Hoop Dreams Response

Hoop Dreams Response

            “Hoop Dreams” by Ben Joravsky, tells the true story of two boys named William Gates and Arthur Agee who have a strong bond and seem to be destined very similar lives. They are both very talented basketball players. The story is their journeys from the playgrounds of Cabrini Green in Chicago to high school excitement and then furthermore to college competitiveness. The first reason these boys are very similar is because of their background, which is also the setting of the book, Chicago. The story takes place at a time in the eighty’s when Chicago was crime-ridden, with drug dealers on every corner and poverty is extremely common. But most importantly are their dreams, they both are chasing the NBA. They’re also both given many opportunities to make these dreams a reality, but getting out of a crime-ridden city is tough, they both try to chase the big life but life isn’t easy and the bumps in the path, small and big affect everything. A huge theme and lesson to be learned from William and Arthur’s true story is to live the dreams that you have for yourself and not those of others. And for your dreams to come true you’re going to struggle. For these dreams to come true both boys face many advantages as well as disadvantages and both have many flaws that all add up to make their dreams a reality. A dream makes everything seem simple but in reality they are very complex to achieve.   

            Both boys seemed to be destined the same future and their dreams were identical, becoming pros in the NBA. Their talent combined with the opportunities, put forward to them as time passed made the NBA seem tiny steps away. From the first moments of the story, a recruiter approaches both boys from St. Josephs High School, one of the most prestigious high schools with Chicago’s finest basketball team. This excerpt shows what the boys had in store, “Recently Big Earl had been having doubts about scouting playground talent. He was starting to think these boys should search out other dreams. But he was in no mood to challenge the status quo, at least not today…. And he still had faith in the dream… Big Earl liked to be pragmatic, and had a built-in immunity against inflating talent. He could see right away, though, that Arthur Agee was special. He had speed and he could jump, but it was a combination of talents and traits that caught Earl’s trained eye.”  Similarly Big Earl recruited William and this is exactly the start of the boy’s journey, their talent was recognized and their future was set. This was the first major positive step to achieving their dreams.  Advantages are there for both boys as they enter high school. They both end up attending St. Joseph’s High School, so nothing could go wrong right? St. Joseph is linked and always will be to a great basketball legend, Isiah Thomas. Isiah is a symbol and was throughout the whole book of their dreams; Isiah was success and leadership, the NBA and fame. With St. Joseph and their talent, the boys were headed upwards. While playing at a freshman game, “‘I think I may have seen the next Isiah Thomas,’ Gleason said. ‘St. Joe of Westchester has a kid named William Gates who is starting as a freshman’”, a famous ESPN announcer says, this is a huge step once, your name is televised, everyone hears it and recognizes you. This is the way college coaches bring their attention towards the country’s finest basketball players. But this wasn’t the end of positive steps for William, who throughout the book has a slight advantage over Arthur of these. William moves on to a point where he has a luggage worth of letters from colleges offering him full scholarships to attend their school. Arthur also gets many letters and is often placed I the newspaper for his highlight games, in fact his wall is full of clippings from newspapers with is name in them.  William plays in the Nike Summer Camp, the biggest of all basketball camps that puts the spotlight on the nation’s best 120 high school basketball players, college coaches attend to see who their highest prospects are and without a doubt all eyes are on William. Both William and Arthur have fine basketball coaches that mentor them to being the best that they possibly can. With so many advantages on their back the road of possibilities is endless.

