Where Basketball Meets Verse

Basketball is a game of rhythm. Poetry is a game of rhythm. Between the beat of the dribble and the flowing lines of verse, between the backdoor cuts and the deliberate pauses, a deep connection exists - it’s all a composition in motion. 

Basketball, at its best, is poetry in motion. There’s something poetic about a well-disciplined offense zipping passes around the perimeter, or a zone defense gliding in perfect harmony, each player flowing together like verses in a well-crafted poem.

Basketball is grace, precision, and improvisation, much like poetry itself. Poetry flows with both control and creativity, as does basketball, where every movement is within the framework of a larger composition. 

Both are at the very core of human expression.

No one understood it better than John Wooden.

The legendary UCLA coach wasn’t just a teacher of basketball; he was a student of poetry. Raised on an Indiana farm, he grew up to his father, Joshua Hugh Wooden, reading to his sons at night under an oil lamp in their farmhouse. He was memorizing verses that would later shape his coaching philosophy. His words— “Make each day your masterpiece”—were poetry in their own right.

One of the poems Wooden memorized early on and quoted often was:

“No written word, no spoken plea,
Can teach our youth what they should be.
Nor all the books on all the shelves—
It’s what the teachers are themselves.”

Like the final buzzer sounding at the end of a game, time runs out for all of us. The question isn’t how much time we have—it’s how we use it. Wooden knew that. His players knew that. And deep down, we all know it too.

These verses became the foundation of his coaching. He wasn’t just molding basketball players—he was shaping character.

To Wooden, basketball was also about precision and flow. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s (then known as Lew Alcindor) skyhook wasn’t just a shot; it was a verse, graceful and unstoppable. The game itself, when played the right way, was a form of artistic expression.

Nearly two decades ago, I started reading and learning about John Wooden—not just the coach, but the man behind the wisdom—and it quietly began to reshape how I viewed both basketball and life. I too began composing poetry about sports—capturing the struggles, the determination, and the quiet battles athletes face as they overcome adversity both on and off the court.

Because poetry and basketball share more than rhythm—they share struggle. The real battle isn’t against an opponent; it’s against doubt, hesitation, and fear. The strongest opponent is the one inside your head.  This is one of my poems that speaks to that very struggle:

Your Strongest Opponent 

by Heath Hunziker 

Your strongest opponent knows your every thought

And he dares you to make the wrong move

For it’s during those times that you must not quit

Because every time you’ll lose

Your strongest opponent is not your defender,

The person trying to steal the ball,

He is the one saying “You cannot succeed”

When your back is against the wall

You see, your strongest opponent can only be beaten

By your mere strength, resolve, and mind

Cause, in the end, your strongest opponent is YOURSELF

Not the opponent on the other side.

That’s the essence of both poetry and the game—the challenge to overcome, to push forward, and to make each moment meaningful. In the end, it’s not about points on a scoreboard but the legacy we leave behind.

The Time We Have Left

by Heath Hunziker 

When you think the end is near

Step back, breathe, have no fear

There is always time to make a change

And goals can constantly be rearranged

As our minutes fly by fast

Life we know will never last

So with the time we all have left

Live your life with no regrets

Cause once your body and soul are gone

It’s your life stories that live on.

But if there’s anything more poetic than the game itself, it's watching young athletes embrace the challenge—fighting through fatigue, learning from failure, and showing up for each other day after day. There’s a quiet beauty in that kind of effort. In the hustle for a loose ball, the silent encouragement in a glance, the shared joy of a game well played—not just for the win, but for one another. Each moment writes a line in a greater verse. That’s where the real poetry lives. Not on the page, but in the gym. Not in the final score, but in the character built along the way. 

That’s poetry in motion. 

Two Sides to Every Star

There are two sides to every story. Two sides to every person. And when it comes to Ron Artest—now Metta Sandiford-Artest—most people only remember one.

I recently watched Untold: The Malice at the Palace on Netflix, a documentary revisiting one of the most infamous moments in NBA history—the 2004 brawl between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons. The film pulls back the curtain on the chaos of that night, the raw emotions, the consequences. It shows the Ron Artest that much of the world has come to know—the one who laid on the scorer’s table, who went into the stands, who sparked a melee that would define his career in ways that felt inescapable.

