This was a good week for Earl “The Pearl” Monroe. Each day, he received increasingly positive updates from China, where the basketball team for the Earl Monroe New Renaissance Basketball School was competing in an international tournament in China.
It’s a remarkable thing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is this: The school, located on Parkview Avenue in The Bronx, is starting just its third year of existence as a charter school.
And this: Despite the name, the EMNR is the farthest thing in the world from a basketball factory, relying entirely on a lottery system to draw its students, the oldest of whom are in their third year of high school — there are no seniors on campus yet.
“We have a lot of kids who are going to do a lot of great things,” Monroe says. “And I don’t think playing basketball is at the top of any of their lists.”
And this: The team brought home the gold medal from the Yaoxin Sports International High School Tournament, then a day after winning it and playing one last friendly match, they headed out to walk the Great Wall.
“Imagine that,” he says. “Imagine the experience for these kids. I mean … most of them hadn’t ever been outside The Bronx before, and now they’re in China, experiencing that. It’s hard to even describe how proud it is to have your name attached to a school when it’s doing such great things.”
And this: It allowed the Pearl to remember his own maiden voyage to China, almost 40 years ago. Back in the spring of 1984, a good-will roster of recently retired NBA players — notably Monroe, “Pistol” Pete Maravich, Phil Jackson, Connie Hawkins and Rick Barry — made a historic tour of Asia and made a stop in China before moving on to Japan and the Philippines. They won all of their games, too.
“I can remember what a once-in-a-lifetime experience that was for me — and I was already old,” Monroe says with a laugh. “You can imagine how thrilling it must’ve been for these kids.”
There are a lot of things the kids from the EMNR school are going to remember, not the least of which was getting to the event. They had to fly to Dubai, caught a connecting flight to Beijing, then took a 13-hour train trip to the tournament — and because it was a Chinese national holiday and the seats were filled, the players had to stand the whole way.
One of the players, Damier Burton, captured the experience in his journal: “Day 1 was a lot. We traveled 30 hours to get here. We had a little nap before the game, but that’s really the only rest we had … but me and my brother had an understanding: This is a business trip. So even though we were at a disadvantage, we had to take care of business and get the job done.”
All of it made Monroe smile. His friend Dan Klores, one of the school’s founders and president of its board, likes to summarize the school’s mission this way: “Basketball is a global common denominator, but these kids would rather become sportswriters or sportscasters writing and announcing the games than playing them.”
And, of course, for the Pearl, most of the memories that came flooding back made him smile — especially thinking about sharing a backcourt with Maravich, two of the most dynamic players ever born making magic so far away from home.
(And believe me, I tried. No YouTube clips exist of what had to have been equal parts surreal and spectacular …)
“I remember clear as day after the first game, Pistol and I were laughing about how much Rick Barry was shooting,” he says. “ ‘And if we think a guy is shooting too much’ — he starts to laugh here — ‘then you’ll have to trust me. He was shooting a lot.”
Two years ago, just before the EMNR opened its doors, Monroe had said this to me: “There are so many kids who would like to pursue a career in basketball — and not the playing of basketball, but all the opportunities around this amazing game. What we want to do with this school is afford them opportunities they simply might not otherwise have known existed. It’s a dream come true for me.”
He isn’t the only one.
Vac’s Whacks
Let’s just say it would really, really be kind of a buzzkill if we have a 1-5 team going up against a 1-6 team when the Jets and Giants meet in a few weeks.
Have to admit, the biggest thing I took out of Evan Neal’s airing of grievances was this: If anyone out there can actually successfully flip a hot dog, I’d like to shake your hand. That’s a lot harder than playing offensive tackle.
Shaun Morash is like an excellent scatback on the WFAN show he produced for Evan Roberts and Tiki Barber. He doesn’t get a lot of touches, but he makes the ones he gets count.
I can’t wait for the ripped-from-the-headlines episode of “Law and Order” tackling injured-list manipulation.
Whack Back at Vac
Bob Smith: Wow. Now if our Knicks can add a free-agent piece as solid as The Post did with Mr. Bondy, our season will be truly outstanding!
Vac: We’re every bit as happy as Stef was the other night in Charleston when he made a heaping bowl of shrimp and grits disappear in about 90 seconds.
Michael Mattice: Do you think that Cris Collinsworth has fully recovered from the “Taylor Swift Vapors” attack he suffered on “Monday Night Football?” That was borderline creepy.
Vac: I thought his regular puppy live outbursts about Zach Wilson were even creepier.
@GirlDadGrayHair: When Mitch Robinson plays really well, the Knicks are an elite team. The issue is it doesn’t happen consistently enough. Maybe this is the year.
@MikeVacc: Everyone harps — fairly — on how much RJ Barrett improves every year. But Robinson’s upward graph is just as impressive.
James Devine: Tuesday — Oct. 4, 2023 — was the 68th anniversary of the greatest day in baseball history.
Vac: As long as we still have Brooklyn Dodgers fans who walk among us, then those Dodgers will still walk among us.
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