58 pages • 1-hour read
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
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Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “First Quarter: City As Its True Self”
Part 2, Minutes 12:00-8:15 Summary
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.
Abdurraqib’s team was Brookhaven, not only because he went to Brookhaven school and lived nearby, but because, he states, “Brookhaven were underdogs” (43). The fact that they often struggled against the power of the other teams didn’t deter their fans, because Brookhaven’s team represented their community. In 1992, the author states, Brookhaven’s basketball program was run by Coach Bruce Howard. At that time, Brookhaven was not known for its success in basketball, but Howard emphasized a “three-prong principle: family, academics, and basketball,” which inspired players and their families (47). Howard’s coaching led the team to success in their first season, and their playing improved to legendary levels. By the early 2000s, they were “reveling in their dominance” (48) in Columbus.
The author, though never coached by Howard, remembers that Howard never forgot a face, and recognized Abdurraqib when he saw him in their neighborhood. He would approach the author, offer his hand, and ask if he was staying out of trouble. Abdurraqib understands this as Howard stating: “I will not let you move through this city and be forgotten” (49).
In 2003, Howard was hospitalized for advanced liver cirrhosis. The author remembers how anxious his entire community was while they waited to see if Howard would recover, how many games he might miss, and whether this would mean his retirement. “I propose, once again, that you are, in part, who loves you” (50) states the author. He reflects that Howard was therefore part of his whole community. Howard died later the same year, and the Brookhaven team faltered in response to the tragedy, losing the state championship game.
Abdurraqib switches focus to discuss the fact that the neighborhood in which he grew up was often referred to by the Columbus police as a “war zone” and “Uzi alley” (55). Though the author did not notice a special uptick in violence in his community as compared to others he knew, the police used this reputation as an excuse to neglect the community on a systemic level. This kind of indifference led to the “hood,” or neighborhood, developing its own systems and regulations. His hood was, in his words, “its own city, governed by no one, governed by everyone” (55).
Abdurraqib reflects that to name a place unlivable and unsustainably violent implies there’s something wrong with the people who do live there—that they believe their own lives and their children’s lives to be expendable or worthless. Young Black men in this period sought to push back against the vilifying of their communities through a combination of art forms, including music, fashion, and art. The author remembers lyrics in music utilizing military imagery, and young men and women starting to wear camouflage and fatigues, signifying that “you were a soldier in your own universe” capable of surviving against unspeakable odds (57).
The author, when attending college in Columbus, noted that the way he was perceived depended on the neighborhood his fellow students came from. “I knew what I had and what people believed I was supposed to have” (58), he states. He describes this difference by highlighting how his car differed from some of his fellow students. The student parking lot was full of SUVs and sports cars, while he drove an “early ‘90s Nissan, a hideous shade of brown” (59). It was not a good car, but Abdurraqib made sure it had a quality stereo system, which could “reclaim some small bit of glory amidst the loudly coughing exhaust” (60). Other students could afford to pay for a spot in the student parking lot, while the author had to find parking in the city surrounding, an endeavor that led police to pull him over often in the guise of concern.
Meanwhile, LeBron James was a national phenomenon, his basketball prowess drawing notice from all sides. He made headlines, interestingly, for the car he drove to school as well, namely a Hummer H2. This luxury vehicle was not what people believed LeBron was supposed to have, and Abdurraqib reflects on the role the young Black athlete was expected to play in media: namely, the virtuous but struggling child from a poor and violent neighborhood, who publicly and openly suffers to induce “pity to balance out the envy” (63). LeBron seemed unwilling to allow the public to see his struggle, willing only to show his success. Abdurraqib equates this to poets who taught him that withholding information the reader is eager to know can be a powerful rhetoric.
Abdurraqib ends this section by pointing out that the Hummer H2 is “a luxury vehicle modeled after a war machine” (63). First used in 1989 in the U.S. invasion of Panama, Hummers then flooded Afghanistan in the 2000s. Later, they became a status symbol, and like the army fatigues, a coded symbol for Black people to signify their status as soldiers “who have never enlisted for anything” (65)
Part 2, Interlude 1 Summary: “A Timeout In Praise of Legendary Ohio Aviators”
This timeout consists of two poems, the first titled “Lonnie Carmon, Columbus, Ohio (1901-1955).” This poem describes a man called the “junk man” by his community, who turned all their offcasts and trash into a makeshift plane that he flew over his neighborhood on weekends. The poet describes a monument to Lonnie in the “port columbus authority” and a picture of Lonnie he keeps in his pocket as a talisman against the inherent uncertainty and risk of flight. To banish thoughts of a plane crash, he thinks about Lonnie “in the sky, kept safe by his people & the small but useful things that outlived their dreams” (69).
