A lot of us played some sports growing up. I was lucky enough to have played my way from church leagues to high school with a basketball in hand. Later, I made my way to college at then Memphis State University and onto the court with the game’s elite players in the NBA, Italy, and Spain. And for most of that time—at least from the day I entered junior high school—one thing remained the same, a number: 42.
For those formative years in junior high and high school, 42 was a great number! It was a “big man” number on the back of a skinny white kid at Treadwell High School several years before Elliot Perry, Chris Garner, and much later, Penny Hardaway, would put on hardwood magic shows at the same school, on the same floor.
We were a team, 42 and I, long before anyone knew my name outside of the gym at Treadwell.
But luckily times change. After a few years, 42 and I became known outside of the neighborhood, and later, outside of the city. Before long, I was lucky enough to carry my number across town to college, working the post for the Memphis State Tigers. The gym on National Street morphed into a full-fledged arena at the Mid-South Coliseum, which filled to the rafters with 10,000 screaming fans every week for three things: rock n’ roll, Jerry Lawler’s Memphis wrasslin’ and Tiger basketball.
Again, we put in work, 42 and I. For four years, we battled it out in the Metro Conference against the Louisvilles and Cincinnatis and Georgia Techs of the world. I still have nightmares about Cincinnati. And I still loathe Louisville. But after four years, I found out we’d done enough work to be drafted by the Golden State Warriors in the 5th round of the 1981 NBA draft.
That’s where we parted ways.
When I made it to the Warriors, the number 42 was taken; it was hanging from the rafters thanks to a Hall of Fame career on the back of Nate Thurmond. And I couldn’t blame my number—Thurmond was the first guy in NBA history to record a quadruple-double. In a bizarre, poetic twist, he once grabbed 42 rebounds in a single game. So, I really had no choice. I had to let 42 go.
As I entered my first year in the league, the number that had carried me from North Memphis to California was gone.
Over the years, I moved on to other numbers. New faces like 44, 7, and 8 made their way through my life as my career walked a path from Golden State to Portland, San Diego, Houston and Milwaukee. Eventually, I made my way to Europe, but I always thought about Treadwell and Memphis—and I never forgot about 42. She was my first and greatest number, the one that got me to the party.
What’s old is new again
My two boys never actually saw me play a game. Patrick, my first son, learned to crawl as an eight month old in my hospital room, thanks to open-heart surgery on my aortic valve. By that time, in 1991, I’d spent my last year of professional ball in Udine, Italy, a tiny town tucked between Venice and the Slovenian border. A few months later, he made it to a pickup game as the lone son to witness me play the game that I loved so much, though he was too young to ever hope of remembering it.
The boys never had my memories of Treadwell or the Coliseum or late night NBA games on CBS growing up, but what they did have were photos. And they had endless stories from family members, friends and Tiger fans. Jake, Patrick and my wife Carol would endure countless “stop and chat” moments everywhere in Memphis.
At lunch, dinner, movie theaters, festivals and—of course—at Tiger basketball games, they would be subjected to basketball talk from some people I knew well and other people I had never met at all, each wanting to stop and remember those “glory days” from the Treadwell and Memphis State and the NBA: wanting to remember, in many ways, the journey of 42.
I never grew tired of those conversations. Honestly, I still don’t. And through them all, the boys would listen, take it all in and try to envision what it was like through old photos and players’ cards. That’s how they learned about basketball in our family. That’s how they learned about 42.
Many years later, as Patrick and Jake grew, they learned to dribble, to shoot and pass and jump, and then, a strange thing happened—they came to know 42 for themselves. Each, in his own time, approached me and asked a question that means more than anything, “Dad, can I wear 42?”
Do you know how it feels to have your sons want to wear your old high school and college number?
A simple gesture like picking that jersey number meant that they wanted to be “just like dad.” I was so honored by that little gesture. The boys could have gone in any direction with any number, but they chose my old friend, the one that got us here.
So, 42 returned. Decades after the 1981 NBA draft where we finally parted ways, ‘McDowell, 42’ came back to Memphis.