But there’s another Ron Artest the world rarely sees.

When I interned with Pacers Sports & Entertainment at what was then Conseco Fieldhouse during the summer of 2003, we were fortunate enough to have access to the practice and main courts during lunch and after work. It was a perk, a chance to lace up and share the floor where Reggie Miller drained threes and Jermaine O’Neal patrolled the paint. I even got to play with Chuck Person once, an experience I’ll never forget. Looking back, I wish I’d stayed after work more—stuck around for those pickup runs, built more relationships with the staff, and maybe even crossed paths with more Pacers legends. 

There was one rule, though. No matter how much fun we were having, if a current Pacer or Fever player stepped on the court, we stopped. No questions asked. It was their space. We were just borrowing it.

One afternoon, Josh, a game operations intern, was getting up some shots on the practice court using the moment for himself before heading back to the grind of his internship. Then Ron Artest walked in.

Josh knew the rule. He grabbed his basketball, ready to leave. No hesitation. That’s how it worked.

But Ron stopped him.

“You wanna work out with me?” he asked.

Josh hesitated. “I don’t think I’m supposed to.”

Ron shrugged. “I need a partner. It’ll be fine.”

And just like that, Josh wasn’t an intern anymore. He was Ron Artest’s training partner.

For the next fifteen minutes, they ran sprints together, side by side. Then, Josh rebounded as Ron took shot after shot, working on his form, his touch, his rhythm. And when Ron was done, he did something that caught Josh completely off guard. 

“Now it’s your turn,” he said.

And for the next fifteen minutes, Ron Artest, one of the toughest, most feared defenders in the NBA, rebounded for an intern.

Not because he had to. Not because cameras were rolling. But because Josh had given him his time, and I expect in Ron’s world, loyalty goes both ways.

As I watched Untold: The Malice at the Palace, I couldn’t help but think about that moment. The world remembers the Ron Artest who threw a Gatorade jug in frustration the year before. They remember the man who went into the stands, who ignited a riot that changed his life and the Pacers franchise forever.

But I remember something else.

Sometimes, the truest measure of a person isn’t found in the chaos of their lowest moment, but in the quiet acts of kindness that no one sees. And long after the world moves on from the headlines, those moments—like a star NBA player rebounding for an intern—are the ones that truly last.

When Favorites Fell

It was February 25, 1964, during the week of the boys’ Class M Regional Basketball Tournament at Pershing Arena in Kirksville, Missouri. The Kahoka High School team had arrived, brimming with expectation. They had stormed through the season with 27 wins, only two losses. A team built for a deep postseason run, maybe even a trip to State.

But as they left town, winter had other plans. The snow began as a dusting, then thickened into a relentless curtain of white. By the time the bus reached Memphis, Missouri, the wind howled, whipping the snow across the road in angry gusts. By Lancaster, visibility was near zero. The highway was slick, the wheels barely holding their grip.

Up ahead, red and blue lights pierced the darkness.

A wreck.

In 1964, Highway 63 was nothing more than a two-lane stretch of asphalt, treacherous in conditions like these. A car heading north had lost control, sliding into the oncoming lane, striking another head-on. Emergency crews worked frantically in the swirling snow, pulling victims from twisted metal.

A man knocked on the bus door. A Kahoka local, on his way to the game. His voice was tight, uneasy.

“We’re turning back,” he said. “It’s too bad out here.”

Some in the caravan chose safety, retreating home through the storm. But the bus driver, after a brief conversation with the coaching staff, followed the direction of a highway patrolman waving them through. The journey continued.

The team arrived late, hurriedly changing into uniforms, their usual pregame routine lost in the chaos of the night. As they stepped onto the court, something felt… off.

Where was the crowd?

Pershing Arena, built to hold thousands, swallowed the sound of their footsteps. What should have been a sea of familiar faces, of voices chanting their names, was instead a scattering of quiet spectators. Maybe fifty people in total. No energy. No momentum.

Silence, after all, could be deafening.

