The Fab Four

I'd like to introduce you to some characters that I have come to know. One thing these four young men have in common is their age, they are all 16-17 year-olds, about to begin their senior years in high school. They are all young men, so they share in common the concerns, hopes and dreams, attitudes and prejudices of young men, no longer boys but not yet full adults. They have vague notions of what that adulthood will entail, and they all have big dreams, if not yet the proper concept of what it will take to accomplish those dreams. They are all of average to above average intelligence, they are all nice looking young men, each in their own unique way. They have the bodies of sculpted athletes, not yet worn by time and inactivity and the sedentary lifestyle that most adults lead, their days are still full of physical activity, mainly hours spent each day inside gyms and outside on playgrounds, playing the game they love and excel at. That game is basketball, a beautiful pursuit that requires physical strength and stamina, mental dexterity, emotional toughness and discipline, and athleticism required by few other sports. All four of these young men are excellent high school ballplayers, and while none are what would be termed blue-chippers, can't miss recruits destined for NBA stardom, they all have their own hoop dreams and a realistic shot at obtaining college scholarships. This is what brings them to the same location, the burgeoning desert town of Tucson, Arizona in late June, the hottest yet not most unbearable time of the summer in the desert.

What they don't have in common is where they are from, their social and economic backgrounds, and their race and ethnicity. One is from North Phoenix, less than a couple hours up the interstate from the Old Pueblo. Another is from the suburbs of Los Angeles, one from the inner city in South Phoenix, and the fourth hails from the sticks, a big town or a little city depending on your prospective, Waterloo, Iowa. Two of them come from working class backgrounds, growing up not in absolute but certainly relative poverty. For them, basketball represents a way out of their neighborhoods and a chance at a foothold on the social ladder of upward mobility. One is a middle-class kid, not wanting for the necessities in life but by no means having everything his heart desires. A basketball scholarship for him means the chance to attend a university that his parent's modest means wouldn't otherwise allow. The fourth is an unqualified rich kid, fortunate in many ways, unfortunate in others, to be born into a family of means, secure financially, wanting for nothing in the material sense, but like all young men, trying to figure out his place in the world and where he belongs, torn to some degree by a sense of guilt over having so much handed to him. Basketball is to him a way of fitting in, of being normal, and of relating to people and to a world that is much different from the one he is growing up in. In terms of race and ethnicity, two are white boys, one is a Latino, and one is black. None of them have ever met each other until recently. But they have formed a bond that will not soon be broken, and have been touched by each other's stories and attitudes in such a way that when they do return to their various corners of the world in the fall, they will never be the same as they were before their week spent together forging a bond in the oppressive heat of the desert.

I will be introducing each of these characters individually soon, but wanted to first give a general description of these ordinary yet extraordinary young men. I will be telling their story as individuals, but also as representatives of many of the groups or demographics that they are a part of. I will be discussing their prowess on the court in contrast to their insecurities off the court. I will be looking at their hopes and dreams, their goals, their outlook on life, and how they affect each other and those in their lives. I hope to be able to tell their story in a way that is not only entertaining but enlightening, and in such a way as to illuminate how their journey can ultimately tell us something about ourselves, about our own attitudes, prejudices, assumptions, misconceptions, inner struggles and battles that we wage every day.

Oh, one last thing. These characters are all fictional, certainly based on real people and situations that I know and have known over the years, but otherwise they are figments of my imagination. They are also the characters in the novel that I have been wanting to write for quite some time now about coming of age, social class, race and ethnicity, and gender. Since I originally started writing columns and created this blog as a means of working my way up to writing my first novel, I thought it appropriate to use it as an introduction to what I will be spending a good deal of time working on for the rest of this summer, and beyond. I don't really know where the journey will take me, I have decided not to do too much prep work and planning, but rather to start the trek and go where it leads me, trusting that when all is said and done I will have produced something worthy of being read, and something that was worth the time it will take to write. Thanks for indulging me, I sincerely hope you will enjoy what I am about to put out there.