Dear Jalen,
It feels like yesterday that I was 25, working as a paralegal in New York City up at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and pregnant with my baby boy. Your dad was playing basketball in Australia at the time, and he’d begged me to come with him for the season. But I was stubborn. I knew I didn’t want to have my baby in another country … so I stayed home, and you were born in New Jersey. And you were perfect.
I was lucky as a new mom, where even with your dad overseas I still had a lot of help. Your grandparents were always around, and they loved to spoil you. I remember those first two weeks, you literally doubled your weight. Like you got so chubby that I was WORRIED! But you grew into it. As soon as you could walk, your dad put a basketball in your hands … and as soon as you had one in your hands, you wouldn’t let it go. We’d be eating breakfast, eating dinner, working around the house … and no matter what, you’d be over there on the floor, just dribbling that ball. I tried to tell everyone it’s too much……. I was like, Enough already!!! He can’t do this all day every day. But whenever I’d try, your grandfather would just give me this look. And then in his thick Jamaican accent he’d say, “Let him bum di ball. Let him bum di ball. Let him bum di ball. It’s fine.”
So I let you do your thing … and you kept bummin’ di ball. Sometimes it got us into trouble. I remember at one of your dad’s first home games with the Knicks, when you were three, we were in the family room at the Garden and you were dribbling up and down the floor. Everyone thought it was so cute … but not me. I knew what a demon you could be with that basketball. So I was trying to smile, while in truth I was beyond nervous. I mean, Jeff Van Gundy’s wife was there, Allan Houston’s wife … it was everyone. And they’re all egging you on and of course you’re loving it. Until you take one too many dribbles, and the ball goes SPLAT right onto a table, right on someone’s plate, and their food is flying everywhere. At the time, since we were new, I was so embarrassed! But I look back on those moments now, and I see them for what they actually were — what every moment has always been when you have a basketball in your hands: pure joy.
It’s like that saying goes, “Find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Except I think you may have taken it to heart a little sooner than you’re supposed to. Because you didn’t just fall in love with the sport of basketball as a kid….. you also fell in love with the job of being a basketball player. I always laugh when I think about you at five, six years old, mimicking your dad and his teammates. Whether it was perfecting Allan Houston’s jab step, or Larry Johnson’s “Big L” celebration … or it was making me cut your t-shirt sleeves into the “muscle shirts” that Knicks players were wearing back then, or cut my trouser socks into tiny armbands … or it was packing a duffel bag filled with Gatorade bottles, sneakers and a uniform, just like the one your dad would leave with on game days, so you could “leave” for your own games (in the house or on the driveway) … you always had such an attention to detail.
But it wasn’t just that cute stuff. I remember when you were in kindergarten, your dad was on the Blazers, so his games would usually start at around 10:00 PM our time. You didn’t care. You refused to sleep until you’d not only watched the game (had to be live), but also talked to your dad and given him notes. “You missed this shot,” “you made a nice pass here,” whatever you’d noticed. And when you could be at his games in person, all you ever wanted was to be chasing rebounds, folding towels, getting water for the players, helping out in some way. I’ll never forget when you were in fourth or fifth grade, we were living in South Jersey at the time, and one of your classmates had Sixers tickets and he asked if you wanted to go. You said no thanks. I thought to myself, That’s such a nice offer.….. why doesn’t Jalen want to go?? And it was at that moment that I realized something: You didn’t want to attend a basketball game just to sit in the stands. If you were going to be around it, you wanted to be a part of it. You wanted to work. And as I think back on your journey now, I’m struck by how deep your sense of PURPOSE has been … how you’ve always known exactly what you want out of the game.
And how you’ve always been willing to work for it, so you’ve never been willing to settle for less.
