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OT: Basketball, Life, Death

Good-Knight

All Conference
Jul 21, 2008
3,030
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Not sure who this is for. I was taught that you should know what you're going to say before you start saying it. This breaks that rule. Big Phil was 6'4" -so medium big. He was usually around 250. I've seen him closer to 300 plenty of times. When he came back from Altona (upstate prison) about 10 years back, he was 200. Is it a surprise if you grow up in Ossining (aka Sing Sing) and spend some time in a cage?

He told me he was a high school legend and was recruited by majors but his grades (or sometimes his coach) held him back. I never really believed it. You could not play any organized ball and play so little D. To him "Get Back" was only a Beatles song. He could shoot. He had a spin move in the lane that was not as effective as he probably imagined. I liked Phil but I never wanted him on my team. It happened every once in a while because we had a lot of ball friends in common.

Anyway, I should mention by now that this weekend I learned Phil passed just before Christmas. Phil was Ricky Riccardo handsome, a Euro-looking Columbian with an easy going smile. He liked girls. He liked cocaine. He liked them both at the same time if possible. He played a lot of pick-up ball but was usually a little fat. Between basketball and cocaine you'd think he'd be lean. He was friendly. He was funny. He was the kind of person that your wife or girlfriend would immediately hate.

He was a barman and sometimes a doorman. He got stabbed one night and made the channel 12 news. One time he told me that if I could get together $50K that we could open a bar. There would be four lines of income: Bar income, Dancer income, Pimp income, Coke income. It was a non-starter for me. I don't even know if he was serious, but I think if I produced $50K he would have found a way to invest it....and lose it. He was out of control when I met him in his 20's and was just as bad in his 30's when most people retire from that game. Unfortunately he kept it going into his 40's. His mother, who I understand was a saint and wore out her knees praying for him, found him. That's not fair.

As someone who recently had a health scare, I think few appreciate how fragile we are. If you're into lessons, I guess the lesson is that bad habits will eventually get you. It should be said that he had a good time when he was here. RIP brother.
 
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