taking initiative

me and utah's most famous vocalist/nba star, thurl bailey.

i took my own advice last night at the detroit-utah game regarding having a more active crowd at the ESA, and apparently other people were eager to get on board.

remember that tracy mcgrady guy? googly eyes, somehow made it onto the all-star ballot last year despite playing like 3.5 minutes the entire season? well, it turns out he's still in the NBA. in detroit of all places! who knew the city could actually get worse?

somewhere in the back of my mind i recalled t-mac moving to the city of rusterly love over the summer after seeing (the NBA's) number 1 (asshole) come off the bench. my friend collin, who graciously offered me his extra ticket, seemed to be on the same page as i was regarding mcgrady. we talked a bit about how detroit is actually a fairly stacked team, what with hamilton, tayshaun, and mcgrady all on one squad.

but then we remembered the reason we hate t-mac. not because of his all-star caliber playing (when he is actually playing, the guy is amazing - off the bench last night, he almost had a triple-double). not because he lives in the spotlight (the only spotlights in detroit are on SWAT vehicles). not because he has a penchant for knocking the jazz out of the playoffs (you can count on zero fingers how many times mcgrady pulled houston out of the first round).

no, jazz fans hate tracy mcgrady because back in the 2008 playoffs - a year after the rockets were eliminated from the postseason by utah - mcgrady took a snide jab at d-will in a post-game interview after losing game 4 in salt lake city. mcgrady, who had witnessed first hand how d-will cut houston to pieces without breaking a sweat the year before and was in the middle of repeating his performances, decided that knowing how to pronounce the future all-star point guard's first name hadn't been on his list of priorities.

"what is it? DARE-in? da-RON?"

it answered one question for me; t-mac's last name is actually pronounced "mcdouchebag." bro: you are a good player with absolutely no leadership skills. deron is a great player and runs the floor like a puppeteer. he clowned you right out of the playoffs twice in a row. as far as you are concerned, his first name should be "sir."

anyway, as might be clear by now, my distaste for tracy mcgrady has not been diluted by time. so, late in the third quarter last night, collin and i decided we were going to (a) let mcgrady know what we thought of him personally, and (b) try and get the lackadaisical crowd into the game. we would accomplish this feat using the old two-birds-one-stone trick of booing, as loud as we could, whenever tracy mcgrady, in his #1 jersey, touched the ball. we let the people sitting immediately near us (who were also drunk enough to get involved in this scheme) in on the plan.

this is a rare moment where the storyteller need not embellish or ornament the truth, and the tale remains brilliant and memorable.

within five t-mac touches and our small group's vociferous indication of disapproval of the man, the entire stadium - THE ENTIRE STADIUM - was booing him relentlessly as soon as the cowhide globe was in his hands. his googly eyes went wild (or at least his shooting did) after a few minutes of this intense pressure, as he chucked up a 3rd-grade style hail-mary 3 late in the game that barely, barely nicked the iron on the way down.

it just goes to show that, when you believe in yourself and your opinions, you just might change the world, one stadium at a time.