Tiffany Johnson Laura Govia Composition 2 October 10, 2012 Shatter dreams in John Updike’s “Ex-Basketball Player” The title of the poem really tell you what the poem is all about. The speaker tell you what a great basketball player he was and how often he dreamed about his basketball career. The poem tells us about a basketball player who was the best player on his basketball tea, and hold the high school that still has not been beat. “He never learned a trade”(line49) and now he works at “Berth’s Garage” (line 4). The poem implies that Flick was a great basketball and that he was the best in the county and that he hold the county record of scoring the most points.
I’m No Jordan Every single avid basketball fan yearns to be like Mike, young, old, rich, poor, tall, short, everyone. Michael Jeffrey Jordan now, 48 years of age and nine years away from the game he loved with the passion that drove him to harness raw talent and cultivate it every day until there was separation between him and every other superstar the game of basketball has ever seen. I wondered how I could be like that. The comparisons have been made by hundreds of sports analysts, former players, current players, Hall of Famers and even celebrities over the years as to who would be the next MJ and they all have different opinions leaving us without a conclusive “Air to the Throne”. And then there was Kobe.
Michael Jordan went on to attend college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was an all-star player. He went on t0 be drafted to the NBA. The NBA website states, “By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time”. He became known as “Air Jordan”, because he could jump very high and put the basketball in the net. Michael Jordan retired from the NBA in 1993 and came back to play in 1995 and retired again in 1999.
Basketballs cultural significance on the society from which William and Arthur both come from is enormous not only to William and Arthur because they are actively involved in the sport but also to there family and friends. The sport and the hope in succeeding in it are the boys families main mission, it is their faith in the game that unites their families and gives each person hope. The chance of getting to the NBA is not only a personal quest for each boy but also a chance to get themselves and their families out of the problems of teen pregnancy, crime, crumbling public schools, parental drug use and abandonment. The film shows how Basketball is one of the only hopes of ever getting away from the ghetto and the projects of Chicago. There is evidence all around them of how life can go so wrong very easily, Arthur’s friend goes to prison for drug dealing and his own father is a crack addict for a period of the film.
Jeremy Lin, the underdog of the NBA. His full name is Jeremy Shu-How Lin, born on August 23, 1988 to Gie Ming and Shirley Lin. His parents emigrated to ths U.S in the mid- 1970s, making him the first Asian American player of Taiwanese of decent. Although he is very big now, he was always pretty good at this game called basketball. He was tall, quick, and had a high basketball I.Q.
Hoop Dreams Perhaps the most basic and essential function of a movie is to evoke a particular response in its viewer. While watching the documentary Hoop Dreams, I have discovered this movie to be distinctly influential to the lives of many young men and women as it portrays the American dream. It involves two young men who reside in the housing projects in Chicago. Each has been given the great opportunity to attend a private school because of their phenomenal basketball skills. Each of these boys started off with the same goal in mind.
Thanks to their appearance in the movie Space Jam, Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing are among the select few NBA players that can also call themselves movie stars. These two men are among the greatest to play professional basketball and have both been accepted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. They both had outstanding careers with many accomplishments. They played during the same time period and their paths crossed many times throughout their admirable careers. Patrick Ewing and Charles Barkley were both popular and astounding NBA basketball players, but their careers took opposite directions after they retired from playing basketball.
“THE PHILADELPHIA 76ERS ARE YOUR NEW WORLD NBA CHAMPIONS!!! !” In spring of 1983,I was awoken by screams of joy, high-fives, and Philadelphia natives McFadden and Whitehead singing “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now.” The Philadelphia 76ers was just crowned the NBA champions of the world. Although, too young to appreciate what was taking place, witnessing the excitement from family and neighbors was the beginning of my love for the 76ers. Thirty years later without a championship, has me wondering what needs to change. Is the problem management, coaching, player personnel, or a combination of all three?
How did Coach Carter inspire his team to become both better players and people? Coach Carter was an inspiration coach to the Richmond high basketball team, he took a bunch of disrespectful, no good kids that were going no one in life and turned them into respectful young men that were now going somewhere in life. Couch Carter went to Richmond high school when he was a teenage and held record’s for basketball. He wanted to teach the boys that they could go somewhere in life if they study and go to classes and get good grades. Before couch carter took over the Richmond high basketball team they were shit.
The Stray Bullet Jim felt very happy that morning; there was no particular reason for that happiness apart from the fact that he was just drafted in by the head coach for the college basketball team. He had all the attributes to make it big in basketball; he stood 6ft 10in tall, was built like a truck and was surprisingly athletic for someone with such a huge frame. He had worked really hard to get into the team, the road was not easy, the fact that he was new to the college didn’t make things any easier, but still as soon as one saw a glimpse of him on the court they knew in their hearts that this boy was destined to become the next big thing in college basketball, and may be go on and rub shoulders with the big boys in the NBA(National