http://bbs.hoopchina.com/htm_data/39/0603/85146.html查尔斯 巴克利
拳王阿里之后最迷人的体育形象，他引领了嘻哈型球员的崛起。
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拉利 普拉特
四月十九日，常规赛季的最后一天，查尔斯 巴克利向篮球作别，也向他长达16年，时而疯狂，时而戏剧性的职业生涯作别，此时的他显得比平常要谦逊，要丰满，要更有人情味。巴克利在12月休斯顿火箭做客费城的比赛里废掉了膝盖，那里也是他1984年职业生涯开始的地方。这次伤
病缩短了他的告别赛；当晚，曾经的坏男孩在旅馆房间里独自哭泣，被抬下场的画面不断的在他脑中重现。不过失落并没有阻止他妙语连珠，就像往常一样，他调侃道：“好吧，现在我成了美国所需要的——又一个赋闲的黑人。”
不过，手术丝毫没有动摇他体育场上最努力，最超越自我的形象。他治了自己的膝盖，然后在五个月后的那个晚上他打完职业生涯的最后七分钟，三中一，随后他便站在了众多高唱他名字的休斯顿球迷面前。他拿起了麦克风，然后那个我十年前所认识的，那个隐藏在男人外表下面的巴克利又回来了。“篮球不欠我的，”他有些哽咽的说道，“我欠篮球很多。我的名气全是篮球给予的。”他想让球迷和队友一起怀念那共同拥有的美好时光，但是他停下了，因为，那实在是太短暂了。
随后，他的教练赞扬他拥有一颗冠军之心，而他的队友则送了一把适合他的大屁股的躺椅，据他夫人莫林说，他的屁股有新泽西那么大。最后，37岁的巴克利退役了。在过去的这几年，他以独有的方式超越了体育的局限：有时很健谈，有时又很唧歪，他鲜明的个性常常掩盖了他球场上的出色。事实上，他多次入选过全明星，也曾是联赛MVP，还是历史上得到20000＋10000＋4000＋的四人之一（另外三位是张伯伦，贾巴尔，马龙）。
使这个数据如此惊人的原因是另一个数据：他只有6尺4（198mm）。尽管在篮下战斗时他要比那些庞然大物要矮了一截，但巴克利总是能凭借努力和意愿控制篮下。他总是以他偶像阿里的方式吹嘘，他打球方式和他身高的如此不协调，使得他曾称自己为“世界第九大奇迹”。
场下他总是妙语和争论不断，在阿里之后，巴克利可以说是当时最有趣最有影响力的运动员了。当其他人都在把自己包装成一个从流水线上下来的产品时，巴克利则独树一帜，喊响了“嘻哈型球员”的名号，对他们来说《keeping it real》这本书里的道理倒成了咒语。
这些年，巴克利公开表示想当他老家亚拉巴马州的州长。不过，我去年见到他时，他早就没了如此“宏伟”的目标。当被问及职业生涯结束后他会去干什么时，他相当坦率的说：“我想学学钢琴，念完大学，以及增肥，增很多肥。”
－－－－－－－－－－我不是个好榜样－－－－－－－－－－
查尔斯 韦德 巴克利1963年2月20日生于亚拉巴马州的工业小镇利兹。他父亲早年就跑路了，帮白人做清洁工的母亲查茜格伦和在肉加工厂做工的祖母约翰尼 梅 爱德华兹养大了他。后来，巴克利自阿里和拉塞尔之后第一个质疑那些坚持把温文尔雅的年轻黑人球员作为榜样的主流白人媒体的做法。在争辩父母和老师才应该是榜样时，他总是谈到自己：“我母亲和祖母世界上工作最努力的两位女士，她们教会我努力工作。”巴克利并不是个天才球员。据说他小时候只是个爱害羞的小胖子。但他总是有着一股不灭的热情。十年级时，他又矮又胖，只有5尺10，没能进入校队。但是，他告诉每个人他将来会进入NBA。他每天晚上都练习投篮，有时则是整晚（当然如果他能躲过祖母那严厉警惕的眼睛的话）。他通过在4尺高的篱笆上来回跳跃练出了弹跳。
长高6寸后他爆发了，他拿到了奥本大学的奖学金，他在那里得到了“大峡谷”和“保龄球”的绰号。拥有着6尺4和接近300磅的吨位，他坦克般推进，甩开对手，而那些高个雕塑般的对手在撒开丫子追着防守。
巴克利在1984年在第五顺位被费城选中，那时的他和四月份在众多休斯顿球迷前致词的公众人物没有一点相似之处。能和J博士，摩西马龙并肩作战，他感到很敬畏，连费城这个城市他都感到敬畏。除了训练和打球，他很少离开他租的房子。他甚至称记者为先生。他很感激他能呆在这里，但他却不能确定自己是个什么样的球员。
