The Secret Game: 5 Poems

Note: On March 12, 1944, the North Carolina College Eagles played a basketball game against the Duke Blue Devils. In the midst of Jim Crow era legislation, the game was considered illegal and an infringement on regional policy and race related sanctions. There were no spectators or reports of the game, and it went undocumented for over 50 years. The Eagles, Blue Devils' game was the first racially integrated college basketball game played in North Carolina and the southern region.

SECRET WARS

If only it hadn't been 1944 in the south, but it was;or if the Magnolia trees hadn't been in bloom andJim Crow was just a figment.Or if Duke and Carolina could have played a regular season game,met in the conference final like they might today.Or if the country hadn't been at war, the one they reported on,and the not so secret one.Or if Carolina had been invited to the National Invitationaltournament and Duke didn't have to hide their faces asthey arrived at the court.Or if the town hadn't been in church and could have seenthe game that wouldn't have changed everything, but wouldhave changed a lot.Or if they wouldn't have been strung up if it had gotten out,like they needed a reason.Or if the score could have been recorded and considered legitimate,and the headlines 'Carolina Dominates Duke in 88–44 Win'and the team could celebrate their victory and the people couldcelebrate their team.If their victory could have meant something to the world,then.Or if the game didn't have to be a secret war.If it didn't have to be a secret at all.

88–44

My uncle was the second person to tell me of it,the time Duke made their way to Carolina'scampus for the game the world wasn't supposedto know about. They took the back roads, thewinding ones that got you to the same place butin more time.

So they wouldn't get followed, do you knowwhat would have happened if they were followed?

He went on about the game like he was there;possession changes, timeout updates, Big Dog'shook, and Stanley's highlight reel. Then he toldme the score, eighty eight, to forty four; and therewas something about the way it fell out of his mouth.Something about the way it looked on paper, 88–44.Something about the math, the doubling.

Then I began imagining it differently, the storyabout a game that wasn't supposed to happenand the black and white teams that partook. Iwondered how it would have been if the scoreshad been reversed, if Duke had blown Carolinaoff the court, would it still have been a story.Would the secret live on from generation togeneration.

I recalled some of the terms I knew, the onesI was taught like the Black tax, 88–44. Havingto work two or three times as hard for the sameresult. 88–44. Or having your results surpassothers so much so that people would have tostop and be sure it wasn't a mistake. 88–44.To be seen as equal, by proving yourselfgreater. 88–44.

And then, again, I thought of the Duke team onthose back roads, the roads teams like Carolinatook every time they dribbled, sprinted, walked,jogged, dragged, or stepped on or off the court;the winding ones that got you to the same place,but in more time.

ENIGMAS

I came upon a slew of articles about this gamethe secret onewhere white guys in ties reported on a basketball gamefrom way back before they were born

They spoke of a new era and writing about such a thingon MLK dayand the secret suddenly matteredbecause it wasn't a secret anymore

Up there on an iconic pedestal so the world could swoonat a gamethat took place half...