This is a story of my basketball life. It is a story of how I have become accustomed to losing. It is a story of how I have been conditioned to be a Timberwolves fan. Warning, it is long and rambling.

There was a time when I was a much bigger basketball fan than a baseball fan. Back in the old days, when I was just a little boy, there was no cable television, no ESPN, and the Minnesota Twins were a team that my Dad talked about (Killer!, Oliva!, Carew!), but there was basketball being played right there in my hometown and it was a big story.

In the spring of 1971, I was in kindergarten. I'd never played a game of baseball in my life to that point, but I'd dribbled a basketball, and the hometown SBGville High School team was the hot thing. I got to go to a few games at the enormous high school in town (enormous to a six year old) and hey, the boys were pretty good. So good, in fact, that they made it to the state Class B basketball tournament. Not only had they made it to the tournament, but they HAD NOT LOST A GAME ALL SEASON. Well, as it turned out, they won the first two games of the tournament and ended up playing for a state title. Mom and Dad went to Grand Forks for the Final and the neighbor girls came over to babysit us. We watched our team playing on television! The neighbors had seven kids and two of the boys were about my age (actually, one was four years older than me, the other three years younger). The boys were over, too as we watched the game. We were pretending to play ball in the house -- we had some sort of ball that we were throwing against the wall. Mom's candy dish was a casualty of that game, it got knocked off the stereo, hit the floor and broke. That's life with boys in the house, I guess.

Late in the game, SBGville was behind and one of the sisters next door was crying. She went outside to jump rope -- she couldn't watch the game. Well, what do you know -- SBGville came back in the game and it went to over time. And in overtime, SBGville prevailed. I was living in the home of the North Dakota State Class B Boys Basketball Champions. That's pretty damned big when you are six years old. "Moose" Becker was the star of the team. He was a big center who was extremely quick and had good hands. Plus, he could shoot. He was too much for anyone to handle in the state tournament, scoring (I believe) 72 points in the three games. I saw him play many times later, and he was a real fantastic player. Moose was the paperboy -- my first athletic hero delivered the paper to our house. When I started playing baseball after the first grade, Moose was the coach. I was freaking HONORED to be coached by Moose. I still see him from time to time these days and honestly, a little bit of me is still that six year old kid in awe of him.

The 1971 State Class B Champs. Moose was #44 right the middle.

Moose had five brothers: "Bonehead", "Housewrecker", "Pickle", "Beaner", and Rick. They lived about a block and a half from us. We'll talk about Beaner later. And really, what was the deal with Rick? What an odd name.

The next year, Moose was a senior and SBGville won their first ten games of the season. I was a first grader then and the big game was coming up -- against the hated Hooterville Pirates. My uncle lived in Hooterville. He was a fan of the Hooterville squad despite having grown up in SBGville. And his wife graduated from high school in SBGville, but she, too, was a big Hooterville fan. Disgusting. Anyway, Hooterville was coming to SBGville for a showdown. I still remember my first grade teacher talking about it. Apparently, I must have been more excited about the game than anyone else in my class, because I remember that the teacher said something about me in front of the whole class. I did not care. We were going to beat Hooterville and that was that. We had won 37 games in a row. My team had NEVER lost in all the time that I had been following them. I did not know defeat and it was not going to happen here.

Except it did. Hooterville beat the defending state champions (and I believe the #1 ranked team in the state).

After the game, my uncle and aunt came over to our house and gushed about what a great game it was. I was P-I-S-S-E-D off. It was NOT a great game. We lost. And I was pissed off that they were happy about it. P-I-S-S-E-D. O-F-F. (And my Dad was more than a little pissed off. When I talked to him about this night in preparation for this diatribe, his blood pressure went up as he described that night. It was just like I remembered it.) After a lifetime of success (to that point) following my team, I had the taste of bitter defeat. It would not be the last time I tasted it.