“我被选上时，我只知道我有天生的栏板能力，”巴克利回忆道.“但我大学里从没达到平均每场14分以上。所以我只希望将来能做到10＋10＋，然后赚点小钱养活家庭。”但是三年后，他成了联盟栏板王，并且每场得分20＋。
巴克利在其他方面也在改变。我第一次知道他是在1991年，那时他已经成了出名的反派，成了乔丹平易近人的陪衬。说唱组合“公敌”在歌里表达了对他的“敬意”（“向巴克利那样摔倒吧！”查克D尖叫着以营造气氛），作为对他口无遮拦和失礼行为的回击。在新泽西的一场比赛里，场边的一个讲着垃圾话的球迷被巴克利吐了口水。不过，据他后来描述，他的口水蓄的不够，结果错吐到了场边的一个小女孩身上。
这当然是个全国性的故事，接着巴克利便被口诛笔伐。几个月前，他还在颇令人信服的争论不该把球员作为榜样。“监狱里有上百万个能扣篮的，他们是榜样么？”他反问道，结果冒犯了记者们，正如他所预料到的，他们要他认识自己的立场，要对的起自己的种族。（他在为耐克广告“我不是个榜样”写文本时，引发了全国性的新闻。一番论战，只有丹奎勒把其称之为“家庭观念的指示”，因为巴克利呼吁父母老师不要再盯着他，而是去培养孩子，然后自己成为他们的榜样。）但是由于“口水事件”，人们发现他的确做的不像个榜样。
我那时是个法律学校的辍学生，着迷于巴克利在媒体上大胆的批评。我在一个报纸的论坛上写道，巴克利的确不该吐人，但他所说的我们却应该听听。
这帖子发出去以后，巴克利便打电话来感谢我，并邀请我过去侃大山。他为口水事件心烦意乱，甚至要崩溃了。他和孩子们坚持了一年的亲密关系。很长一段时间里他是全国最慷慨的慈善家，他经常关注儿童慈善机构，尽管他总是收到一条警告：没人会领他的情（去年他终于打破了成规，捐给了亚拉巴马的学校300万美圆）。
孩子们不像大人们那样“小人”，他解释道。口水事件搞大以后，他试图了解人为什么要那样无耻：“我觉得媒体要求球员做榜样，”他告诉我。“是因为有些嫉妒。这就好像他们在说，那个小黑孩儿打球营生赚的挺多，我们得整整他。而他们所做的则是叫孩子们向他们永远成不了的人看齐，因为大部分人没法做到我们这样。孩子们就永远都成不了乔丹。”
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巴克利更大胆了，更口无遮拦了。他从J博士手中接下了76人的领导权，远离了他所认为的拍马行为。他和杰斯杰克逊会见后，给自己贴了个标签“90年的黑鬼——想干啥就干啥。”进费城的更衣室就像进了大剧院里一样，因为巴克利不断在诟病新闻界和这个被种族分割开的城市。“你给了查尔斯巴克利一大笔钱，并不意味着我就会忘掉在犹太区和贫民窟里的人，”他讲道。“你们都不想我谈这个，但我就要谈我的看法。我拿20个栏板不重要。街上有无家可归的人，媒体却挤在我的衣柜前。太荒谬了。”他称费城为“种族主义城市”，还对新闻界说：“亲我的屁股去吧——就算你有口臭”他起誓道，“我是个强人——我没必要做你让我做的，”在听了托马斯的关于拳坛巨人的讲述后，他模仿着阿里的这句名言。当我告诉他在写J博士的一篇稿子时，他不屑一顾：“哥们儿，我可没时间谈汤姆叔叔。”
到92年，巴克利已经是联盟中仅次于乔丹的二把手了，不过他对费城的管理层越来越灰心了，他们给他的尽是些不断变动的平庸球员。管理层反过来也厌倦了他的“坦率”。他被交易到了太阳队，他临走前那晚，我的电话响了。巴克利打电话来谢我给他留了本《马尔科姆X的自传》，我们那时正在谈论这个人。他听上去有些沉静，甚至是阴郁。“我正开车四处转着，”他说。“在这儿也住了8年了。我不知道在别处会怎么样。”他的声音，基本上是耳语了，听上去很受伤。对了，我想起来了，他才二十多岁而已。
以后的事实证明，对于他所有的“大嘴巴”，巴克利经常显示出在公众面前比其他球员更好的成长能力。他总是回答问题，质疑回答，然后经常陷入反省。
1988年他做了件违背信仰的事。当他告诉母亲他想投布什时，他母亲说：“查尔斯，布什只帮有钱人，”“妈，我就是有钱人，”他回答道。三年后，当他的朋友魔术师约翰逊被查出染上爱滋，而其他球员比如马龙，呼吁在NBA里进行统一检查时，巴克利讲到：“我对自己很失望，我以前没同情过得了爱滋的人，但我现在很同情魔术师。”
巴克利在太阳队成为了超级巨星。他成为了联盟MVP并带领太阳打入了93年的总决赛，最终在6场激赛后输给了乔丹的公牛队——可以说是乔丹6个冠军途中最难缠的对手。球迷们在场上发现巴克利是个完美的打团队篮球的球员；他平常每场5个助攻，经常在双人包夹下声东击西的背传，使得他在费城最后几年人们得出的某些定论成了谬误：他是个好球员，但无法使队友更好。
