The Players That Made Me, Part One: Allen Iverson
On being the fat kid who gets bullied, and relating to a basketball player even though I had nothing in common with him.
If you looked at me today, you might not imagine that my grade school experience played out the way that it did.I’m 6’5”, 215, and I’m in great health. When I applied for life insurance, I was placed into the best rating group possible. I lift weights six days a week. I don’t believe that there has been a day in the last three and a half years, barring maybe a few times when I was sick, that I didn’t consume more than 200 grams of protein. I haven’t always been this way. After I graduated college, I was been struggling mentally, and packed a lot of pounds onto an already big body. When I realized that I needed to right the ship, I got deep into fitness and nutrition, spending much of my free time reading scientific papers and watching Jeff Nippard videos on YouTube. Over the course of four years, I ended up going from 350 pounds down to 194, subsequently improved my relationship with food via bulking, and have settled into the range where I am now. That’s the short version of it, but if you saw me today, or at any point in the last four years, you wouldn’t get an accurate picture of what most of my life has been like.
Big Maxwell, during my pro wrestling commentary days.
Current Maxwell.
I was a fat kid. I have red hair, and my printer paper colored skin is dotted with more freckles than there are stars in the sky. I am noticeably pigeon-toed, and was constantly being told “you walk funny” by classmates. Needless to say, I was not the coolest kid in school. 4th grade was when I was first met with consistent bullying. There were two kids in particular that were a constant thorn in my side, picking on me every single day. They would make hurtful remarks about my appearance, start false rumors about me having a crush on a girl in class, typical kid stuff. It first escalated to being physical during a recess soccer game. Because of my pigeon-toes and lardy physique, I was always horrible at soccer. However, on this fateful day, I managed to score a goal, and just seconds later, the bell rang to signal that it was time to come inside. I’d made the equivalent of a game winning goal, and I was pumped. I ran toward one of my friends to celebrate when one of my bullies stuck out his knee; it clipped me in my thighs, and I flipped onto my back, knocking the wind out of me. It was both physically and emotionally deflating, going from an emotional high to gasping for breath.
The time in which I was a target for bullying heavily influenced the rest of my life. It put a chip on my shoulder and gave me an underdog complex, while making sure that I was still rife with insecurity and self-doubt. That’s why, despite looking how I do now, I’ve always had such a soft spot for the “nobody believes in” me stories, and the players that overcame obstacles placed in front of them. That’s why Allen Iverson, a man who looks nothing like me, and comes from a background wildly dissimilar from my own, shaped me as a basketball fan, and as a person.
I was born to a then-30 year old mother and then-33 year old father, who are still married to this day, in an affluent suburb of Chicago; Allen Iverson was born to a 15 year old single mother. When I was 13, my dad took time out of his work day to come watch my basketball games and track meets (I was a thrower, obviously. If you were reading this and thought I was running sprints, you have not been paying attention); When Allen Iverson was 13, he saw his father figure arrested for dealing drugs. At 17, I got in trouble at school for making inappropriate jokes on Facebook and had to do five hours of community service; At 17, Allen Iverson was dealing with a much heavier situation.
For greater detail, I would highly recommend the ESPN 30-For-30 Documentary “No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson.” The quick version is this: a brawl erupted at a bowling alley between two crowds; one predominantly white, one predominantly black. Only four people were arrested, and I’ll let you guess which crowd they were a part of…if you guessed the predominantly black crowd, congratulations, you nailed it! Allen Iverson was one of the people arrested, allegedly for throwing a chair that hit a woman in the head. The case was flimsy due to video evidence showing Iverson leaving the bowling alley almost as soon as the fighting started. Still, Iverson was sentenced to fifteen years in jail, an especially hefty sentence given that so many others who were on video throwing punches and committing other acts of violence in the incident were never charged. Thankfully for Iverson, Governor Douglas Wilder pardoned him after serving four months, and Iverson was able to go on to a basketball scholarship at Georgetown. From there, he would become the number one pick in the NBA Draft, playing for the Philadelphia 76ers.
As the Chicago Bulls were wandering in the post-Jordan wilderness, I was desperate for basketball players to root for. I got into the San Antonio Spurs, because that was where my favorite ex-Bull, Steve Kerr, ended up. I also got into the Philadelphia 76ers for two reasons. The first was a love for Theo Ratliff, a defensive madman who swatted shots out of the air as if he was playing against children on a nerf hoop. The second was Allen Iverson. I loved his style, on and off the court. Iverson marched the beat of his own drum, and that caught my eye as a kid who always had quirky interests. His wardrobe choices and tattoos drove the league offices and old media folks mad, and many consider the decision to institute a dress code for players to be a direct response to Iverson. On the court, Iverson was relentless. He was constantly probing and attacking, using both his athletic burst and deep bag of dribbling maneuvers to manipulate defenses at will. Watching him break down defenders was mesmerizing. Even though he was 6’0” and 165 pounds, Iverson LOVED physicality. He routinely embraced the opportunity to get decimated by larger players when trying to convert at the basket, because it meant he got to go to the free throw line, and Iverson lived at the free throw line. There were multiple seasons where Iverson took over 10 free throw attempts per game, a ridiculous number. Despite being undersized, Iverson was a fearless attacker. Teams would build game plans around knocking the small guard to the floor in an effort to intimidate him, but it never worked. Iverson would not back down. We were completely different in stature and background, but still, he was who I wanted to be.
