The summer of 1997 was a glorious time in my life. My family was as close as it had ever been. My parents and my grandparents pooled their credit scores together and bought a split-level house on the west side of the Columbus. My parents and I lived on the top floor, while my grandparents and my Uncle Mike lived on the bottom. This was an incredible setup for me, because I loved my grandparents, and I was always bummed at how infrequently we saw them. All through high school, I saw them every single day. I loved this house. I loved everything about it. But the best part about this house was the driveway.

The driveway entrance from the street was a pretty standard, one car width driveway that led straight to a two-car garage. Nothing exciting there. That’s what driveways are supposed to do. Driveways can also be the world’s smallest basketball courts where you can hone your free-throw shooting, your layups, or at their largest, your elbow jumpers. In the standard driveway, an errant rebound will deliver your ball into the neighbor’s azaleas, or even worse, into the street, where a speeding car could flatten your Spalding, or sometimes your best friend Lee. Another blog for another day. My driveway was different. Where the driveway ceased to be a runway to the garage, it became a basketball haven where my favorite teenage memories were made.

The blacktop landing was inexplicably massive. By all conventional thinking, it should have been part of the yard. I’m not sure what the architect had in mind when they drew up this blueprint. Maybe they had plans on owning 24 cars, that were just nice enough not to park on the street, but not so nice that they should be in a garage. Maybe they liked to run on pavement but hated meeting new people. Maybe they just wanted less to mow. Either way, it was big, it was level, it was tucked away from the throughfare; it was perfect for basketball.

All that summer, I hosted some of the most competitive basketball games that the Columbus Hilltop had ever seen. Every day was a rotating cast of characters that included my closest friends, relatives, neighbors and any of their friends, relatives and neighbors that wanted to tag along. All were welcome. We had Horse, we had Chicago, we had 1 on 1, we had 2 on 2, we had tournaments… we had fun. That was our only rule. The weekend was where it got really wild. There would be overflow. More people than the court could handle.

Everyone had their own game. I was a shooter. I was Steph Curry of the cul-de-sac. I played barefooted. My dad was small, quick and sneaky around the rim. Think Steve Nash, but with a belly full of Busch Light. My buddy Travis was a ferocious rebounder and defender, made of elbows. Like Draymond Green and Dennis Rodman had a white baby who sold weed to teenagers. My Uncles were like rabid pit bulls. My Dad’s co-worker Shawn could dunk (!) but we really preferred that he didn’t. My cousin Chad was probably better than all of us. He was a few years older than me, and about a foot taller. He was an incredible ball-handler and an effortless shooter. Great athlete. He was our Kevin Durant. Except he was always high. Well, they had that in common, too, I guess.

One day, Chad called me and asked if he could bring a guest to the game that weekend. “Of course,” I said. All were welcome.

“Okay, great. He’s on my tennis team at school. I’ve been telling him about our weekend games.”

“Can he ball?” I asked, unbothered by whether or not he could, in fact ball.

“He’s pretty good.” High praise from Chad.

When Saturday arrived, I remember that morning being colder than the typical summer weekend in Columbus. Maybe it rained on Friday. I don’t remember. But our turnout was looking light. It was just Travis and I out shooting around. Nobody from the neighborhood had arrived yet. It was early. Then, up drove Chad in the station wagon that his dad would let him borrow, albeit sporadically. I waved at the car, even though I couldn’t see who all was inside. Chad popped out of the driver’s seat, gangly, stripped to the waist, gym shorts several sizes too large. He pulled his shorts up to cover his underwear. He bore a strong resemblance to Shaggy from Scooby Doo, except he was always high. My other cousin Heather got out of the passenger’s seat. She was not there to ball. I think she was there to see her dad, my Uncle Mike, who lived in the basement. Long story for another blog post.

But out of the back seat emerged our mystery competitor. Michael Redd.

Yeah. That Michael Redd. He had just graduated from West High School, which was about a 5-minute walk from my house. I did not go to high school with Michael, because I went to CAHS (Columbus Alternative High School) at the urging of my 8th grade social studies teacher. CAHS was a school for the gifted. I graduated in 2001 with the lowest mathematically possible GPA.

