Hurts & Tatum & Magic & Garnett & Vida
my version of Sports Saturday
I’m the author, journalist, producer, and podcast creator Danyel Smith. SHINE BRIGHT HQ is where I freestyle about music and culture. And regardless of what some say? It’s Black History Month, and it’s Black History Month daily over here. Feb 1 was about Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson. Feb 2 was about duets.
Feb 3 was about Beyoncé, and Grammys history. Feb 4 was VIBE magazine (which I will likely go back to). Yesterday was Natalie Cole’s Inseparable. So far this month, I’ve done a post a day (which is crazy). But I like doing it, and I deeply appreciate the response. Feb 6 was The Bodyguard, and btw, the full SHINE BRIGHT HQ archive is here. Feb 7 gets into the deaths of Gen X Black men. Your daily (for now!) Black History Month newsletter continues, so ⤵️
um, yeah: go Eagles:
On a dare from my great-grandfather Dorson, I listened with him to the entirety of Game 7 of the 1972 World Series. I was seven. Dorson was almost blind from diabetes, so the radio was his domain. I loved him for not being surprised I was fascinated by people named Catfish, Vida Blue1, and Rollie Fingers.
I adored Grandpa Dorson for talking me through the narrative of the first six games — so I understood the stakes. And when the A’s won, it was the first time I felt like a part of a hometown. Like, I’m from Oakland. We can have wild hair and strange nicknames. We win big. And we do it on the radio.
My high school is in Los Angeles. So I was a fan of the Showtime Lakers.
Magic Johnson is my favorite (all-time) NBA player. I’ve been down ever since he started at center ⤵️
There’s little logic to how I become a fan.
Until he retired, Kevin Garnett was my favorite active NBA player. My fanship was based on this 2005 TNT interview with the late great coach John Thompson2. Emotion.
And also, it’s this photo ⤵️
from Jonathan Mannion, that we ran in VIBE. I believe it’s from 2002. I had a print up in my office (with thumbtacks) for a long time. I think of it as “The Garnett Visor Shot.” When he finally left the Timberwolves and the late great coach Flip Saunders, Garnett joined the Celtics, and I became a Celtics fan. They won the championship in 2008, and I’ve been a BOS fan ever since. Being a California Celtics fan who counts Magic as her all-time fave is weird to people, but I prefer to think of myself as similar to legendary Celtics guard Rajon Rondo, who is the first player ever to win a championship with the Los Angeles version of the Lakers, and the Celtics.
My current favorite active player is the Celtics’ champion power (and I say “power” with intention) forward, Jayson Tatum.
He’s obviously a phenomenal player, and it doesn’t hurt that he has the absolute best smile — and that his life partner is South London’s own Ella Mai3, one of my favorite singer-songwriters. It’s that Tatum is also, somehow, hated upon. Even by Warriors coach Steve Kerr. I respond to Tatum’s story. I should probably try to write it.
Which brings me to the aforementioned quarterback Jalen Hurts4, who I interviewed two years ago (full profile, here; assigned and edited by my colleague and sister Danielle Cadet), right after he lost the Super Bowl to the team he is set to play tomorrow. At the time, I didn’t have a fave NFL team, let alone a fave NFL player.
So now I’m an Eagles’ fan. Is part of it Hurts’ chiseled good looks and his too-appropriate verb of a last name (as well as his nickname, Haiku Hurts)? Yes. But I’m really a fan because of this:
While majoring in Communications, sophomore Jalen Hurts led Alabama to an 11-1 season. That in turn led to the semifinal Sugar Bowl, in which his Tide emerged victorious over Clemson. Hurts was named Most Valuable Player. All good news. Triumph and trophies. But then, on January 9, 2018, the Crimson Tide went up against the Georgia Bulldogs—and in the first half, Hurts struggled. After halftime, his backup, Tua Tagovailoa (now the concussion-beset quarterback of the Miami Dolphins) jogged onto the field in Hurts’s place. Hurts was benched. On national television. More heartbreak.
But in a move that surprised many, Hurts did not stay in the locker room for the second half. He came right back out to the sidelines and cheered his team on as Tagovailoa took Hurts’s ball and ran with it, literally, to a 26–23 overtime victory over Georgia. In postgame interviews, Hurts kept it together. “We have a lot of guys in the quarterback room that play really well,” he said, still on the field. “[Tua] just stepped in and did his thing for the team.”
Hurts walked that same high road as debate raged in barbershops and throughout sports media. Former Alabama players called for him to move to tight end or halfback—and even said he was “not an NFL quarterback.” Hurts could feel what was coming. But he kept the main thing the main thing. “No ceilings,” says Hurts in the cavernous dining room. Patrons are now entering Buddakan. Hurts is unbothered. “I don’t put a limit on myself. Nor should I.”
By September, Coach Saban had announced Tagovailoa’s ascension and Hurts’s demotion.
So it’s Hurts’ turn, you understand. Period.
In music, and Black history
Danyel
This autobiography of Thompson, written with my longtime colleague and friend Jesse Washington, is required reading.
Ella Mai and I talked about her work on this episode of my Black Girl Songbook podcast.
There are lot of brilliant books about the history and rise of Black quarterbacks, but one I go back to is this from my colleague and friend Jason Reid