Showdown at Big Skyhook

Turns out Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s not a Friend of Gil but a Friend of Emmett. Seriously, we’ve gotta get some more backstory on Tays; specifically, where life took him post-Milford to put him in Kareem’s orbit.

Alchesay is a real high school, and Kareem actually coached there, for a single season in 1998-99. It’s located on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona (not the one outside Milford). His time there inspired him to write a book on the experience and no, I’m not gonna read an entire book for the purposes of commenting on a single strip. What I did glean from the second link above is that, during his tenure at Alchesay, Kareem didn’t try to impose his style of play upon the team but instead “help[ed] them perfect ‘Alchesay ball’…. A lot of run and gun. Apache ball.”

What exactly is Milford ball and how Kareem is gonna perfect it before the next game is beyond me. In his memoir on his season at Alchesay, he revealed that he used his martial arts training to subdue a player who harassed the team’s female manager. That may be what comes in handy next. Since Luke Hernandez became the new sheriff at Valley Tech, he’s raised the stakes with every game against Milford. The (Valley Conference?) finals might just become a game of death.

You get a pair! And you get a pair!! All y’all get a pair!!!

The week ends with the unbeaten Mudlark hoopers making small talk in the locker room. A snapshot of the NBA Eastern Conference standings as of this morning show the Milwaukee Bucks in first place with a 48-18 record (the best record in the league overall) and the Cleveland Cavaliers in fourth place with a 42-27 record. “Donovan” must refer to Cavs shooting guard Donovan Mitchell, who currently leads the team with a 27.7 ppg average.

Gil breaks up the patter by blowing his whistle inside the locker room. He expects anyone can hear him being temporarily deafened by the echo of the FWEET off the metal lockers? Too funny. But never mind that. Coach Thorp, Coach Ochoa and Tays (what, Emmett not good enough to get called “Coach”? They should call him MISTER Tays!) are gonna level the playing field for Leo by giving everyone on the team a new pair of kicks.

Not just any kicks, mind you, but JAMMERS, the only athletic shoes endorsed by former NFL cornerback Quentin Jammer* that come in a talking shoebox. With all that going for them, it seems pedantic to point out that they haven’t mastered proper English. I’m not talking about the use of what is becoming the accepted form of the second-person plural, but about how to punctuate it. “Y’all” is a contraction of “you all” and, as such, the apostrophe goes in the place where the contracted letters “o” and “u” went, not after a letter that was not contracted. It’s the same as “cannot” becoming “can’t” and “do not” becoming “don’t.”

Now where did the money for all these JAMMERS come from? The proceeds from the Milford Lift-A-Thon, Gil’s Tiger King used car spot, or a secret shoe endorsement deal Gil or Emmett had? Maybe we’ll find out on Monday. Y’all come back now, hear?

*That lighting bolt confirms that these are Quentin Jammer endorsed, since he spent eleven of his twelve seasons playing for the Bolts.

Riding On The Bus With Gil

Welcome aboard the Milford team bus. Spread out, there’s plenty of room. There’s room for maybe Marjie, too! (We established that Marjie is back in one strip of the Barajas. This model has no glasses. Maybe she had lasik surgery?)

Marjie wants to know how the team is doing now that Kaz is gone and Gil’s answer is more about how Gil is feeling. (Devastated and lonely, of course. He’s probably not allowed to get all sweaty in the weight room with Coach Cami.) The team probably barely noticed since most of them are fresh recruits or barely sentient minor characters in this story.

As always, Gil is looking to the future, as in those two guys who got muscled off of the chocolate sales turf by those Valley Tech Sharks. I think it’s those guys name Leo and Darius. L&D are low men on the totem pole so they must share a seat, but they seem pretty content with it. Will they be part of a bright, Kaz-less future or will they be casualties of the impending Chocolate War?

eta: Alright, so I misidentified the sleepy people on the bus. Gil’s musings make more sense in reference to Tays and Coach Cami, but get a room, amirite? Yeah, I forgot we had also seen Heather at some point. Marjie’s too smart to hitch a ride on the school bus since she’d have to smell Gil’s Lavoris breath for two and a half hours each way…..also, Heather Burns eats worms!