There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

The first quarter begins by discussing the ways that nonverbal communication utilized by Black people, specifically in forms like graffiti and sneakers hanging from telephone lines, can be misread as sinister. Abdurraqib points out that the Black neighborhoods in Ohio, specifically in Akron, are “an ecosystem that can function differently from block to block” (42). The hanging sneakers that white tourists interpreted as a signal that drugs were available to buy were, in fact, a memorial to a young man who was shot in 2002. The sneakers were the murdered boy’s beloved possessions, and they were thrown up in remembrance of him.

In 2002, LeBron James was playing for Akron’s St. Vincent-St. Mary (SVSM) basketball team, and as a teenager was already drawing huge crowds of all races. Abdurraqib identifies himself as one of the “city kids” who loved basketball enough to blow all their money on tickets to a game. He discusses the cultural importance of Columbus City League basketball, a system of high school teams that seemed to operate as a backdrop for complex team drama fueled by the rise of star players, the successes and failures of well-known coaches, and the movement of those people from school to school throughout Columbus.