The second work is a prose poem titled “John Glenn, Cambridge, Ohio (1921-2016).” The poem discusses the astronaut, who, at the age of 77, convinces NASA to let him go back into space because, in his words, the damage done to the body in space is the same as the damage done by aging. Though people argued that the risk would be too great and Glenn needed to stay safe as a “politician & a war hero” (70) on Earth, he argued that he had to go again before he died. The poet describes meeting Glenn at his middle school when he was a child, and asks Glenn if he was ever afraid. Glenn says, “I’ve never been more afraid than I have been curious” (70).
Part 2, Minutes 8:00-0:00 Summary
Abdurraqib describes making road trips with his friends to watch LeBron play, before “the national media began to fully descend upon Akron” (71). LeBron’s talent made him feel otherworldly to the author and his friends, displaying the kind of talent that made people stop and watch him. Abdurraqib compares his talent to the flex of having a beautiful car in a poor neighborhood, a flex which “is vanity, but it is not only vanity” (73). It is also a means of temporary escape from an unbearable, crushing reality. It is an acknowledgment that “anything can be taken, will be taken,” but is still worth showing off, at least for a moment (74).
Abdurraqib remembers a basketball player from his neighborhood, Kenny Gregory, who in 1997 participated in a dunk contest and, at the author’s prior urging, dunked from the free-throw line, like Jordan. He later won MVP in the All-American Game, and returned to their neighborhood with trophies in his passenger seat, driving slowly so all the kids on bikes, including Abdurraqib, could follow him and get a good look at them. Kenny Gregory and another player named Esteban Weaver were players whose legacies were “built within communities already well-versed in oral tradition” (83). People in the author’s neighborhood told stories about Gregory and Weaver, stories that included many facts about the players but also ended up telling stories about themselves, their community, their loves, and dreams as well.
The narrative turns to the ways that Abdurraqib’s community dealt with death and loss. In their community, people would die in accidents or as a result of violence, and would also disappear because of incarceration. Other times, people would fall prey to other types of disappearances, like addiction or despair. No matter what, people had to learn to negotiate with the grief of losing their mentors and their peers, learning to be “both landlords and tenants within our own sadness” (90). He recalls how ordinary the experience of ghosts was in his community, both in Islamic tradition and in the streets of his neighborhood. People spoke about receiving fleeting glimpses of their dead friends and family, and in Abdurraqib’s religion, that meant that the dead person was doing well in the afterlife. Abdurraqib’s mother, who died when he was young, often appeared to him in his dreams, and those dreams were the only ones he remembered.
Part 2, Interlude 2 Summary: “Intermission: On Fathers, Sons, and Ghosts, Holy or Otherwise: He Got Game (1998)”
This intermission begins by discussing the author’s father’s jump shot. He only ever saw his father shoot a basketball once. His father had once “been a promising athlete” (96) before, in his words, he fell in with the wrong crowd and started stealing cars. Abdurraqib reflects that sometimes the wrong crowd is “simply the crowd that loves you the best” (96). His father was incarcerated for a little while, and fought to become a better figure for his future children.
Abdurraqib introduces the movie He Got Game, about a father out on temporary release from prison who convinces his basketball star son to join a failing college team to revitalize it. Abdurraqib describes the movie directed by Spike Lee as “flawed and stunning,” culminating in the father and the son facing off against each other, one-on-one on the court. They trash-talk each other, and Jake shows a surprising amount of skill on the court before he inevitably falls before his son’s talent, youth, and resentment.
Abdurraqib’s father, after the death of his mother, raised him and his brothers and remained a present father. The type of confrontation owed to absent fathers who come back was never on the table for the author and his father, but the idea of beating one’s father, in basketball or otherwise, is a powerfully enduring image to the author. He noted that his father’s lack of concrete achievement in basketball made it so he never felt like beating his father would mean anything significant.
He concludes the intermission by reflecting that many people, when reading a story about a young Black man who grew up in a “war zone,” expect there to be no fathers or elders in his life. He asserts that if anything, there were “too many parents in my hood” (106). He never lacked the guidance of parental figures.
Part 2 Analysis
In this section, Abdurraqib deepens his exploration of Black identity through a synthesis of personal memory, geographic setting, and cultural performance. Like Pregame, First Quarter foregrounds the complexity of Black life in Ohio and centers on the nuanced intersections of the role of memory in shaping self-understanding, The Impact of Place on Personal Development, and the continual negotiation between Black excellence and ordinariness. Through reflections on basketball, neighborhood life, personal anecdotes, and iconic cultural references, Abdurraqib constructs a textured, lyrical account of what it means to come of age in a space both attacked and mythologized by outsiders.
