up my statistics for the season, including my shooting percentage.

“Hey, 40% really wasn’t a bad percentage for a high school kid back in 1965,” I said to Lonnie over the phone. “Elgin Baylor shot 40% that season.”

“Yeah, but you never shot from more than 3 feet,” Lonnie said.

Ah, memories.

I don’t recommend you dig out your own high school score book, unless you happen to be Fair Hooker. But my score book made me think of Kareem. And it gave some meaning to the fact that, amazingly, almost a quarter of a century later, he is still playing the game.

Should he retire from basketball now, as so many critics are begging him to do, for his own good?

Hell, no! He should do what all the rest of us zillions of great athletes did. He should keep playing as long as he wants to, until the coach of the team he’s playing for tells him he can’t play anymore. It’s not Kareem’s job to decide whether or not he can help the Lakers; it’s Pat Riley’s job.

Don’t tell me about Willie Mays and how sad it was to watch him stumble through the final stage of his career, and how that’s the way fans remember Willie. Kareem is a baseball fan, and I bet the way he remembers Willie is catching Vic Wertz’s fly ball, or lashing that huge bat into a high fastball.

Maybe Kareem wants to play another season because he likes to play basketball, and maybe he doesn’t much care how fans and critics select or store their Kareem memories.

Maybe Kareem’s not ready yet to sit back and leaf through his 1964-65 high school score book.

In which case, maybe he wouldn’t mind lending it to me, so I can read one that has a better plot and a happy ending.