巴克利再也没能打入总决赛。在受到大个队员这么多年的粗暴对待后，更不用提再加上传言中彻夜暴饮的副作用，他的身体够戗了。当1996年太阳将交易他的消息传出后，他爆发了：“检棉花的时候结束了，”他对芬尼克斯的媒体说。“他们不尊重我，他们把我像一块肉一样买来买去。”
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带着夺冠的渴望，巴克利被交易到了火箭，他加入了另两位老化的超级巨星，奥拉朱旺和德雷克斯勒。但是他俩已经有了戒指，所以不像巴克利那样拼命。97－98赛季，巴克利戒了酒，开始减肥，甚至为了球队而自愿做板凳。但他却成了自己的阴影。“现在我是过去叫作巴克利的那个大师了，”98年他告诉我。“有时，我突然会想。”的确，他的自省有些生硬，“我还是个好球员，但不是个伟大球员了，”他说。“我可以拿15分10个板。”对于就是拿不到冠军的不断的思考得出了一个暗示，相比他那被神化了的同辈人，他不会作为一个胜利者而被记住。他开始把自己和拿过戒指的人比较。“我当打时从来没有和当打的巨星合作过。”他说。“迈克尔有皮蓬，伯德有麦克海尔和帕里什。至于魔术师，靠，他哪个人都有。我进联盟的时候，博士和摩西不行了。而奥拉朱旺和德雷克斯勒也是这样。”
如果仅作为一个好球员，那很容易便会忘了年轻的巴克利是什么样的。他不仅是个乔丹般伟大的球员，他也是球场上的奇迹：你看着比赛，但是仍然不能相信眼睛。他是个弹跳机，打大前够快，打小前够壮，双人包夹时梦幻般的传球者。这便是在场上即兴表演的激情，但是很难在现在愁眉苦脸的球员身上看到了。
具有讽刺意味的是，在场下巴克利成了这几年联盟资格最老的政客，也是关于惯例和现状的可敬的发言人。有时，他听上去就像《Bye Bye Birdie》里的Paul Lynde一样。当看到扎辩刺青的AI和一群哥们儿旅行时，他警告他：“你的队友才该是你的哥们儿。”当我提到，艾弗森那样的人会因为下拉短裤而受到联盟的打压，这是对黑人文化的敌意。他反对说：“他们错了，”他说。“短裤现在已经不像短裤了。我觉得NBA应该对许多黑人被捕负责，包括我，嗑药，穿拉到脚踝的短裤。那不是对黑人文化的敌意。那只是事实。”
尽管没以前那么拉风了，巴克利仍旧在他最后几年球员生涯里和媒体的偏好和偏见作斗争。他管那群记者叫苍蝇，因为他们老在周围闹哄哄的，很烦人。一天，在他的衣柜前，我见到了一个真实的巴克利。在记者们提出问题前，巴克利先挑了一个休斯顿电视台的报道员，“给你100万你会去口交么？”他问。整个房间的人立刻都低下了头。
“不，”嘶哑的声音回答道。
“10亿呢？”巴克利追问道。
“不，”这次要确定多了。
“好吧，那么多少？”
“多少我也不会做！”
巴克利大笑起来。“好吧，你要是想免费做，那么就来吧。”他说道，周围的人都大笑起来。“告诉你们我会怎么做吧。如果我很穷的话，我就会为了100万口交。”
他停下来看了看他的听众。“而你们这些家伙也会这么做的，你们只是不敢承认罢了。”他说。“就像，记得那部《桃色交易》什么时候上映的吧？Oprah就遇上三对号称不会用对方换100万美元的夫妇。显而易见他们已经很有钱了。”
一段尴尬的沉默之后，苍蝇们又开始鸡婆了，一个接一个的颤着声音提出关于篮球的问题。我记得我就站在那里，对于见到那个家伙的表演而感到无比的幸运。毕竟，任何一个这样乐于发表演说的人，任何一个生活无忧的人以及任何一个被孤立了的人，比如同性恋世界中，用口交赚钱的桥段调戏媒体来指出阶级的不平等，好吧，他能这样做，他就是个值得学习的榜样。
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作者拉利普拉特是《Keeping It Real》的作者，曾为GQ，Details，时代杂志，费城杂志撰稿。
http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2000/05/30/barkley/
Charles Barkley
