Back in Time at the Old Alma M.: Bothell @ Garfield

It's been 20 years since I started high school, and while beepers, baggy sweatshirts and parachute pants are no longer quite as sought after among young people, at least one object retains its allure: Weed!

Walking past the Garfield baseball field on the way to see the basketball team play Bothell, four dudes are hanging out in the dugout, smoking a prodigious amount of marijuana. We're fifteen feet past and my friend blurts out "I can still smell it!"

Mary Jane isn't the only familiar sight. Outside the gym entrance, Joe the security guard still sits in his folding chair, as he did when I was a Bulldog.

Inside the new gym, the Garfield band plays the same songs: Theme from "Peter Gunn," "I'm So Glad," some others I don't know the titles of. Rick, the developmentally disabled fellow who liked to faux-conduct the band when I was a Garfield student, faux-conducts the band.

And the ethnic makeups of the respective teams haven't changed. Garfield predominately black, Bothell...well, as my other friend said: "Bothell doesn't look like a basketball team, they look like a beer pong team."

Bothell didn't play like a beer pong team, not at first. Dominic Ballard drove the lane and scored with a nice lefty finish, a subsequent Garfield turnover led to an Oliver Hardin basket, and the Cougars had an early 6-0 lead.

Some of us weren't watching the game as much as the sidelines, where Garfield's coaches were putting on a fashion show. "Every man over there is very attractive," says friend #1. She preferred the coach in the brown suit with a lavender shirt. "Not everyone can pull off a brown suit," she said, "but he's making it work." She also had high marks for the guy in the gray suit. I have to say, I preferred Garfield head coach Ed Haskins' navy blue jacket, tan pants combo.

As for Bothell's coaches, well, lets just say that no one will be snapping them for The Sartorialist anytime soon. Maybe for HoopCoachist, though, as they'd clearly schooled their players on how to break Garfield's press. Early on, it was working. In Ballard and Oliver Hurtin, the Cougars have two guards with good handles. Hurtin was practically impossible to stop from driving to the basket, unfortunately he was rarely able to finish when he got there. A few ill-advised shots led to Garfield run-outs. (Though they couldn't convert all of them, somehow managing a turnover in a three-on-one situation--ah, high school basketball.)

The Bulldogs couldn't hit an outside shot (their bugaboo all season) but they were able to score inside and on putbacks. The Garfield p.a. announcer, who with his jeans, cowboy boots, and white beard looks like a western James Lipton, delighted us with his somewhat anachronistic terminology. One Garfield basket he called a "hesitation shot." Pump fake, maybe? Another was a "turn-and-bank" (aka hook shot).

Once Garfield started scoring, they were better able to implement their full-court press; in the second quarter they held Bothell to just five points. Since the Bulldogs were unable to hit an outside shot, Bothell's coaches wisely switched to a zone defense. This had the double benefit of letting the Cougars rest a little bit on defense. Still, Garfield played tough defense of their own, holding Bothell to just seven third-quarter points.

In the fourth, the Bulldogs finally got some outside shots to fall. Glenn Brooks, who has a very low release he'll need to change if he wants to play D1, hit two three-pointers to put the game away. Garfield won, 58-41.

The win puts Garfield at 6-3 in Metro, two games behind Skyline--who the Bulldogs host Friday night. That should be a good one. Bothell falls to 4-5, tied for fourth with Roosevelt, which will host the Cougars on Friday in a key game for both teams. The cream of the crop on Friday night, should you care to venture out, is Franklin at Rainier Beach.