The author (left), with her father, Jack McCloskey, and siblings.
One night, when I was a sophomore in college, my father came to see me play basketball in Philadelphia. It was 1984. I was on the team at St. Joseph’s, and he was the general manager of the Detroit Pistons. He and my mother were long divorced, and I saw him only two or three times a year, when he came to town for a Pistons game or to scout a player. I had lost my starting spot at the beginning of the season, and that night I didn’t play much or particularly well.
My father waited for me after the game, and as soon as I saw him I burst into tears. I can still see his expression, tender and somehow unsurprised, even though we both knew that my performance was irrelevant. I had landed a full scholarship, but it was clear that I wasn’t going to develop into a college player of even minor significance. Something else was at stake, and I think we knew that, too. The game was the language he spoke, and I was losing my fluency.
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