SBGville did not lose another game that season until the semi-final of the Regional tournament. Then, they lost again. The won the third place game, but who cared. There would be no return trip to the state tournament. As it turned out, SBGville has never even reached the regional final since. But, my first favorite basketball team was pretty exciting. The next several years included a lot of darned good teams. My brother and I dreamed of playing in the state tournament, just like Moose, and we had an ice cream pail nailed to a post in the basement. We played countless games of basketball down there with a tennis ball as our ball. We taped a lane on the floor and played for hours. I hit a lot of shots to win the state tournament down there. That basement was unfinished then. Now, it's finished and there's no trace of that first basketball court.

It wasn't long after that that my Dad put a basketball hoop on the garage. He got a plywood backboard and he got an old rim from somewhere – I don't know where. It didn't have the little catches to hold a net, so we didn't have a net. There were other hoops in town, but the neighborhood kids gravitated to our place. Why? My dad wanted us how to learn to shoot properly, so that rim was not at 10'. There would be no shooting from the hip just to get the ball up there. That hoop was at about 7'. Everybody wanted to play on that hoop. There was a lot of dunking going on there, but not by me. I was still too small to dunk on that rim. But, all the dunking meant that thing got bent, and eventually, the rim broke free from the brace on one side. We still played with it broke like that. But, then I got big enough to dunk. That was it. Dad raised her up to 10'. He didn't want me dunking, he wanted me shooting. But, we got a new rim with a net and it was at ten feet, so that was cool. Eventually, I could dunk on that sucker, too. It's gone now. No boys, no basketball hoop.

A couple of blocks away from our house was the city park, known as the Rock Garden. The Rock Garden was about the size of three good sized lots and it was surrounded by about a six foot wall made out of rocks. There weren't flowers or plants growing in there -- it was a park. Nevertheless, that place was known as the Rock Garden. The Rock Garden had a basketball court. I played a lot of basketball on that court. The court was installed in 1971 (there was a marker on the concrete that said so). It had a street light and it was concrete. Plus, the basket was ten feet. This is where the big kids played. The net was a chain net. Cool.

The Methodist minister had a son named Stanley Cushing and Stanley lived right across the street from the Rock Garden. He was several years older than me and a decent ballplayer, but he had something that we needed: a squeegee. In the winter, we'd shovel off that court and if it was necessary, we'd get that squeegee to clean the court. Many's the time that the snowbanks surrounded the court while we played. Damn, that was fun ball. Cold, you bet your life. But, fun. That court isn't there anymore. The women folk apparently decided that the concrete was more valuable as the floor of a picnic shelter that gets used about twice a year. That was a terrible decision. Kids played on that court forever. Now, SBGville has basketball courts with rims at about 11 feet or something. Way too high. No one plays on those. Stupid. Back in those days, the NBA wasn't too popular, at least by me, but the kid who lived next door to me (the one three years younger than me), he was a little guy. Whenever he scored a basket, the guys would yell, "Kareeeeeeeeeeem". The littlest guy on the court was named after the biggest guy in the NBA. Heh. I couldn't care less about the NBA, but my Dad was cheering for the 1973 Knicks because Phil Jackson from North Dakota was playing for them. I remember seeing Wilt play -- he was an old man by then. But, there wasn't much NBA going on in SBGville.

As I got older, though, I became interested in college basketball. My first favorite team was the Indiana Hoosiers. I wasn't a UCLA guy, the Hoosiers were my team. In 1976, I was all charged up about them and coach Knight. I had to miss the Championship Game, though, because my brother had just been born a month earlier and I had to go to babysitting class. Thffpt. Years later, I got a chance to meet Coach Knight and he autographed my Indiana Basketball hat. I'm not an autograph guy, but that's one that I cherish.