Theo Ratliff would be traded mid-season, but the 76ers were still the team I was pulling for when the 2001 NBA Playoffs rolled around. The 76ers made it all the way to the NBA Finals, where they were paired off against the Los Angeles Lakers, a team I despised. I thought it was unfair that Shaquille O’Neal could back down his opponents in the low post with such ease, and I hated that segments of sports media were so eager to crown Kobe Bryant as the successor to Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan was a legend who won six championships as the leading man, and Kobe wasn’t even the best player on his own team! The Shaq/Kobe duo got under my ten year old skin in the worst way.
To make matters worse, the Lakers were a far more talented team beyond their star players, to boot. This team, which was coming off of a championship win the prior season, had a myriad of great complimentary players in Rick Fox, Derek Fisher, and Brian Shaw. Additionally, Horace Grant and Robert Horry had previously won titles with other teams, so they were role players who were more than comfortable in the spotlight. On the other hand, the 76ers supporting cast left a lot to be desired. Dikembe Mutombo was a big name, but at 34, his star was fading. Iverson’s starting backcourt partner was Eric Snow, a good defender with size who could help Iverson on that end of the floor. Offensively…I think Bill Simmons said it best when he wrote, “If my life were at stake and I had to pick any NBA player to miss a 20-footer that he was trying to make, or else I'd be killed, I'd pick Eric Snow and rejoice as he bricked a set shot off the side of the rim.” Aaron McKie was a high scoring sixth man who would run hot and cold. Tyrone Hill was a former All-Star who made you constantly think, “Wait, how the heck was this guy an All-Star?” He was a good rebounder, but offered little else by that point. An inexperienced duo of Raja Bell (who later became an awesome role player) and Jumaine Jones dubiously rounded out the rotation.
To me, at the time, the picture was far more focused than what I just outlined; it was Iverson versus Shaq and Kobe, just like weeks earlier as I finished fourth grade, it had been me vs. my two bullies. In the first game of the series, one of my favorite moments in basketball history took place. The game had gone into overtime, and I was living and dying by Iverson’s every move. During the final stretch, Allen Iverson drained a baseline jumper, and Lakers reserve guard Tyronn Lue had fallen to the floor trying to contest the shot. As Lue sat defeated on the floor, Iverson emphatically stepped over Tyronn Lue’s body. The 76ers would win the game by 6. It didn’t matter that it was Lue, and not Shaq or Kobe. What mattered is that I saw Allen Iverson, the underdog, the target, the picked-on, march triumphantly over the enemy.
The 76ers’ game one win would be their only in the series, as the Lakers would capture the next four in a row. I was sad. I wanted to see Iverson climb to the top of the mountain. But still, in that iconic game one moment, I saw that you can stand up to the people who are above you on the hierarchy. It gave me a glimmer of hope that has stuck with me for two decades. I learned a second, even bigger lesson, as even in defeat, Iverson never quit. He averaged over 35 points per game during the series. Even when things looked bad, Iverson never stopped trying. A personal mantra I have is that, “trying is a floor-raiser.” Effort is never going to fix everything. No matter what Rise-And-Grind Twitter will tell you, no amount of trying will ever guarantee success. There will always be less talented, lazier people that have more in life than you or I do solely because of who they were born to, or who they know. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, regardless of whether or not it should be that way. But, if you put a lot of effort into whatever it is that you are pursuing, I’ve found that the worst possible outcomes aren’t as bad as if you slack off. I would use Iverson’s persistence as motivation during my weight loss journey. When I would have a bad week on the scale, or I would struggle at the gym, I would occasionally think back to Iverson’s Finals performance, and how by folding, nothing would get better. The only option was to keep pushing forward, and to keep trying. Even if I didn’t get the end result I wanted, I would be happier knowing that I came close than knowing that I never tried.
On the bullying front, things didn’t get better for a few years. I remember dreading going to school. I grew to hate recess because I knew that no matter what I did, those two bullies would find me and give me hell. Fifth grade was a bit better, but matters became worse again in sixth grade, as posturing for the attention of girls became a bigger deal. As a fat, slow, weak kid, I was perfect cannon fodder. Soon, I was bailed out by my pro wrestling fandom. It clicked in my head that there was no reason I couldn’t retort with comebacks similar to someone like The Rock or Chris Jericho. I would take lines from John Cena’s rap battles and finagle them to be more natural sounding one-liners about classmates. One day, a kid who was also on the bigger side of the scale, but was still far more popular, was giving me a hard time during lunch. I countered one of his verbal jabs by asking how his parents could still afford to feed him after paying for his breast implants. My classmates reacted like the 76ers bench did the moment that Iverson stepped over Tyronn Lue. In that moment, the hierarchy had been thrown out the window. It was overtime, it was time to attack, and I did so successfully. In hindsight, it was needlessly cruel, but it helped slow the bullying.
Between my (occasionally stolen) comedy bits, increasing confidence, and becoming stronger/more coordinated, the bullying stopped completely by the time I was deep into middle school. Still, as life got easier, I never forgot about what Allen Iverson taught me. I think about him stepping over Tyronn Lue at least once a week. My other memories of him are mostly of him getting knocked to the hardwood by centers as he drove to the basket, and Iverson calmly dusting himself off as he headed to the free throw line. My life was much easier than Iverson’s, and I didn’t realize that as a kid. I had no idea about his upbringing or jail sentence. To me, he was the guy who stepped over Ty Lue, the tiny underdog who was never intimidated by his foes, and the person who never quit. I wanted to be Allen Iverson so bad. I never became Allen Iverson, but I like to think that I developed a fraction of his traits. For that reason, Allen Iverson is one of the players that made me.