Back to blog

The house was modest. It was on a tree lined street with an island in the middle.
814 Pinewood Avenue.
It had a very small front yard and a long driveway going back to a small garage.
On the garage was a basketball backboard or as my father would call it: “bangboard”.
You really don’t want your shot “banging” off the board, you want a soft touch jumper that swishes through the net. My father’s father built that board. He worked at the Hickey Freeman Company, they made high end suits in Rochester, New York. I mean the best suits in the world, made from the finest Scottish wool’
Raymond Clyde Fox worked in shipping and he made that backboard from the wood in the shipping crates.
The crates held the finest wool in the world.
My father and then I became pure jump shooters under that board. The rim that Raymond chose to put on that board was about three inches smaller in circumference than a standard rim.
Thus, pure shooters.