Sorry about the blog, but it’s back, so shut up and read this: HARRIMAN, Tenn. — After watching and reading about the legend of Ken Mink again and again, and after getting inside of it myself for months, it should make sense to me. I should know who he is. Only it doesn’t and I don’t.
I do, however, know the story of its creation by heart: Five decades after being kicked out of school and off his team for a prank he did not commit, a 73-year-old former junior college basketball player decides to rewrite his own history. After a few days of nailing shots on his neighbor’s driveway goal, he e-mails a bunch of Knoxville-area coaches. One of them, Randy Nesbit of Roane State, loves dreamers and offers the old man a second chance. In the home opener, the victory secure, Nesbit puts Ken into the game. That’s when it happens, the Big Bang moment. In the months that follow, Nesbit and Ken and everyone else will tell this story over and over, first to local reporters, then to Conan and Regis, CNN and CBS, Sports Illustrated and The New York Times, polishing it until Ken Mink the Phenomenon comes to have little in common with Ken Mink the Man.
It’s the third time Ken touches the ball. The defender, a young man one-fourth Ken’s age, rushes at him wildly. Everyone can see the fear in the kid’s eyes: He does not want the old man to score. Arms flailing, he flies toward Ken, who calmly pump fakes, gets the defender in the air, then goes back up with the ball. A ref’s whistle brings the action to a halt. On the bench, they can’t believe it — Ken pump-faking a kid! With everyone watching, including his wife Emelia wearing a 1950s cheerleader outfit, Ken calmly steps to the line and sinks both free throws.
The Knoxville News Sentinel posts video on its Web site. The site crashes. The video goes up on YouTube. A half million people watch it. Within days, Ken Mink’s phone begins to ring.
He is a star.
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