As the players settled onto the bench, one of them noticed a man sitting a row back. He was older, quiet, a small transistor radio pressed to his ear. He wasn’t watching warmups. He wasn’t there for Kahoka. He wasn’t there for Salisbury, a team in the southern location of the regional who Kahoka had not played this season.

The game tipped off, but something was missing. Kahoka, a team that had dominated all season, looked sluggish, out of sync. Shots that normally fell with ease clanged off the rim. Their defense, usually sharp, struggled to contain Salisbury’s attack.

Maybe it was the storm. Maybe it was the wreck. Maybe it was the emptiness of an arena without its usual heartbeat.

The sounds of the game—the squeak of sneakers, the echo of a bouncing ball, the sharp whistle of the referee—only made the silence more unsettling.

By the second quarter, at least one Kahoka player on the bench kept stealing glances at the man with the radio. He had barely looked up, his fingers tightening around the small device, his ear pressed closer to the speaker. It was clear now—his focus wasn’t on the basketball game playing out in front of him. 

Through the faint crackle of static, the Kahoka player caught fragments of something different. 

“He’s bouncing around…left jab…counterpunch.”

The player sat frozen for a moment, listening. The arena may have been quiet, but somewhere, far beyond Kirksville, another fight raged.

Suddenly, the sounds from the radio and the court seemed to blur together—two battles unfolding in separate worlds, yet strangely connected. 

As the minutes ticked by, Kahoka’s struggles continued. When the final buzzer sounded, their season—the one filled with so much promise—was over.

Just like that.

The man with the radio stood up. The broadcast on the radio the man was listening to had also ended.

Hours later, on the long bus ride home, another player mentioned what another already knew.

“Cassius Clay fought tonight.”

The words hung in the air.

Because on that same night, February 25, 1964, across the country in Miami Beach, Florida, a crowd of 8,300 spectators watched as 22-year-old Cassius Clay the brash young fighter had stepped into the ring against Sonny Liston. The unstoppable champion. The fighter no one believed could lose.

And Clay—who would soon become Muhammad Ali—had defied the odds. 

He had danced. He had dodged. And in the seventh round, he had sent Liston crumbling to his stool, unable to continue.

He had silenced his doubters. He had shaken up the world.

In that near-empty gym in Kirksville, the man with the radio had been there, holding a front-row seat to history for himself and those on the Kahoka bench.

Two knockouts happened that night.

One in Miami, where Cassius Clay claimed the heavyweight title.

And one in Kirksville, where a dream season ended, collapsing under the weight of silence.

Fields of Inspiration

Although I haven’t personally met Tom Lepper, my brother Jaryt and I were fans of the Quincy Blue Devils of the early 90s. There was something about their work ethic, size and dominance that pulled us into following them, even though we lived across the river in Missouri. They were successful and we wanted that too. 

In junior high, Jaryt and I spent our summers detasseling corn, trudging through rows of towering stalks under the blazing sun. It was grueling work. You spend most of the day talking yourself into finishing one more day, or one more row, or even taking one more step. It was more mental conditioning than physical conditioning. There was a lot of time spent questioning “why?”. 

Then one day, amidst the sea of green, while navigating the rows, we spotted someone familiar near a farm adjacent to the field we were detasseling. Someone who seemed out of place, but who also didn’t. 

Dumbfounded, Jaryt and I were like, “that couldn’t be…maybe it is…I think that is Tom Lepper”.  We blinked and squinted to make sure our eyes weren’t playing tricks on us in the July summer heat, down on the Taylor, Missouri bottoms.

There Tom was, sleeves rolled up, work boots on, focusing on his chores on the neighboring farm. No words were exchanged. None had to be.

That day, detasseling became more than just a summer job - it became a memory etched with the magic of a chance encounter and the indelible impression that success is built from hard work.

When one of the area’s dominant basketball players of the day is putting in work on a farm in the off-season it provided us our “why” - to continue pushing through the mental challenges of our own laborious summer job. Great things come from hard work and perseverance. 

Congrats Tom Lepper on your induction into the QU Hall of Fame. Your hard work has always shown through, even amidst the tall cornfields.