First Quarter leans heavily on The Role of Memory in Shaping Self-Understanding and a sense of belonging in one’s community. His recollections are not merely nostalgic; they are active attempts to reconstruct identity through the lens of past experiences. For instance, his memory of Coach Bruce Howard, who ran Brookhaven’s basketball program, extends beyond the coach’s impact on the game itself. To Abdurraqib, Howard represents a symbol of visibility and care in a city that often renders Black youth invisible. When Howard recognized Abdurraqib in the neighborhood and inquired after him, the gesture affirmed a communal memory—a generation of Black youth who felt Coach Howard’s implicit message: “I will not let you move through this city and be forgotten” (49). For Abdurraqib, this memory functions as more than a sentimental recollection—it reveals how acknowledgment from a community elder contributes to a young person’s understanding of their worth.
Similarly, Abdurraqib imbues the memory of local basketball legend Kenny Gregory, who returned to the neighborhood with trophies in his car for children to admire, with symbolic meaning for himself and his community. These moments form an informal mythology, an oral history that feeds back into the collective identity. As Abdurraqib notes, the stories about Gregory and Estaban Weaver are as much about the community storytellers as the athletes themselves. In telling stories about Gregory and Weaver, “they told stories about themselves” (83). Through these narratives, individuals position themselves within a larger history of struggle, aspiration, and local pride.
The specific cities of Ohio—particularly Columbus and Akron—play a defining role in Abdurraqib’s formation, not just as a writer but as a Black man. He describes the neighborhoods as both nurturing and neglected, full of complex contradictions. For instance, white outsiders’ misinterpretations of graffiti and hanging sneakers as signs of criminality reveal how place is distorted through the lens of racial bias. Imagery dismissed as sinister by tourists is, in reality, a memorial—a sacred expression of grief and memory for a murdered boy. Such misinterpretations underscore the gap between how a place is inhabited and how it is surveilled.
The concept of the hood as “its own city, governed by no one, governed by everyone” speaks to the necessity of self-governance in communities abandoned by state institutions (55). The absence of formal support forces adaptive creativity, manifested through fashion, music, art, and informal mentorship. For example, the donning of camouflage and fatigues becomes a way for young Black people to declare themselves “soldiers in their own universe” (57), reinforcing how place not only constrains identity but can also empower its articulation.
Throughout the text, Abdurraqib resists simplistic narratives of Black exceptionalism, underscoring The Tension Between Black Excellence and Ordinariness. He recognizes socially accepted greatness in figures like LeBron James, but is equally committed to honoring the ordinary acts of excellence within his community. He describes the image of LeBron as a teenage phenom driving a Hummer H2, a “luxury vehicle modeled after a war machine” as rich with contradiction (63). The car signals success, but also recalls military occupation and surveillance. For Abdurraqib, this moment encapsulates the burden placed on young Black men to simultaneously perform authenticity, struggle, and excellence. As he writes, society wants Black athletes to “induce pity to balance out the envy,” refusing to allow them the full range of expression unless their success is marked by visible suffering.
For Abdurraqib, the dissonance between self-perception and others’ expectations creates a daily negotiation of belonging and difference, sharpening his awareness of how spatial and socioeconomic inequities shape personal identity. For example, his experiences in college highlight how geography stratifies social experience. Driving an old Nissan while others cruised in sports cars and SUVs, he notes, “I knew what I had and what people believed I was supposed to have” (58). Abdurraqib finds beauty and value in Black ordinariness as exemplified by his old car with a high-quality stereo. From this perspective, the stereo acts as a declaration of dignity and pride, “a small bit of glory amidst the loudly coughing exhaust” (60). Such moments disrupt mainstream expectations of what success must look like and instead assert that aesthetic and emotional richness can thrive even amid material poverty.
The two poems in the Timeout section expand on this tension between the emotional and the material. Lonnie Carmon, the “junk man” who flew a makeshift plane over his neighborhood, and John Glenn, the famous astronaut who risked space flight in old age, both embody forms of excellence defined not solely by institutional recognition but by personal daring and community imagination. Carmon’s legacy survives through oral stories and a photograph “kept in the poet’s pocket” (69), suggesting that, in context, local legends carry as much weight as national heroes.
Abdurraqib’s reflections on grief and loss situate excellence within the realm of survival. In a neighborhood shaped by disappearance—whether through incarceration, violence, or addiction—continuing to live, love, and remember represent profound acts of resilience. He uses the metaphor of his community as “both landlords and tenants within our own sadness” to reinforce this concept (90). The ghosts of lost loved ones—whether seen in dreams or glimpsed on the street—form a living cultural memory that both anchors and animates Black identity.
In First Quarter, Abdurraqib shows how memory, place, and culture shape Black identity. His meditations on basketball, neighborhood rituals, and artistic expression present a rich portrait of a life lived at the intersection of visibility and erasure, pride and vulnerability. Rather than isolate these themes, Abdurraqib lets them coalesce, offering a testament to the essential humanity of Black life. Throughout, he affirms that Black excellence is not merely the domain of the celebrated few but resides in the gestures, memories, and stories of their wider community.
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