NO MERCY FOR OLD MEN

I wrote this story three years before the Scamdemic began. When I wrote it, it was about appearance, age, race and how men speak to each other. It’s still about those themes but now it’s also about the Covid shots and ridiculous college Covid policies. For the reasons stated in the Epilogue, the relationship and community-building events in this story couldn’t happen now or at any time in the past three-and-a-half years.

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Last week, as I sometimes do, I went to one of the Rutgers gyms to play late afternoon basketball with the students. The University allows alumni like me to buy gym passes. Local guys sneak in by knocking on a fire door along the basketball courts’ baseline until someone lets them in. The gym staff knows this happens every day but, for PC/demographic reasons, does nothing to stop it.

In the afternoons, there’s a surplus of players. In order to get into a game, one must approach those waiting and ask them if they “have next” or if they’re “tryin’ to (i.e., want to) play” and need another guy.

I saw a big, expressionless black guy, about 30 — the only other guy over 25 — sitting against the wall on the floor along the baseline.  He did what many of the guys I ask do: grimaced at my old, Caucasian head and admitted that they only had four guys. I told him, “I won’t let you down. And I’ll get you the ball.”

Then, feeling a little like Grover from Sesame Street — as in “I’m Grover and I want to be your friend” — I added, “I’m Mark. What’s your name?”

“Emmanuel,” he responded. Enough said. He was all business.

While Emmanuel and his prospective teammates — two tall black youths and a Puerto Rican kid named Danny — remained seated, I grabbed a stray ball and took some practice shots when the play in the current game moved to the far side of the floor.

When that game ended, our turn came. We fell behind but rallied and won 12–9 against a pretty athletic team. The game had good flow. I played reasonably well, not shooting much but getting some rebounds and making a series of nice passes, including—keeping my word—several to Emmanuel. Plus, the guy I guarded didn’t score. Anyway, when you winnin,’ they grinnin.’  

We next played a team that looked easier than the team we had just beaten. We fell behind again and then surged. I made a few shots but when the score was 10–10, I narrowly missed an open, very makeable 17-footer. After several other teammates — including Emmanuel —also missed shots, we lost 12–11. Ousted from the floor, we were all disappointed. On my way out of the gym, I apologized to Emmanuel, “We would have won if I had made that shot at 10–10.”

He frowned and, nodding sideways toward another teammate, replied, “Yeah, me and him was just talking shit about that.”

Five days later, I returned and had the typical experience: walking up to a set of black guys sitting along the baseline and asking them if I could be on their team for the next game. The usual disdainful look, followed by an “I guess so” shrug.

When our game started, I ran up the floor, caught a pass and made a 19-footer. My teammates looked surprised. Next time down, a fake right, two dribbles left and I made a ten-foot bank shot over the other team’s center. I went on to make five out of the next six shots: outside, mid-range and even two drives. The growing number of those surrounding the court and waiting to play exclaimed more loudly each time I scored. Go, old guy, go!  

I made seven of eight in that game. 

Memo to other team: have the guy who looks as if he had eaten more than his share of the doughnuts guard someone else.

Regardless, we won 12–7 — smiles and high fives all around — and stayed on. 

In the second game, my teammates turned the ball over frequently and the other team, who had seen the game that we won, assigned a fast, determined guy to cover me so I didn’t get the ball as much. We lost 12–9. Still, I made two of three shots—thus, nine of eleven for the day—and got some bounds and steals.

Two tall, first-game, African American opponents came up to me. One said, “If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?”

I said, “I don’t mind. 59.” They looked at each other and mutually raised their eyebrows. One said, "You move good." They smiled and walked away. 

Several other players and bystanders came up to me and high-fived me. There was a surplus of students waiting to get in games, so I left.

While I was walking down the long, curved hall toward the locker room, Emmanuel from last week unexpectedly popped out of the weight room and headed for the water fountain as we made eye contact.

“How’d the games go?” he asked.

“Good,” I said. “I made a bunch of shots.”

He frowned again and replied, “About time.”

