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Page A3 The Joan De Arc Crusader / Monday, July 20, 2009 Front Page A1 / Editorials A2 / Nostalgia A4 / Crossword A5
Looks like we’ve forgotten how to ‘rocket’ our man By J. Bueker While I sadly assent to the time-worn saw that “you can never go home again,” I think it’s self-evident that one can certainly go back to where home used to be and then have a good look around. I tend to do this sort of thing once in a while. Why? Well, I reckon I’m not quite right. And I’m okay with that. Really. My most recent adventure along these lines brought me last January to the gymnasium of my beloved alma mater, Moon Valley High School, for a trip down varsity basketball memory lane. The evening turned out to be a mildly pleasant exercise in remembrance, aside from the fact that I recognized precious little about either the setting or the event itself.
The Moon Valley campus is replete with the effects of 30 years of change. As my wife and I approached the gym, I couldn’t help noticing a huge shiny new two-story media center building rising above what was once the student parking lot. I momentarily flashed back on the stern face of Dewey Williams, Dean of Students, stationed at the entrance to the lot on the first day of school each year, grimly scrutinizing each student vehicle as it arrived. I then fast-forwarded to present reality, wondering aloud where students are parking their cars these days and for what in the heck they’re now using the old media center building. Perhaps it’s best not to know. Now then, let’s see. I’m guessing the last varsity boys basketball game I attended at Moon Valley was the final one in which I participated, way back in February 1976. That game ended on an ignominious note for me, with a career-ending knee injury near the conclusion of a butt-ugly winless season. It is perhaps understandable that I required over three decades to get the urge to return to the scene of so many triumphs and defeats (yes, mostly defeats). But return I did. Strangely enough, no one even seemed to recognize me. And after all I did for these people. Ingrates. My history with the Moon Valley High gym actually began years before I ever started high school. The facility was made available to the public beginning in the late ‘60s, opening up on Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons during the school year, and pretty much day and night during the summer months. I spent countless hours there on the hardwood with my father and brother, engaging in an endless series of half-court pick-up games of the “shirts and skins” variety. Hey, it did keep us off the streets. The gym was also the venue for several basketball tournaments in which I participated as a student-athlete at Sahuaro School. Plus, I attended many of my brother’s Moon Valley ball games during this period as well. By the time I began my tenure as a student at MV, I had already thoroughly bonded with this building. For my triumphant return to Rocket Arena, I deliberately selected a Friday night game versus the Cortez Colts. Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Cortez High was universally regarded as Moon Valley’s pre-eminent arch-rival. I can vividly recall attending the annual football showdown between the two schools each year, which were a huge deal back in the day. There was never any place to park your car, and standing-room only crowds would pack the stadiums. The Moon Valley-Cortez basketball matches were similarly well attended. The situation is a bit different in 2009 though, I have discovered. The first thing I observed when we entered the gym was that the beautiful red brick walls of the building’s interior have been completely painted over with a ghastly shade of white. Bummer. I then gazed up into the bleachers and was immediately struck by the remarkably sparse crowd in attendance. There couldn’t have been more than a couple dozen people in the house. While our team was an unequivocal loser my senior year, we still drew a consistently large and loyal home crowd. Everyone went to the ball games as a matter of course, even many of my school-spirit challenged Class of ’76 fellows. The school band was always there pounding out the Rocket fight song, along with the entire pom and cheer squads, the “Hoopsters” club, numerous faculty members, parents, siblings, and a reliably sizable proportion of the student body.