First there was Patrick, with long arms, longer legs, a fresh buzz cut and an eagerness to play. Patrick was tall for his age group and loved playing every sport. Patrick was the consummate teammate—after a few seasons of basketball and close to the last summer team that he played on, it was clear that Patrick was the best teammate that I had ever been around. Better than any of my own teammates while I played. That’s not to say that I didn’t have good teammates, but Patrick played on some really good teams and always had his teammates’ respect and friendship. He gave everything that he could for the team and always with a positive vibe that the other players fed off of.
What he loved most was getting to practice and being around his teammates for those precious pre-practice minutes of talking and laughing. Then he would go through another tough practice, pushing and willing his team to be better, to get his team ready for game day.
And he never complained about anything, unless we didn’t get to the gym early enough to hang out. Patrick kept working at the game and parlayed that excitement and dedication into a state championship team at Briarcrest High School in 2008. Today, with a diploma from Mississippi State University, he still plays in rec leagues, and he even made it to the NBA as an official statistician for the Memphis Grizzlies.
Next came Jake, the gym rat. Growing up, he’d tag along to almost all of his older brother’s practices, and he’d always find himself running drills with the older players. Three on two/two on one/three and five man weave, dribbling, passing, shooting, and box-out drills…these became his addiction. At times, Jake would step in for scrimmages when the squad was left with an odd man out. If he ever caught a break from the older guys, who outranked him by a four or five years on average, it was a slight one.
Pitted against bigger, older players with more experience, Jake had to hold his own. And he did.
Jake was able to wear our number a lot over the years. But when he made it to high school, 42 was once again road-blocked. A great thing happened, there, though. The head coach, Bubba Luckett (a former teammate at Memphis State) gave Jake a special number: number 4, the same number that his son had once worn for Christian Brothers High School. Maybe it was a passing of the torch from another baller?
Eventually, Jake’s career at Christian Brothers—a school six miles and another world away from the old gym at Treadwell—earned him scholarship offers from several small colleges. He could have taken them and perhaps found glory in an anonymous league in anonymous gyms around the South, but that wasn’t what he decided to do.
42, it seemed, had one more story to tell.
In 2013, Jake decided to put his gym rat work ethic to the test. He’d become a walk-on, and with Josh Pastner’s blessing, he decided to do so at my alma mater, now the University of Memphis.
But the road of a walk-on is tough. As a freshman walk-on, your job is to do all of the drills scholarship players do…but harder. Then, you stand and wait, watching and listening for your name to be called. Finally, it is called and you show the coaches that you’re not there to just wear a jersey and warm-up before games. You show the coaches that you are there to make this team better, even if it’s only through practice. After that, you then become an asset to the team that you grew up cheering for.
And, there’s one more catch—you’re not guaranteed a number.
Sure, you can ask for one, but if a scholarship player comes along and wants it, that number is gone.
On November 11, 2013, Jake entered his first college game, snagging a defensive rebound against Nicholls with 42 on his back. That gym rat determination had won and allowed him to keep an old family friend.
In four years, he’d fight for and earn his place on the floor against old conference foe Cincinnati (notching several wins). He’d battle for boards against Ohio State and UConn. And he’d do it all with a bold, blue and grey banner on his back—42.
Three seasons into my old number’s return to Tiger blue, there was a change in the coaching staff. A new staff and a senior walk-on. Sometimes that doesn’t turn out so well for the walk-on. However, the Tigers’ new coach, Tubby Smith, realized just what Jake had given to the team in those previous years and gave him the one thing that would truly legitimize Jake’s time here, something few walk-ons ever receive, an athletic scholarship.
Here on the heels of March, Jake’s four years at the University of Memphis are coming to an end. He and Patrick now have their own photos and basketball stories. Enough, maybe, for years to come.
I always loved teaching and watching my sons play sports…especially “hoops”. They both put so much time and effort into the game that I loved so much. It’s evident that the love affair for basketball has followed along with them, the same way 42 has.
Thank you, Boyz!
So, what’s in a number you ask? For some people, nothing. For me? Everything.