I dreamed of playing high school basketball and I started playing organized games when I was in the seventh grade. I remember my first basket. I got a rebound, head faked and laid it in. Man, that was fun. I was a decent junior high school player, but I was actually kind of small for my age. I decided to go to boarding school for high school and as a freshman, I played only on the freshman team. Our varsity team was pretty good. We had some big kids who were seniors and there was this kid who was a sophomore who was about 6'6 and very wide. He looked like he was going to be a player. But, he had a knee injury and missed the beginning of the season. It turned out that we had SBGville on the schedule that season. It was the last game of the year before the District Tournament. I got to dress for the B-Squad for the only time that season, because the game was in my home town. I got in the game right at the end and had a chance to score, but this kid who was a year older than me blocked my shot. Crap. Should have head faked.

Our varsity killed SBGville. Destroyed them. And I was cheering against my first favorite team. Unbelievable. Anyway, we were 16-3 heading into the District tournament. Our school was small and it had only been in existence for about 12 years at that time -- and had basketball for only about 7 or 8 years. We had never won a game in the District tournament. That was going to change. We had drawn a team in the first round that we had beaten twice by over 20 points. Something happened, though. We got in foul trouble and maybe a couple of kids choked a little. But, the game came down to the last few seconds and it was tied. We got the ball into our big 6'6 sophomore and all he had to do was lay it in and we could have won. But, no. The biggest kid on the floor -- and probably the best player -- threw it up and hit the bottom of the rim. The rebound went to the other team, they threw it down the floor and scored a bucket at the buzzer. We lost by two. We were 16-4 and out of the tournament.

The next year, I played B-Squad and Varsity. The seniors were gone and our “star” sophomore didn’t return to our school. Neither did a couple of really good basketball players in my class. We had a senior dominated team again, except that we weren't very good. I should have been starting on that team, but age before beauty, I guess. I didn't even get enough quarters to letter, despite the fact that I was handing it to the starting guards on a regular basis in practice. We won five game that season and basketball was becoming somewhat of a torturous thing. The game I loved was not much fun. It would get worse. In retrospect, I think those high school years prepared me for the years of frustration that have come along with being a Timberwolves fan.

My junior year, I was the starting point guard. We had two seniors on the squad. One started, but neither was particularly good. My brother was a 5'5 freshman and he was the off guard. I was 6'1 by then and I played point because my brother was too slow to handle pressure, so I did it. We won two games. It sucked. We had, in addition to my brother, another freshman and a sophomore starting. I remember one weekend we played two games, back-to-back and got beat by over 100 points, total. The second game was particularly disgusting. The team we were playing pressed us the whole game, even when they were up by fifty. We had kids crying after that one. I was named all-conference despite our terrible record. I enjoyed, I loved playing, but things were falling apart. It would get worse.

My senior season, I moved to center. My brother didn't grow at all, but he was a little stronger, so he played point guard. As a boarding school, we lost kids every year. I was the only senior on the team and we had just one junior. I was now about 6'2 and I could play a little. But, we sucked. We were starting one senior, a junior, two sophomores, and a freshman, who had no business even playing B-Squad. If he'd have been in my class, he wouldn't have started on our freshman team. Now he was starting on our varsity.

We got slaughtered game after game after game. But, then, there was this one night. We played an average team, but somehow we just exploded. Myself, I had 18 points in the first quarter. I was thinking, hell I can score fifty tonight (that was Moose's all-time and school record back in SBGville). I got in foul trouble, though and only got one more basket the rest of the game (my season average was 19). But, one of our sophomores stepped up and got 22, my brother pitched in with about 15 and we absolutely drilled that team. Blew them off the floor. I mean, the final spread was about 20, but it was not that close. What a feeling that was. I mean, wow. It was the only game that we won all year. In fact, we later played a team with a 43 game losing streak. I got a triple-double (10 blocks, I got the same guy about 8 times), but we lost. To a team with 43 straight losses.

It turns out that we won eight games during my three seasons of varsity basketball. I was all-conference again as a senior, but the losing was no fun at all. Eight freaking games. Three as a two-year starter. I was ready to be a Wolves fan, for sure. We lost the last ten games of my senior season. It would get worse.