The most fascinating sports figure since Muhammad Ali, he gave rise to a generation of hip-hop athletes.
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By Larry Platt
May 30, 2000 | It was a humbler, portlier, more emotional Charles Barkley who said goodbye to the sport of basketball April 19, the last day of the NBA regular season and the final night of his roundball career, which had spanned 16 riveting, often
maddening, always dramatic years. Barkley had blown out a knee in December, playing for the Houston Rockets in Philadelphia, where his pro career began in 1984. The injury cut short his farewell tour; that night, the onetime bad boy of rofessional
sports sobbed alone in his hotel room, so haunted was he by this final image of himself being carried off the court. Still,his depression didn't keep him from quipping wiseass, as usual: "Now I'm just what America needs -- another unemployed black
man," he joked.
But, post-surgery, he still couldn't shake the vision of sports' hardest worker, a gallant overachiever, helpless. So he
rehabbed the knee with an eye on the calendar and there he was on that April night, five months later, standing before a
genuflecting Houston crowd that deafeningly chanted his name one final time after he'd plodded through the last seven minutes
of professional basketball he'd ever play, making one of three shots. And then he took the microphone, and the Charles
Barkley I'd gotten to know a decade ago emerged, the one behind the macho pose. "Basketball doesn't owe me anything," he
said, voice quavering. "I owe everything in my life to basketball. I've been all over the world and it's all because of
basketball." He paused before finishing by reminding both the fans and his younger teammates to appreciate the moments of
their shared passion, because, it turns out, they're fleeting.
