HITE'S MUSINGS - by RYAN WILLHITE

“In due course, every rebel-without-a-cause finds himself either succumbing to the status quo, or, sadly, losing a war that they can never win.”

-Some Wise Man

I was in 10^th grade in Long Island at my friend Nick’s house when I first felt chills from a rock song. As a quick primer, I was born and raised as a hip-hop head with little to no exposure of the rock world. Of course like many kids of my generation, I learned about different genres of music from endless hours spent watching MTV; however, this music was never taken seriously by me. Guns and Roses were just a band that I thought dressed funny and smoked a lot of cigarettes.

Nick was not only a big rock music fan, he also played guitar. Musically we had nothing in common, he hated rap and I hated rock. It was only through basketball that we built any kind of an alliance, being how he lived four houses down from the local park. After playing for hours after school we would go to his home and either play Sega or watch MTV.

This particular day we were watching MTV when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana came on the tube. As the video played Nick was going on about Seattle and the “hot new sound” coming from the area (Nick was a budding journalist at the time, I suppose). Mind you, I knew next to nothing about rock music but I was certain of two things at that time: the first was that this band was pure raw emotion. The second was that they were positioning themselves to be rebels without a cause. Nick agreed that they weren’t the most technical of bands, but that their raw emotion is what carried them and that if they could harness that energy they would be great, but he also acknowledged that because of their rebelliousness (and drug use) that they would fade into oblivion unable to ever realize their full potential. (My memory on this exact statement might be a little bit hazy, but I’m sticking to it.)

So yeah, it is safe to say that Kurt Cobain was one of my first experiences of a truly iconoclastic person, willing to burn out in a flame of glory without giving into societal pressure. The next time I felt this centripetal force from someone was the first time I saw Allen Iverson play. He was a freshman at Georgetown in a nationally televised game against the Arkansas Razorbacks, who were the defending NCAA champions. Arkansas was a fast breaking, three-point shooting team that punished the opposition with what then Razorbacks coach Nolan Richardson called “40 Minutes of Hell,” an unrelenting full court pressing, trapping defense that made opponents feel like they were playing against seven men, not five. In fact, I was only watching the game that day to see how Arkansas looked in defending their title. They brought back every player that mattered and were ranked number one coming into the season.

Iverson came out as a lightning quick clean-cut freshman. He rarely passed the ball as he broke down and thru the Arkansas defense seemingly at will. He also took tons of bad shots that bricked and he turned the ball over a lot. Uncharacteristically, Georgetown coach John Thompson let Iverson make bad play after bad play; furthermore, Iverson continued to attack the defense and shoot as he pleased with such reckless abandon that I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. Of course, a purist would say he should have stopped shooting or that he didn’t get his team involved enough, and that purist would be 100% correct. Instead, what I saw was a guy that was a warrior, a guy that didn’t give in to fear, and a guy that had a heart the size of an elephant. I mean, seriously, how many freshman can play a national game on live television against the defending champs who were known for shutting down point guards, and have absolutely no fear? And not only that, but after the game begins and he misses a few shots or turns the ball over a few times, can still have no conscience, never lose faith and continue to plow ahead. I just spent the last half-hour trying to find a box score for that game and had no luck. I did, however, come up with this quote from Nolan Richardson, “I’ve been to three calf shows, nine horse ropings and seen Elvis once. But I have never seen anything like this in my life.”

That first college game was the introduction the national basketball world got to Iverson. A whirlwind of points, steals, ten all-star games, one final appearance and one MVP season later, we find him still a rebel, still unwillingly to play it safe and (seemingly) willing to walk away from it all and retreat into his private life away from the scrutiny of the public.

As sad as some people may find the ending to the Iverson story, there has to be something said or respected about these bundles of raw energy that come into our consciousness burning like a supernova. It is in this realm that I come to the story of the weekend, if not the NBA season, in Brandon Jennings. Like Iverson, he is a force that seemingly has no physical limits. He is lightning-quick, untamed, and plays with a chip on his shoulder. Brandon almost had a triple double in his first game as an NBA player. He had 32 points and 9 assists in his sixth NBA game. In his seventh he had 55 points.

Yes, you read that correctly, A rookie in his seventh game in the NBA had 55 points. Even Iverson for all his shooting prowess and “ball-hogging” was unable to come up with a 55 point game as a rookie. It is amazing to me how this guy is exploding into the league putting up these video game like numbers. Jennings is perhaps the best rookie guard the NBA has seen since the Answer. After the game Warriors coach Don Nelson said Jennings' play was "probably the best rookie performance I've ever witnessed in 30-some years coaching."

Sound Familiar?