Yes it would get worse for my alma mater, but things were frustrating back in SBGville, too. SBGville had a pretty good team my senior year, but if I would have been there, they’d have been really good. I was playing out of position as a center. Even though I was a good shot blocker and a very good rebounder (23 in one game in high school, that takes some doing), my natural position was as a small forward. That was the weak link at SBGville. They were strong at the 1,2, 4, and 5, but weak at the three. I may have been the best player on that team and had I been there, I would have replaced their worst starter. I practiced with their team over Christmas break and it was clear that I’d have been their guy. That team featured a freshman at the two guard. That freshman was Beaner, Moose’s brother.

The SBGville team ended up tied for second in the District, but they lost a coin flip and ended up fourth. They met the #1 team in the second round of the District and met their demise. With me, they could have beaten that team. I should note that SBGville was second in the state in 9-man football that year, losing on the last play of the game on a trick play. There were athletes there. I really, honestly think that with me there was a chance at a regional title in basketball. However, there was some revenge extracted that year. In January, they played Hooterville in SBGville and lost. Hooterville had a very good team and ended up tied with SBGville in the standings. After the game, there was a party in SBGville. Players from both teams were there. The cops busted the party. Players from SBGville dropped their beer, as did players from Hooterville. The only player suspended from SBGville was Pickle, who, despite his size wasn’t much of a ball player. Hooterville lost their best player. Heh. But, I digress.

I was watching the Fargo sports one night in 1987. I was four years removed from high school and I heard that my alma mater had won that night. It was their first win since that night when we blew East Grand Forks Sacred Heart off the floor. I think the streak was 72 straight losses. My high school closed down about ten or fifteen years ago. The building is still there, the gym is still there, but there are no games being played.

When I went to NDSU, I was a basketball fan first. It wasn't long before I learned that football was king, but man I loved me some Bison basketball. When I was a sophomore in high school, NDSU won the conference in basketball. They had some really good players, and my high school coach had a connection over there. Once in a while, some of the guys from NDSU would actually come over and scrimmage with us (pretty cool). I remember when I was a sophomore (I was about 5'10 then) I was playing against a guy named Bruce Shockman. Bruce was about 6'8. A shot went up and I boxed him out but good. Stuck my butt in him and pushed. The rebound came my way and he reached up over me and took it, but he said, good boxing out. Nice work. That was cool coming from him. My b-squad coach was a former player at NDSU. He played his freshman year, but his ankles were bad and he couldn't make it. He was only four years older than me and still in college, and I scrimmaged against him every day. By the time I was a senior, he wanted no part of that b-squad team we were putting out there, so he was like my personal coach. He guarded me in practice every day. Alley-I may not think much about practice, but when you are getting drilled by 40 points or so every game and practice means competing against a college guy, well practice is the whole thing, my man.

Anyway, back to NDSU. The teams at NDSU while I was there were pretty good, but not good enough to be the elite in the conference. My brother and I would go to games all the time, and they seemingly always lost the crucial ones. My brother, not the loyalist that I am, began cheering for whoever we were playing. That irritated me, but I had to admit that watching that crew was frustrating. In college, I played a lot of intramural and in the off season, I played against more than one varsity basketball player. Let me tell you that the fringe guys were not much better, if at all, than a lot of the guys playing shirts and skins on any given night in the Sports Arena. I enjoyed those pickup games -- it was fun to play on teams that weren't drilled every night.

When I played intramurals, I was on a couple of good squads. I hooked up with a team of guys from Fergus Falls and we beat the hell out of a bunch of football players one night and knocked them out of the playoffs. I was guarding Phil Hanson and I outplayed him -- shutting him down on defense and scoring pretty freely on offense. Phil was a big damned boy, about 6'5, 240 or so. He beefed up quite a bit after college and he played about ten years for the Bills in the NFL. There were a few Pfeifers drunk that night.