And with that, after hearing himself praised by his coach as the bearer of a "heart of a champion," after being presented
with a recliner by his teammates large enough to accommodate the girth of a rear end that his wife, Maureen, calls "the size
of New Jersey," Barkley retired at age 37. Over the years, he'd transcended sports in a way few others have; part raconteur,
part provocateur, the bigness of his persona often overshadowing just how singular a talent he was on the court. There, he
was a perennial All-Star, a former league MVP, one of only four players (Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl
Malone are the others) to have amassed more than 20,000 points, 10,000 rebounds and 4,000 assists.
What's so startling about the numbers is another number: his height of 6-foot-4. Though nearly a foot shorter than the
bruising behemoths he battled under the boards, Barkley often dominated thanks to effort and will. Always a braggart in the
showy style of his hero, Muhammad Ali, it was the incongruity between his style of play and his height that once led Barkley
to declare himself "the ninth wonder of the world."
Off the court, where he spun quotes and welcomed controversy, Barkley was arguably the most interesting and influential
athlete of his time -- maybe since Ali. While others packaged themselves as though they were just another product to be
hawked in America's ever-burgeoning commodity culture, Barkley eschewed marketing for authenticity, giving rise to a whole
generation of athletes -- the hip-hoppers -- for whom the ethic of "keeping it real" has become a mantra.
In recent years, Barkley has ruminated publicly about one day running for governor of his home state of Alabama. Yet, when I
saw him last year, such grandiose plans were far from his mind. He was typically candid when asked what he was going to do
when that April night finally arrived and his career came to a close. "I want to learn to play the piano, finish college and
get really, really, really fat," he'd said.
"I am not a role model"
Charles Wade Barkley was born Feb. 20, 1963, in the small industrial town of Leeds, Ala. His father bolted early on, and
Barkley was raised by his mother, Charcey Glenn, who cleaned white people's homes, and his grandmother, Johnnie Mae Edwards,
who worked in a meat factory. Later, Barkley would become the first athlete since Ali and Bill Russell to question the
predominantly white sports media's insistence on conferring "role model" status upon young black athletes who comport
themselves deferentially, and, after arguing that parents and teachers should be role models, he'd always point out his: "My
mother and grandmother were two of the hardest working ladies in the world, and they raised me to work hard," he'd say.
Barkley was not an athletic prodigy. He was, by all accounts, a shy, fat kid. Yet he always harbored a brash ambition. In
10th grade, pudgy and merely 5-foot-10, he failed to make his high school varsity squad. Still, he insisted to anyone who
would listen that he was going to play in the NBA. He shot baskets every night, sometimes all night (if he could escape his
grandma's strict, watchful eye) and cultivated his leaping skills by repeatedly jumping back and forth over a 4-foot chain-
link fence.
A 6-inch growth spurt his senior year led to a scholarship at Auburn University, where he became known as "Boy Gorge" and
"the Round Mound of Rebound." At 6-4 and close to 300 pounds, he'd rumble the length of the floor, dribbling behind his back,
while taller, more sculpted opponents ran for cover.
The Barkley who was drafted fifth in the 1984 NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers bears little resemblance to the confident
public man who addressed that Houston crowd in April. Joining legends Julius "Dr. J" Erving and Moses Malone, Barkley was
awed by them and by the big, Northeastern city itself. Outside of going to practice and games, he rarely left his rented
apartment. He even called sportswriters "sir." He was thankful to be where he was, and not so sure he belonged.
"When I got drafted, I knew I had a God-given ability to rebound," Barkley recalls. "But I never averaged more than 14 points
a game in college. So I was just hoping I could score 10 points and get 10 rebounds a game for a few years and make some
money to take care of my family." Within three years, he was leading the league in rebounding, and scoring more than 20
points per game.
