images courtesy of flytip.com
The Playground isn’t the problem. It’s the solution. That’s the Bounce motto.
And the park was, indeed, the answer for John Starks.
As a 5′6″ junior at Tulsa Central High School in Oklahoma, he played on the JV squad. Over the summer, he ran hard at the Tulsa outdoor courts, hit the weights and started as the varsity PG for 2 games before getting kicked off the team after an altercation with his coach. Without hoops during his last year of high school, he drank, smoked weed and stole cars. He watched a student shoot another student twice in the chest during a fight after school one day. A buddy that he once stole cars with was killed while being chased by the police.
My man was headed nowhere fast. He served time for burglary. Walked on at a JuCo, Northern Oklahoma, made the squad but blew his shot because he got caught puffing herb. He sold and used drugs. Got put out of school and returned to the hood. He slept with a gun under his pillow while his older brother moved major narcotics.
But Tulsa’s playgrounds, specifically O’Brien Park on 58th Street and Lewis, were his refuge. After a growth spurt, he began dominating D1 players on the blacktop. He changed it up - lifestyle wise - and bagged groceries, worked as a cashier and did the graveyard shift stocking supermarket shelves. One summer, he played at Po Bill’s Classic in Dallas and the Pigs Pop-Off tourney in Tulsa against cats like Karl Malone, Rodney McCray, Wayman Tisdale, Jerome Whitehead, Dennis Rodman and Moses Malone. He was a 20 year old playground phenom, dunking on everybody and making tourney all-star teams.
In ‘86, bouyed by his success against future and current pros on the blacktop, he got a shot at Oklahoma Junior College. He got so busy, that Leonard Hamilton gave him a ride at Oklahoma State, even though Starks had only one year of eligibility left.
With the Knicks, Starks was the heart and soul of the crew, with Patrick, Oak, Mase, Greg Anthony, Derek Harper, Doc Rivers, etc., that came up inches short of Air Jordan and the Bulls in the early to mid ’90s. Talk all you want about the woeful 2-18 shooting performance in game 7 of the ‘94 Finals against Olajuwon’s Rockets. Without his 19 points and 6 assists per, they don’t get to a Finals Game 7.
And though he was responsible for the hard foul and wrist injury that Kenny Anderson, NYC’s b-ball prince, would never fully recover from, New Yorkers will always have a warm spot in their heart for John Starks, one of the most tenacious, popular and electric Knicks ever. Not to mention, THE DUNK against Jordan and Horace Grant in ‘93 that made time stand still for every Knick fan the world over.
Without the playground, Starks becomes a sad inner city statistic, never to be known to the world. The Playground is not the problem. It’s the solution!
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
illest says:
johnny was a great Knickerbocker. But John pass the ball please in game 7 just once.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:47 pm
ali says:
no doubt illest. starks wasn’t a great shooter, he was a streak shooter. and ain’t no streaks in 2-18. but he brought that attitude of “i might fail this time but not the next” that endeared him to ny. he was the little engine that could. all heart, guts and a never give up attitude. but i wouldn’t have minded rolando blackmon shooting some of those jumpers in crunch time.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Jon says:
Man i never knew it was like that for him growing up. all you hear about was how he went from bagging groceries to playing in the NBA. You never hear the struggle he went trough and how he overcame that. John starks to this day is my Favorite Knick of all time. Yea he stunk it in game 7 but ill always remember the good times he had while in NY. Good story.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Bobbito Garcia a.k.a. Kool Bob Love says:
wow, b, i never knew all that either. how’d you find all this? did you used to date his third cousin’s step-sister at cornell?! i did a knicks camp once with john. real cool brother, light-hearted and about the kids. big ups.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
ali says:
starks is one of my all time knick favorites as well. his personality and persona would never suggest how rough things were for him. but he went through it all. and survived. and somehow, i think that translated to his game and why, off the court, new yorkers loved him. he was just a regular dude giving every ounce of effort to make it. he’d been through the fire. no coddling, no trips around the world with aau teams, no promises of future stardom and coaches and boosters sweating him. he earned it every inch of the way.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:09 pm
23edge says:
“Without the playground, Starks becomes a sad inner city statistic, never to be known to the world”
replace “playground” with hiphop/cars/art, and “Starks” with many blacks/lations young cats and you have many stories of hope that the media ignores. It’s always great to learn about guys like Starks who made it.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:18 pm
23edge says:
my bad I meant to say “latinos”
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Jeremy Ripley says:
Ali, you strike again! I’m loving all of these posts, I’m learning so much about some of these guys…
The *Dunk* was vicious….
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:02 am
Steve Kluback says:
When my parents moved I had to take “The Dunk” poster down from my old room. I don’t care what anyone says, John banged it on Mike.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:35 am
Caroline says:
You should read his book “My life”. Real good.
John’s my favorite player, no matter what happened in 94 finals. He’s a true warrior!
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:34 am
ali says:
Starks’ autobiography, “My Life”, is a very compelling read. While I was coaching with the Junior Knicks program in Brooklyn, I took a bunch of kids up to the Harlem Y to meet Starks. He took time to talk, and take pictures, with each and every one of the kids in attendance and there were hundreds from all over the city. When I was home a few years back, I bumped into one of those kids on Fulton Street. He was grown, trying to find his way through the thug life. He smiled when he saw me and said “Mr. Ali, remember when I was shooting jumpers with John Starks?” That’s a day he’ll remember for the rest of his life because John Starks made him feel special.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Sean Couch says:
Ali:
I played against John in the CBA. I baked him one playoff game stripping him back to back and drawing a charge that was straight Emmy Awards. I then talked real crazy personal trash and he got a tech and was thrown out of the game. I regret what I said to him then, but back then it was whatever to get the best player out of the game.
But John to his credit improved his game incredibly and deserved everything he received. He put in the big work. I remember seeing him at a workout back in ’90s shooting jumpers with this shooting glove. I asked him and he let me look at it. I should have ran with it out the gym and set up in the park and put up my 500 in the dark that I did off and on instead of everyday.
Anyway, John went through hard times and rose above everything. I have nothing but respect for him and I know
he put in the work to get everything he deserves.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
ali says:
hey sean,
you baked a lot of people back in the day. i heard lloyd daniels was shook when topeka acquired your rights ’cause he thought they might ship him out to make room for you.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:06 pm
funkalot says:
John Starks’dunk was great, but pales in comparison to my new “underground player”, Ronnie Price’s dunk on current teammate Carlos Boozer. Ronnie standing only 6′2″ , flew from outside the lane and placed the ball with ferocity over Boozer. See You Tube, for the Highlights. Simply, ridiculous!
This young man hails from Texas and took a circuitous route to make the league, from Nicholls State to Utah Valley State(a JUCO which moved up to D-1) to undrafted to being signed as a free agent in Sacramento. Watch him carefully when Sloan permits him “shine” and he does not disappoint with some athletic maneuver, which begs the question: Where’d this dude come from. Judging from his game, I know the playground was involved.