Anyway, after I got out of college, I lived in my parents basement for about a year. (Hey, what blogger doesn’t live in his mother’s basement.) During that time, the Wolves started play. I was hooked from day one. Bill Musselman was the type of coach that scratched and clawed for every win. The games weren't on TV, so I spent a lot of time listening to Kevin Harlan describe the action. Oh, baby, what a play! Before that I wasn’t much of an NBA guy – I loved Dr. J, hated the Lakers and really, really, really, I mean really, absolutely hated, hated, hated, the Celtics. But, other than cheering for Dr. J (and Michael Jordan), I never had a team. But, now I did. I was a huge TWolves fan from day one. I knew they’d be bad, but I didn’t care. They were my team. I cheered Tony Campbell. I remember Randy Breuer’s 40 point game. Tod Murphy was a guy I really liked.

Oh, baby, what an ugly logo.

But, then, things started to slide. First, they fired Musselman. Then, they brought in Jimmy Fu$king Rodgers. Jimmy Rodgers. With the ridiculous perm. Jimmy Rodgers. Former Celtic assistant. Jimmy Rodgers, former assistant at UND, the arch rival of my alma mater NDSU. I hated, hated, HATED Jimmy Rodgers. More than that, I hated what he did to my Timberwolves. 15 and fucking 67. 15-67. FIFTEEN AND SIXTY SEVEN! The only, only, only good thing about that year was that the Wolves were going to get a good pick. And Shaq and ‘Zo were out there. Help was coming.

And, then, the Wolves got screwed in the lottery and ended up picking third. First pick, Shaq. Second pick, Zo. Third pick, Christian Laettner. We picked third in a two player draft. And the franchise began to float along aimlessly.

And it floated aimlessly until the Wolves decided to take a chance on a high schooler named Kevin Garnett. It seemed risky at the time, but I saw KG’s first pre-season game. It was played in Fargo. And there was KG, skinny as hell. I was there with my buddy, Beaner. We decided right then and there that The Kid was gonna be a player. His shot was flat, but the kid could run, he could move, he was graceful. Oh my God. He was The Answer.

Ready or not? That dog was READY.

Soon thereafter, Laettner was gone. J.R. Rider was gone. The Wolves stole Stephon Marbury. And the Kid was going to lead us to the promised land. And my love for the game, a love that had gone unrequited almost completely since 1971 (save a few Indiana championships), was going to be requited. Basketball was going to love me back. Yes, sir. It was gonna happen.

Except of course, Marbury got a case of the stupids, McHale was exposed as an idiot, and the Wolves made a series of almost unbelievable moves that crushed every single bit of life out of me, save one thing. KG was still there. And he was bringing it every night. Oh sure, he didn’t seem to be selfish enough and maybe he disappeared in the fourth quarter from time to time. But, he was like Moose. He was my basketball hero.

When the Wolves made their run in 2004, I really believed honestly that they would win the title. It didn’t happen of course, and the decline from there was swift and stunning. Spree had to feed his family. Cassell was hurt ended up being traded with a number one pick for Marko Jaric. And on. And on. And on. The Wolves took me to a place where I was familiar. Frustration in basketball. The one thing I could not handle though, was the thought of KG leaving. That could not happen.

Eventually, though, the incompetence of the franchise required that he go. And where did he go? To the HATED, HATED, HATED CELTICS. Fuck.

Yeah, it hurts.

And what am I left with? A team of maybes. A team that might be lucky to win 15 games. And you know what? I’m still a fan. Call me crazy, but I’ve been in worse places in basketball than right here. I’ve been on a bus of crying teammates after being personally humiliated. That was the worst.

So, I’m conditioned to be a Wolves fan. I can handle losing. It’s just that I thought that with KG there would be winning. And maybe he’ll win in Boston. I hope he does. Meanwhile, I’ll be checking the Wolves for a pulse. It’s what every fan from the beginning is familiar with. Is this team breathing? It is? Good. Just checking.