 William and Arthur’s story teaches that when you’re at such a high point in your life, you can’t be foolish, you don’t want to look back while the road faces forward but you have to learn from your flaws and mistakes and that you need to take advantage of the advantages put forward to you. This is because there will always be disadvantages that will come when you least expect them, you can’t tell if something bad is going to happen from day to day. A basketball career is fragile and little mistakes and flaws can ruin your dreams of reaching the top. And to reach the top, to get to your dreams coming true you have to struggle and you’re going to face disadvantages. There is no doubt that although William and Arthur were faced by many advantages there were also many disadvantages for the both of them and they both have some minor as well as major flaws. For Arthur his dreams start to slowly deteriorate without him knowing it. Not far after his freshman year at St. Joseph’s High School, Arthur is kicked out of the school after his family falls behind on payments. This is where a minor flaw kicks in; a little envy begins to build in Arthur, he says, “How come William wasn’t kicked out, his family ain’t richer than mine”. Jealousy can play mental tricks on your brain; Arthur won’t get far thinking that William is luckier than him. What he should have done as a response was to push harder to make his dreams. This connects to the lesson to be taught by the story, when you have dreams and you face advantages you have to push harder to achieve those dreams. But financial problems don’t end there, day after Arthur’s mom runs from food stamp office to food stamp office waiting in line for hours with the intention of feeding her children and paying her bills while on a low income from work. Arthur’s family was on the verge of complete poverty. This is what got Arthur out of St. Joseph’s and at any time in his life can stop him from moving forward with his dreams. For them to come true he had to prove to all of the college coaches that he deserved a full scholarship, he deserved to have a chance to showcase his talent, but poverty that left him in a public school would hold him back. Another flaw that Arthur shows is slacking on practicing; talent can’t just make it happen. Because of the advantages that he did have, he was forced to think that he was headed to the NBA and that he was the next Isiah Thomas but in reality he needed to work hard if he wanted these dreams to be achieved. Coach Bedford repeatedly told him, “Don’t think that you’re more than what you really are, be Arthur Agee,” in other words live your own dreams and be who you are, you don’t have to dribble behind your back just because Isiah Thomas did, work hard for people to know you as Arthur Agee not the next Isiah Thomas. Life wasn't easy for William either, his girlfriend Catherine gave birth to their baby girl Alicia, when William was in his junior year. As if he hadn't had so much pressure on him from basketball, he now had a baby to nurture. In his junior year, he underwent a serious surgery in his knee that removed his cartilage, when doctors told him that his knee would bother him and he’d have arthritis in twenty years he says, “What’s twenty years, I want to play now”. This is another flaw that both William and Arthur have, thinking that the future is fine, everything is set for them. Here is an example, “As a freshman William thought his days of high school basketball would never end, and now they were over.” Another flaw that William has is staying concentrated. At a crucial moment in a high school game that would keep the season going or end it William gets distracted and needs to remind himself to focus, “I should be focusing on the game.” If he can’t think properly at crucial moments, he can ruin his dreams within a split second. This is how fragile basketball dreams are, the tiniest of mistakes will mess them up. William also has a very bad temper and both William and Arthur begin to fall back on their grades in their senior year, if they can’t keep their grades up, their positions on the basketball team and at graduation are at risk, no matter how good they are or how ever many colleges are willing to pay their full scholarships. Arthur’s father is also a drug addict, not having him home and him being a bad example to follow all add up to being big disadvantages for Arthur.  There will always be advantages in something but equally there will be a disadvantage.         

Dreams are beautiful; everything is simple in them because they are literally what you want. But no dream can be achieved without a struggle, a push of energy that is needed to get you to your dream. Achieving your dreams is like being a car on a hill; it has its ups and its downs. You’ll be faced by so many opportunities but there will be so many struggles like rocks on the road that you need to pass to get to where you want. Your dreams aren't fully set they’re just pictures in your mind, ideas and to make them reality you must work. The true meaning of achieving is working hard and is struggling to get to where you want. Basketball dreams are fragile, a small flaw can tumble you down to the beginning where the same advantages that you had won’t be there. You have to take advantage of your advantages and you have to practice to be better, no matter how good you or others may think you are you can always get better. The flaws that William and Arthur had often linked to their attitudes; they saw their dreams a few steps away but really to get to where they wanted to be, the major leagues, they needed to fight hard.