And Barkley was changing in other ways as well. I first got to know him in 1991, when he'd already morphed into sports'
preeminent anti-hero, the flip side of Michael Jordan's crossover-era accommodating persona. The rap group Public Enemy had
paid homage to Barkley in song ("Throw down like Barkley!" Chuck D wailed on "Bring the Noise"), seeing his in-your-face game
and demeanor as the hardwood manifestation of rap. During a game in New Jersey, a courtside heckler, yelling racial epithets,
was turned upon by Barkley, who promptly spit upon his tormentor. Only, as he'd later describe, he didn't "get enough foam"
behind the loogie, and, lo and behold, he'd mistakenly spat on a little girl.
It was a national story, of course, and Barkley was vilified. For months prior, Barkley had been persuasively arguing that
athletes shouldn't be considered role models. "A million guys can dunk a basketball in jail, should they be role models?"
he'd ask, offending the sportswriter crowd who, as he saw it, demanded that he know his place and be a "credit to his race."
(His argument would prompt national news when he wrote the text for his "I am not a role model" Nike commercial, a carefully
worded polemic that none other than Dan Quayle called a "family-values message" for Barkley's oft-ignored call for parents
and teachers to quit looking to him to "raise your kids" and instead be role models themselves.) But with what came to be
known as "the spitting incident," Barkley had indeed been found guilty of conduct unbecoming a role model.
I was a law-school dropout at the time, a sports fan who was fascinated by Barkley's ballsy media critiques. I wrote a column
in a city alternative newspaper, saying that, of course, Barkley ought not to have spat on someone -- but that he was saying
some things we should hear, too.
On the day the piece ran, my phone rang; Barkley was calling to thank me and to invite me over to talk about topics
nonbasketball. He was distraught about the spitting incident, shattered even, because one constant over the years has been
Barkley's affinity for children. He has long been one of the nation's most generous celebrities, often focusing on children's
charities, though it's always been done with one caveat: that no publicity attend his good works (a rule he finally broke
last year when he gave $3 million to Alabama schools).
Children don't judge with the venom of adults, he'd explain. And it was that venom he was trying to understand then, in the
fallout of the spitting incident: "I think the media demands that athletes be role models," he told me, "because there's some
jealousy involved. It's as if they say, this is a young black kid playing a game for a living and making all this money, so
we're going to make it tough on him. And what they're really doing is telling kids to look up to someone they can't become,
because not many people can be like we are. Kids can't be like Michael Jordan."
Personal growth on and off the court
Barkley grew even bolder, more in-your-face. He'd inherited leadership of the 76ers from the courtly Erving, and distanced
himself from what he saw as just so much kiss-ass demeanor. He began conferring with Jesse Jackson and labeled himself a
"'90s nigga -- we do what we want to do." Visits to the Philadelphia locker room were the stuff of great theater, as Barkley
continued to castigate the press and a city still divided by race. "Just because you give Charles Barkley a lot of money, it
doesn't mean I'm going to forget about the people in the ghettos and slums," he lectured. "Y'all don't want me talking about
this stuff, but I'm going to voice my opinions. Me getting 20 rebounds ain't important. We've got people homeless on our
streets and the media is crowding around my locker. It's ludicrous." He called Philly a "racist city" and told the press to
"kiss my black ass -- even though your lips might stink." He vowed, "I'm a strong black man -- I don't have to be what you
want me to be," echoing an Ali line from the '60s after he read Thomas Hauser's oral history of the boxing great. When I told
him I was writing a magazine profile of Erving, he dismissed the legend: "Man, I ain't got no time to talk about no Uncle
Tom."
By 1992, Barkley was the NBA's second-best player, behind Jordan, but he'd grown frustrated with Philadelphia's management
for surrounding him with a rotating cast of mediocre players. Management, in turn, had tired of Barkley's outspokenness. He
was traded to the Phoenix Suns, and the night before he went West, my phone rang. It was Charles, calling to thank me for
leaving for him a copy of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," about whom we'd been talking. He sounded pensive, even glum. "I'm
just driving around, thinking," he said. "This has been home for eight years. I don't know what to expect somewhere else."
