Shirts Or Skins?

I played pickup basketball at the best place in Denver in the late 1950s: the 20th Street Recreation Center. Located at the east edge of downtown Denver within the attendance area of arguably the best basketball school in Denver — Manual (Manual Arts & Trades) High School — the second-floor gym at 20th Street saw some of the best hoopsters in Denver in those years. Most of the games were full-court affairs, but the teams were divided into shirts and skins. As I recall, we shot free throws for teams. The first five to make a free throw were shirts and the next five were skins (shirtless). The remainder went to the sideline to await the winner of the first team to 20 points (10 goals). And so it went, weekend afternoons and weekday evenings, in the spring and summer. Flash forward: the best two books on the pickup basketball culture both treat New York City playground basketball. The better of the two, Heaven Is A Playground by Rick Telander recounts the author's summer in the toughest part of Brooklyn: Bedford-Stuyvesant. The runnerup is The City Game by Pete Axthelm. Axthelm focuses on the Rucker Tournament as the premier pickup basketball event in New York City. Ed Rucker was a playground supervisor who died prematurely and the tournament bearing his name has become a playground institution. The level of play in Austin playgrounds or Amarillo playgrounds, while spirited, does not approach the basketball played in New York City. If this is (fair & balanced) dunking, so be it.

[x Austin Fishwrap]
Westenfield Park: Court of kings gets a face lift
By John Maher

Word was out not long after the paint dried and the nets were hung back up this month. Westenfield Park, the court that for decades has been known as the site of probably the best pickup basketball in town, was open for action and ready to add to its reputation.

"I'm on my way down there now," said Bick Brown, owner of Hyde Park Bar and Grill, who has played there for 25 years. "It's become a big part of people's lives. It's a relief that it's done."

The single court, known simply as Enfield to hoop junkies and located just off MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) in West Austin, has even received some national attention in books such as Chris Ballard's Hoops Nation: A Guide to America's Best Pickup Basketball.

In 2004, the Austin Chronicle named the slab Austin's Best Basketball Court, but by then Enfield had been living off its reputation for years. The court, which had been slick from grit for at least two decades, had gradually fallen into disrepair. The paint job was mostly a memory, and chunks of the surface were missing, making dribbling a misadventure. Austin Parks and Recreation Department employees say the court had not been resurfaced in at least 15 years.

When workers did start repairs, they received a surprise: a water leak under the concrete. The water line to the park's swimming pool had ruptured and was coming up under the slab.

"You had a wet, slick slab," said Stuart Strong, assistant director for Austin's Parks and Recreation Department. "It was buckling the coating."

Repairing the leak was not a quick fix. Eventually the pipe had to be routed around the court, which took a couple of weeks. Strong estimated that rerouting the pipe cost $5,000 and that the resurfacing was another $3,500.

But now the court looks better that it has in a long time.

For decades the procedure at the court has been pretty much the same. A group that sometimes includes former college players will usually gather at 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon, with games shifting to evening and early morning in the heat of the summer.

The court draws a wide mix of players with regard to age, race and occupation.

"You're judged on if you can guard your man and if you can score," Brown said. "Nobody really cares what else you've got going on in your life."

He gave the new paint job a big thumbs up. "I was concerned they were going to move the three-point line back and that would put me out of the game," a relieved Brown said.

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