Smart’s critique roared through the NBA grapevine. The cracks in the foundation of trust, when, just seven games in, after a particularly egregious loss to Chicago, a frustrated Marcus Smart declared to the world that Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown “don’t want to pass the ball.” Williams was talking about Udoka’s circuitous ascent to the NBA, but he just as easily could have been referring to his first season as the Celtics’ head coach. “He got hit by a bus or a car or something. His Celtics players have lauded their coach’s toughness, his disarming honesty, and his résumé as a former player, but how much do they really know about the 44-year-old, who honed his coaching skills as an assistant in San Antonio from 2012 to 2019? Have they noticed the scar on the back of his head? He has taken them to heights even they had begun to fret might be out of their reach … until their coach challenged them to embrace a journey that builds resiliency and connectivity, the hallmarks of his own well-worn path to success. He has made it his mission to transform lottery picks into grinders, convincing them to prioritize defensive stands instead of crowd-pleasing 3-pointers or thundering dunks. This is where Ime Udoka, head coach of the Boston Celtics, comes from. As the state tournament approached, Udoka fought back tears when his high school coach informed him he could no longer play in the Midnight League because he couldn’t risk injury.
When Ime showed up at the Midnight League to play against the kids he grew up with, he traded elbows with Crips and Bloods, absorbing their anger and aggression by hurtling his body in front of them to take a charge, then returning, time and time again, for more. Portland’s streets, like those of most American cities, were littered with temptation drugs, gangs, crime, violence. As Willie explains, “You put five young men in a room and you hope they all go in the same direction.” All kids, he believed, started out with similar hopes and dreams. Willie Stoudamire, former NBA star Damon Stoudamire’s dad, started the program. designed to keep troubled kids off the streets. Thirsting for physicality, Udoka would finish his high school games at Jefferson on Friday nights, walk two blocks to the Salvation Army, and jump into games at the Midnight League, a pick-up session from 12 a.m. When bills went unpaid, the Udokas were evicted and took refuge at a local motel. Udoka retains all sorts of reminders of his pocked-mark journey to the NBA-whether it’s the scars snaking across his knee from surgeries on two torn ACLs, or the residuals of his coming of age in Northeast Portland, when the possibility of clothes that fit, a hot meal, and, sometimes, even a home with lights and heat hung precariously in the balance. Who sends a 4-year-old off to preschool by himself, asking him to cross a four-lane street at rush hour? But his father needed that job. “What I remember,” says Udoka, “is everyone staring.”
They sat side by side, a little Black boy in his gown with an oversized white bandage wrapped absurdly around his skull, and his white mother, quietly holding his hand. Ime’s mother, Agnes, retrieved him via the very same city bus that contributed to his accident. “When he finally came home, he was still wearing his hospital gown,” she says. His sister Mfon, just one year older, remembers feeling scared, because her brother was gone for so long. It was only when the ambulance came, and the paramedics tenderly placed an oxygen mask over his tiny face, that Udoka called out for his mom. He lay in the street, blood flowing, in a daze. Udoka was clipped in the forehead and sent careening back onto the concrete, where the back of his head squashed like a soft pumpkin. The van driving by in the lane adjacent to the bus didn’t see the boy until it was too late. He peeked out, saw nothing, then took a step … Even at 4, Udoka felt a sense of trepidation.
#HOSPITAL GOWN OF HOT GAY MEN OPEN IN BACK DRIVER#
Ime knew he should wait for the bus to pull out before he crossed Denver Street, which was always so busy, but the bus driver smiled assuredly and waved him across. When the bus stopped three blocks from Ime’s school, his father ushered him off and wished him a good day, while he continued in pursuit of the elusive American dream. On this particular day, Vitalis Udoka, a proud man of Nigerian descent, boarded the bus with his youngest child en route to a job interview. His family couldn’t afford a car because his dad was often in between jobs. He was traveling on a city bus in Portland, Oregon, to preschool. He suffered the injury when he was 4 years old. The one in the front has healed to the point that it’s almost imperceptible, although Ime can feel it when he absent-mindedly touches his forehead. Look closely, and you’ll notice the grisly scar on the back of Ime Udoka’s scalp.