I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It - Charles Barkley [56]
In ’92, the games were easy, but there was stress because we didn’t realize when the competition first started that we were that much better than everybody else. We’d never played against those guys before. We knew we had better not lose, so we were on guard. Once the game started, we realized those guys couldn’t beat us, but we still wanted everybody to know Americans were the best in the world at basketball so we gave it everything we had.
But with all that competitiveness going on, even with guys trying to beat each other’s brains out in practice, for the most part we put it aside at night. Larry Bird and Patrick Ewing became great friends, and we called ’em Larry and Harry. That’s the great thing about sports. You make friendships that people never could have predicted and half the damn time they don’t understand how it happened. Me, Scottie, Michael and Magic played cards every night, all night. We’d start playing cards around eight o’clock, go until five in the morning, get three hours’ sleep and then go to practice. Every day. Every single day. And I’m not talking about just in Barcelona, or even Monte Carlo, but starting back when we started practicing and having those exhibition games all around the country. I can remember the Tournament of the Americas, staying up all night every night.
One night though, and I’ll never forget this, we had the most uncomfortable moment. But it also tells you how much respect I have for Earvin Johnson. Remember, Earvin had announced he was HIV-positive in November of 1991, which just stunned us all.
We’re playing cards late one night, watching HBO in whoever’s hotel room it was. And a comedian starts crackin’ on Earvin, saying, “Can you believe that Magic Johnson has the AIDS virus? Man got all that damn money and too cheap to spend $2 to buy a box of condoms.” The guy was pretty funny and you wanted to laugh, but you couldn’t because you’re sitting in the room with the guy he’s cracking on, and he’s your close friend and your teammate, and just the greatest guy in the world. The comedian goes on and on and says more funny stuff. And it’s just so uncomfortable. Finally, Earvin says, “Man, that’s some funny shit, isn’t it? You guys go ahead and laugh.” And we were all like, “Whew!” It’s something that we had never talked about that summer; you can’t bring it up. It’s just so difficult to talk about. But at that moment I thought, “This is going to be uncomfortable sometimes, but it really could be all right.”
Every Minute of
Every Day
Cannot Be Serious
Not long ago, I was in Australia and somebody for some reason had a tableful of rubies, between $750,000 and $1 million of rubies just sitting on a table. And I said, “Damn, must not be any black folks in Australia. You can’t just leave $1 million worth of jewelry lying around in the ’hood.” And of course, somebody got mad and pretty soon the NAACP was calling me, upset and angry about what I’d said. I told whoever called me, “Man, I’m silly like that sometimes. Every minute of every day cannot be serious because you’d go crazy.” I’ll say to white folks at a party, “Man, there’s nothing in the world that makes me as nervous as seeing white people dance.”
I’m going to have fun with everybody. Anybody who knows me also knows that nobody is spared. You can never make the case that I’m picking on one group. You’ve got to lighten the mood sometimes, whether we’re talking in the locker room before a big, important game, or whether we’re talking about some real-life issue. Humor should make people feel a little better.
Shannon Sharpe, the NFL tight end, and I are similar in a lot of ways. We both try to do it with humor. Everybody’s sense of humor isn’t the same, we know that. But if you don’t try to deal with sensitive shit by making it funny, they’re going to call you militant. I’m thinking, “I’m trying to put some stuff out there to get us talking.” But you better make it funny or some people just won’t be able to stand it. It goes down better with a little humor, and people tend to see that