On this evening thirty years later however, there was no Rocket band, no pom squad, no loud and rowdy Rocket fans. Just a few scattered pockets of students and parents, a small coterie of bored cheerleaders, a pair of apparently inebriated hecklers, and two uniformed police officers. It was rather pitiful, really. Not only can you never go home again, but sometimes the people who currently populate your old home don’t bother to show up either. I was further saddened to see none of the old sense of formality in evidence. The Moon Valley coaches for instance were casually attired in what appeared to be jogging outfits. Yes, that’s right, jogging outfits. Zounds. In my day, coaches and players were all required to wear dress slacks, dress shoes, dress shirts, and ties on game days and then to the ball game itself. If you didn’t come to school that day in your shirt and tie, you didn’t play that night. I even got chewed out and benched one time by my junior varsity coach Bob Noice for neglecting to wear a tie to a Saturday game. The policy was strictly enforced, no exceptions. I did my best to disregard these disturbing irregularities and focus on the game. As the contest got under way, a striking contrast between the two teams quickly emerged. Cortez ran actual plays on offense, and impressed as a highly disciplined unit. These guys clearly practice quite a bit. In contrast, the Moon Valley five displayed a tendency to abandon any pretense of a set offense, opting instead for a rather sloppy “run and gun” approach with a minimum of passing and playmaking. And yet it was the MV defense that was the real problem this night. When I was a player at Moon Valley, the coaching staff had a carefully crafted philosophy for team defense that they distilled down into a single motto – “You gotta rocket your man!” “Rocketing” in essence meant that a Moon Valley defensive player should relentlessly cover his opponent with maximum abandon, to the extent that the poor sap wouldn’t even think about receiving a pass from a teammate or doing anything else particularly useful. It was systematic and persistent on-court harassment, and it could be pretty effective. The tactic was also conveyed to us through the charming admonition that “You have to get inside his jock strap!” This “rocketing your man” business was all laid out for us in the legendary “Rocket Handbook” that players were issued and required to read at the beginning of each season. The handy compendium offered the Moon Valley roundballer serious advice on every imaginable topic from proper dietary habits to the need for maximal bodily waste elimination. No, I’m serious. I wish I still had a copy of that thing. Sadly, I saw little evidence that the “rocket your man” philosophy is still being impressed upon Moon Valley basketballers. Not once during the entire contest did I see a Moon Valley player displaying any behavior that remotely resembled the rocketing of their man, let alone the getting inside of anyone’s jock strap. The team employed a half-hearted man-to-man defense that was routinely ineffective in challenging the Cortez juggernaut. There was too little blocking out on rebounds, and too much fouling in lieu of effective foot work and defensive tenacity. I don’t know, maybe we were just as bad or worse back in ‘76. But the whole culture just seems very different now. Alas, the years glide swiftly away. As it happened, there was one thing about the evening that did feel startlingly familiar – the Moon Valley basketball squad fell behind early and lost big. The Rockets managed to whittle the Cortez lead down to a mere 30 points by the time the final buzzer sounded, an eerily familiar “moral victory” of sorts. The wife and I soldiered on ‘til the bitter end, and a profound sense of déjŕ vu permeated my very soul as I glanced over at the flickering scoreboard on my way out into the cool January evening air – Cortez 89, M.V. 59. Perhaps in one sense, I did go home that night. By the way, I’d like to publically thank my spouse for going along on this somewhat ill-fated sentimental journey. It only took me 37 years to get a girl to go to a Moon Valley ball game with me. Woo hoo! I’m currently trying to persuade her to accompany me to a Rocket football contest this fall, so I’ll probably pen a wistful critique of that event as well. Stay tuned.
Carl’s greasefest: The bacon and egg sandwich By J. Bueker I come by my enduring love for the BLT sandwich quite honestly. Bacon was considered a holy sacrament at 3219, with my father its most enthusiastic adherent. His legendary bacon and egg sandwich was arguably both the most tasty and most unhealthy snack in the history of Joan De Arc Avenue. Perhaps in the history of the universe.
Carl Bueker’s Bacon & Egg Sandwich 4-5 strips of bacon 2 large eggs Butter Miracle Whip© 2 slices white bread Lettuce
Fry bacon to desired crispness in large pan. Do NOT discard bacon grease. Fry eggs in grease over medium heat, basting yolks liberally with grease until opaque in appearance. Slather generous portions of butter and Miracle Whip© on each slice of bread, and then position lettuce, bacon and eggs between slices. To preserve full flavor, do NOT drain bacon grease from eggs before placing on bread. Serve with cold milk and Razzys. Enjoy.
**Nutrition Facts: Calories: 1085 Fat grams (total): 70 Saturated fat grams: 22 Sodium Mgs: 1900 Cholesterol Mgs: 76 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________JDA
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