His voice, barely a whisper, made him sound vulnerable. Oh yeah, I remember thinking, he's still in his 20s.
It was further proof that, for all his loudmouth faults, Barkley often exhibited a greater potential for growth than any
other athlete on the public scene. He was always answering questions, questioning answers and -- often -- lapsing into
introspection.
Such iconoclasm was on display in 1988, when he told his mother he was considering voting for George Bush. "But, Charles,
Bush is only for the rich," she said. "Mom, I am the rich," he replied. Or, three years later, when his friend Magic Johnson
tested HIV positive and other players, like Malone, were calling for uniform testing in the NBA. Barkley simply stated: "I'm
disappointed in myself that I haven't felt the same compassion for other people stricken with AIDS that I now feel for
Magic."
In Phoenix, Barkley became a superstar. He was the league's MVP and took his Suns to the NBA Finals in 1993, where they lost
to Jordan's Chicago Bulls in six hotly contested games -- arguably the toughest challenge to Jordan's dominance in six
championship seasons. On court, basketball fans finally saw that Barkley was the consummate team player; his five assists per
game, often on eye-popping behind-the-back passes while double-teamed, gave lie to the conventional wisdom that permeated his
last years in Philadelphia: that he was a talented player who couldn't make his teammates better.
Off the court, Barkley continued to evolve. He entered a Republican makeover phase. His worldview began to mature; he became
more focused on class and less virulent on race. He also grew close to Rush Limbaugh and Dan Quayle (a frequent golf
partner), dined with Clarence Thomas and endorsed Steve Forbes in the presidential primary. Though exit polls showed that his
imprimatur sealed Forbes' primary win in Arizona in 1996, Barkley didn't necessarily sign on to any particular ideology.
He's become impossible to pigeonhole. He regularly lambastes liberalism, to the proud applause of Limbaugh and Quayle; two
years ago, he told me, "Welfare gave the black man an inferiority complex. They gave us some fish instead of teaching us how
to fish." In the next breath, though, he's liable to skewer 1994's Republican revolution as "mean-spirited" and denounce Pat
Buchanan as a "neo-Nazi." A junkie of CNN's political gabfest "Crossfire," Barkley became convinced, after reading Jonathan
Kozol's "Savage Inequalities," that the way we fund public schools -- through local property taxes -- is designed to produce
good schools in good neighborhoods and run-down schools in run-down areas. "My daughter goes to a private school because I
can afford it," he once told me, giving voice to his natural inclination toward populism. "But shouldn't everyone have great
education available to them?"
He may read about failing schools, but Barkley hasn't exactly become a nerdy policy wonk. Throughout his time on the public
stage, he's reveled in his fame, as when he had a brief, much-publicized tryst with Madonna, prior to a reconciliation with
his wife. Then, as now, he insisted on livin' large: "We ain't here for a long time, we here to have a good time," he often
says.
Indeed, while Jordan became a reclusive prisoner to his iconic status, Barkley lived to be out among the masses, and his
nightclub hopping led to more than one mano a mano face-off with loudmouth fans. "Let there be no conflict in America,"
Barkley said in 1997, after he tossed an obnoxious heckler through a plate-glass window in an Orlando, Fla., bar. "If you
bother me, I whup yo' ass." His career has been dotted with such run-ins; they are the collateral damage of a personality
that, as on the court, simply plows ahead, rarely stopping to consider each and every move.
Barkley never made it back to the Finals. His body had been badly beaten through so many years of being manhandled by bigger
players, not to mention the ill effects of his legendary hard-drinking, late nights. When it got out that the Suns were
fielding trade offers for him in 1996, he exploded: "The days of cotton picking are over," he told the Phoenix media. "They
disrespected me by shopping me around like a piece of meat."