Then he leaned down to the fountain and drank. Conversation over.

Or so I thought. As I headed to the locker room, a voice called from behind, “Yo, you coming back on Thursday?”

I looked over my shoulder and called back, “I think so.”

—

From early 2015 to early 2020, I had much fun playing with the students and locals who dropped in at one of the three Rutgers gyms at which I used to play. I’d rather play basketball than watch the NFL or Netflix, eat pizza or cannabis gummies or visit Disneyworld or Europe; or whatever it is that other people like to do.

The students used to call me ‘Uncle Drew” or “The Professor.” I still move well enough to get buckets, etc. in those games. Just don’t ask me to defend someone who’s fast and can make shots from range; mercifully, such opponents are rare at any age. Many of the students are good players. But regardless of their skill level or game sense, they’re all very spry.

Unfortunately, for most of the past three years, one of my main sources of fun was gratuitously taken from me and, for 21 months, from the many others who played in college gyms nationwide.

From March, 2020 through April, 2021, I couldn’t even play in the parks. These were police-taped closed for three months. I went anyway and just walked or did what now passes for sprints. But as they were even after the parks reopened, the rims had been taken down and were kept in storage for over a year.

Over the past three and a half years, Public Health “experts” have shown that they know very little of value. Still, they never forgot their favorite old Public Health 101 story about how some Third World village removed the pump handle from a well to control some infectious disease. These “experts” thought they were clever for removing the hoops; they were flexing their new-found, misplaced power to senselessly prevent physical activity and community among people who were at zero risk of dying from an extremely overhyped virus. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

For a semester after the Rutgers gyms reopened in February, 2022, I was able to sneak in because a student I know gave unjabbed me his spare ID. But when my student ally graduated at the end of that term, his—i.e., my—ID electronically expired.

So now I’m banned from the Rutgers gyms again because I won’t take shots: the mRNA ones. From April-October, I play in parks instead, Usually, sadly, I’m there alone; there are fewer youths overall these days and many of them ride skateboards or scooters or play video games instead of hooping. This past winter, I skated more often at the reopened outdoor Middlesex County ice rink and joined the Piscataway Y and played half-court with mostly old guys. It’s not the same as playing full-court with the youngstas. At the Y, there are no fast breaks and old guys hold, walk and hack more than the students do.

When the jabs were first marketed, Rutgers required all of its students—even those taking only on-line classes—to inject. Rutgers is one of comparatively few universities that, despite the jabs’ obvious failure, still requires “vaxxes.”

Anyone who can read at a third-grade level should know that college students were at functionally zero risk of dying from Covid and seldom spread the virus to the elderly. Let’s face it: how much time do college students spend with old people? And of course, the shots don’t stop the spread. Some injected college students have developed myocarditis after injecting and others have died. There’s no health-based reason to inject students. There never has been.

Rutgers, for whom I have worked for the past nine years—granted me a religious exemption from the shot mandate. The University markets itself, including on billboards, as “REVOLUTIONARY.”

Instead, allegiance to the truth should compel the Rutgers to label itself “REACTIONARY.” Like any self-promoting, soulless reactionary, Rutgers is an authoritarian entity that clings to lies, seemingly in order to advance the interests of New Jersey’s mega-profitable Pharma sector. Rutgers resembles a Latin American dictatorship, except that it props up drug makers, not banana, coffee or sugar exporters and doesn’t push anyone out of helicopters.

Injected students who work for me, and many other non-student injectors whom I know have gotten Covid multiple times. I’ve been fine, uninjected.

Yesterday, someone who enrolled her four-year old boy in a Rutgers Day Care program told me that her son must wear a mask for the entire session. Shouldn’t universities be managed by people who can analyze trends and make intelligent, student and child-friendly choices?

Rutgers’ sports teams are called the Scarlet Knights. But Rutgers’ benighted Covid policies and vaxx mandates plainly show that these requirements are driven by something other than public health. Thinking people should be very angry that their government and the purported intellectuals at both public and private colleges have arrogantly and cynically acted against students’ and staff members’ interests.