Anyway, Michael had just finished 2nd to Kenny Gregory for Mr. Basketball in Ohio, an award that LeBron James would win 3 consecutive times a few short years later. I think Michael should have won in ’97. I thought he should have won before we played that day, and the events of that day did nothing to change my mind.

He was committed to Ohio State. He had not yet won Big Ten Freshman of the Year, he had not yet been to the Final Four, he had not yet been drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks, he had not yet been an NBA All-Star, nor had he earned over $100,000,000 playing basketball yet. My lifetime basketball earnings are about $99,999,980 less than Michael’s because I remember one time, I bet my dad $20 that I could make a floater from our roof. Dude Perfect, eat your heart out.

“He’s on my tennis team,” I recalled Chad saying. Yeah, he’s on your tennis team like Bill Clinton is a jazz saxophonist. He’s on your tennis team like The Rock is a fisherman. He’s on your tennis team like Rihanna was an Army Cadet. While it is technically true, it’s not how anyone would describe them.

“He’s pretty good.” I remember Chad saying. Yeah. Pretty good.

I knew of Redd. I had met him once before. He presented something to my middle school when he was a sophomore at West High and I was a 7th grader at Westmoor Middle (where he also went). Everyone was excited to see him. Me? Not so much. He sat the wrong way in a school chair with his hat turned backwards like a youth minister. The hat and the chair were facing the same direction we were, yet his face was pointed at us. I was annoyed by this. Although, I must confess I was easily annoyed at that age. He pitched us on the idea of “ACOT: Apple Class of Tomorrow” which was some sort of precursor to the digital classrooms that we know today. I don’t recall what he even talked about because I spent the whole time muttering to myself and my friend Lee, “he doesn’t look like he’s better at basketball than me.”

Turns out I might have been wrong.

We dispatched of the pleasantries pretty quickly and he started shooting around. After about 14 makes in a row, I had seen enough and said, “Let’s do two’s.” I figure I better get him before he really warms up. He and Chad versus me and Travis. This was a mistake. He drove by Travis (a formidable defender, as you’ll recall) as if he were standing still and dunked.

“Hey, no dunking, alright?” I had to stop him somehow.

When he defended, it felt like there were 7 people converged around me. I don’t think we scored a point.

Okay, fine. I’m positive we scored 0 points.

“We can switch it up,” he offered after absolutely skunking us. “Me and Trevor versus you and your cousin.”

“Nah, we’re good.” I scoffed.

“Uh, are you sure?” Redd asked.

“Yeah, are you sure?” Trevor asked, embracing his new moniker that we employed up until his death. (Another blog for another day.)

“Yeah, let’s run it back.”

I was bound and determined to get a point on the board against this Monstar. It did not happen in game two. It did not happen in game 3. At his point, Michael was becoming bored, so we decided to play a game of Chicago. You might call it “21.” We called it Chicago. Don’t ask me why. If you had some other fun colloquial name for it, I want to know it.

Anyway, this became a de facto game of 3 on 1, where Travis and I would defend Michael on the perimeter and Chad would challenge him in the paint, if he managed to get by us. Which he did. Whenever he wanted. I believe this game ended 21-0-0-0.

Okay, fine. I’m positive it ended 21-0-0-0.

As the clouds parted and the pavement below our feet warmed, some more of our regulars began to show up. Michael, however, didn’t stay much longer and did not join us again after that day. I will admit, he was a very kind assassin. “You got a nice jumper.” He said, in the same way that you’d look at the doodlings of a toddler and say, “Oh that’s awesome! Is that a fish?” When it’s actually a self-portrait. I’m sure he never let my cousin Chad forget how he had hyped up this driveway game, only to casually drop by and effortlessly dominate in a way that felt like it was more inconvenient than fun. It was also not fun for us.

As I referenced earlier, Michael experienced a great deal of basketball success in his life, and despite how he violated/blessed the hallowed asphalt of my driveway that day, I rooted for him every step of the way. In fact, when he got to the league, I purchased a Michael Redd jersey that I could never bring myself to wear. I gave it to Trevor.

At the end of the day, how many people can say that they played basketball with a future Olympian? Not very many, to be sure. And how many can say that they scored a point on a future Olympian? At least one less than that.