"I'm still a good player, not a great player"
Traded to the Rockets, Barkley joined two other aging superstars, Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, in his quest for a
championship. But Olajuwon and Drexler already had their championship rings and didn't seem as committed as Barkley, who cut
down on his drinking, started lifting weights and even offered to come off the bench for the good of the team in the 1997-98
season. But he was a shadow of his former self. "I'm the artist formerly known as Barkley now," he told me in 1998. "Once in
a while, I get flashbacks." Indeed, his own self-analysis was typically blunt. "I'm still a good player, not a great player,"
he said. "I can score 15 points and get 10 rebounds." Yet the ceaseless questions about never having won a title carried the
implication that he'll be remembered as less of a winner than his more hallowed contemporaries. He began to think of himself
in relation to those who have won rings. "I've never played with a great player in his prime while I've been in my prime," he
said. "Michael has had Scottie [Pippen]. Bird had Kevin [McHale] and Robert Parish. And Magic, shit, Magic had everybody.
When I came into the league, Doc and Moses were winding down. And Hakeem and Clyde, same thing."
Toward the end, as a merely good player, it became easy to forget what the younger Barkley once was. More than a great
player, he was, like Jordan, a wonder on the court: You'd watch and not quite believe it. He was a jumping jack who was too
quick for other power forwards, too strong for small forwards and too visionary a passer for the double-team. And it was all
done with an in-the-moment passion missing from today's scowling, dour-faced jocks.
Off the court, ironically, Barkley became the league's elder statesman these last few years, a respected spokesman for
tradition and the status quo. At times, he'd sound like Paul Lynde from "Bye Bye Birdie," wringing his hands over "these kids
today." When it was written that the cornrowed, tattooed Allen Iverson travels with a "posse" -- friends from back home --
Barkley admonished him: "Your teammates should be your posse." When I offered that guys like Iverson see the league's
crackdown on droopy uniform shorts as a sign of hostility toward black culture, he demurred: "They're wrong," he said. "The
shorts now are getting to the point where they don't even look like shorts. I think the NBA has to be concerned with a lot of
black guys getting arrested, me included, doing drugs, wearing shorts down to their ankles. That's not hostility to black
culture. That's just reality."
Still, though the volume came down a bit, Barkley continued throughout his final years as a player to challenge the
predilections and prejudices of the men who present him to the world. He calls the journalistic pack "flies," because they're
always buzzing around, annoying. One day, in front of his locker, I witnessed pure Barkley. Before the throng could lob its
first question at him, Barkley singled out a Houston television reporter. "Would you suck a cock for a million dollars?" he
asked. A roomful of men all instantly looked at their shoes.
"No," came the cracked-voice reply.
"A billion?" Barkley challenged.
"No," said the reporter, stronger now.
"Well, how much then?"
"I wouldn't do it for anything!"
Barkley grinned widely. "Well, if you'd do it for free, come on over here then," he said, while nervous laughter filled the
air around him. "Tell y'all what, I would. If I was poor, I'd suck a cock for a million dollars."
He paused and looked at his audience. "And all you muthafuckas would do the same, you just scared to admit it," he said.
"Like, remember when that movie 'Indecent Proposal' came out? Oprah had on three couples who said they wouldn't let their
husband or wife sleep with someone for a million dollars. Couldn't help but notice that they all had money already."
After an awkward moment of silence, the flies started buzzing again, shouting basketball questions over one another's still
trembling voices. I remember standing there, feeling lucky as hell to have seen this guy in action. After all, anyone who
appears so utterly joyous exercising free speech, anyone so OK with his life as a very public work-in-progress and anyone in
the insular, often homophobic world of jockdom who points out class distinctions by challenging the media to suck cock for
money, well, that's a role model worthy of emulation.
salon.com | May 30, 2000
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About the writer
Larry Platt is the author of "Keepin' It Real: A Turbulent Season at the Crossroads with the NBA" (Avon), and has written for
GQ, Details, the New York Times Magazine and Philadelphia Magazine.
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FROM 61.48.78.*