In a green redmanizer blur, long striped socks, white ‘83 first-issue Nike Air Force 1 high-tops, fluorescent wristbands, and the ubiquitous bright-colored headband that serves as his crown, the undisputed king of bravado soars effortlessly on a fastbreak, extends his musclebound left arm horizontally while his right arm reaches skyward punching through the hazy Araneta Coliseum atmosphere with ball in hand. In this image already tattooed in many minds, Billy Ray Bates is a force of nature and work of art at the same time.
I was only 9 years old when Billy Ray made his first slam dunk in Manila. I only know him as the athletic specimen the late-great David Halberstam described in “Breaks of the Game” – Halberstam’s insightful portrait of the 1979-1980 Portland Trailblazers;
He has one of the most powerful bodies of any guard in the NBA, a huge barrel chest, immense hands, strong legs that sprang from thick thighs. He had done some hard physical hard work as a boy, but he believed the body had been given to him; almost everyone else in his family, uncles, aunts, cousins, had bodies something like this. The talent had always been there. No one had ever taught him to jump, he could simply do it the first day he tried. He could dunk the ball from his sophomore year in high school and he lived for those moments, sailing above the rim, and then slamming the ball down; in that instant, back in Mississipi, he felt all-powerful; he was up and everyone else was down. Dunking was outlawed in Mississipi high school play, deemed illegal by white men writing white rules. But sometimes when his team was up by fifteen points he would risk a technical foul and he would take off and soar in the air, every split second to be remembered and savored.
Others, however, knew Billy Ray better than most. Melbarose Sasot, President of Allandale Sporstline, Inc., fondly remembers Billy Ray who frequented her sports apparel shop just like all other PBA imports during the 80s.
“Billy is a kind and helpful person,” Sasot, who was introduced to Billy Ray in 1983 by previous PBA imports, says. ”He is not an opportunist.”
Somehow my February 23 FHM Blog “Searching for Billy Ray Bates” has reunited Billy Ray with his former business partners in Manila like Grosby Shoes, which is set to relaunch in the Philippines this summer, and now Allandale Sports Inc. which operates 6 branches and now exports custom-made uniforms abroad.
“We already communicated to Billy our plan of supplying custom made uniforms to other parts of the USA,” Sasot, whose company once made uniforms for the Harlem Globetrotters, shares.
Billy Ray, 52, should have graduated from a New Jersey-based drug and alcohol center by now. The new Billy Ray is now communicating with former business partners in Manila as he takes a new path in life. He’s done some mind-blowing moves on the court in the NBA, PBA and CBA. You don’t get the nickname “Dunk” by scoring finger-roll layups.
Unfortunately, and he’ll be the first to admit this, he has also committed some mind-blowing mistakes off-the-court. Billy Ray, once the ambassador of dunk, can now be the advocate of a clean, sober and wiser life. And that will be a message more poignant than any rim-rattling tomahawk this Black Superman has ever pulled off. MH
Photos courtesy of Allandale Sportsline, Inc.
