All Marsalis said at the time was an indefinite “maybe,” but he could not back down from the challenge. Two days later, Hamaji was promised “a guaranteed butt-whooping,” as he demonstrated his crossover to Marsalis on stage at Lincoln Center.

Nevertheless, at 11:30 p.m. on the last night of the festival, Wynton was nowhere to be seen. Personally, I had given up and gone back to the hotel before receiving a fortuitous text from Frankie Pavia at 12:15 in the morning, “It’s on.”

The court was a converted recording studio on the fifth floor of the Time Warner Building, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. The game was to 11, make-it-take-it. Hamaji started with the ball. Marsalis, realizing that he did not have the quickness to defend Hamaji off the dribble, pulled off the ball and let him shoot. Hamaji quickly went up 5–0. Then the dream died.

After a fateful missed jumper, Marsalis recovered the ball. It is difficult to overstate the level of stroke demonstrated by Marsalis. He did not miss. Eleven waxed Js later, he had won 11–6. The game was finished, but the party lived on. Marsalis continued to showcase his prowess from the perimeter, knocking down 19 out of 20 shots from three-point range.

“He was actually unbelievable,” says Hamaji.

The games continued. Marsalis carried his teams to victory, no matter who he was paired with. All different combinations were attempted. The team of Marsalis and Phil McCarthy even dispatched three jazz band girls, despite Alex Evenson’s stunning shooting performance.

With the undercard completed, third-place Garfield March Madness team Give ‘em the Willis took the court against Marsalis and two security guards. The guards both stood about six-foot-one and were in their twenties. Marsalis and the guards proceeded to run the Showtime offense. Willis had no chance.

Cliff, one of the security guards, happened to possess a mind-blowing vertical leap. At one point Cliff drove around Pavia and threw down an unbelievable reverse dunk all over his face.

“Man, those guys were good,” said Willis star Calvin Moland.

Indeed, it is hard to know exactly what the ceiling was for Marsalis and the security guards. Marsalis claimed that he was recruited out of high school, and Cliff was at least was as athletic as any NBA guard I’ve ever seen.

Hamaji, having been spanked back to Seattle, took it all in stride. “We won Ellington, we played basketball with Wynton Marsalis until two in the morning. Best. Day. Ever.”

try. The term ought to be tossed in the same dusty storage locker as Ken Caminiti’s old MVP trophy. Still, the MVP “race” is never far from fan’s minds, and rarely, very rarely, a player will emerge who’s value is absolutely undeniable. As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said of porno, “I know it when I see it.” Despite this, every year we try to force greatness upon players, rather than waiting for it to come to us.

Often, we attempt to infer something about player value from team success. This is based on the assumption that a truly valuable player will be on a good team. If his team is not good, then the player couldn’t be that valuable anyway.

This reasoning is flawed. The intangibles behind the success of a team are not necessarily and not usually due to some bonus uncharitable value that just happens to belong to the team’s statistically best player. Nevertheless, the perception that superstars are solely responsible for the achievements of their teams is still held as fact by the general public.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Look at the San Diego Chargers. For four or so years, the Chargers were a consistently successful team behind stud tailback LaDainian Tomlinson. LT put up some epic seasons from a scorekeeping point of view, and in 2007 the media eagerly bestowed LT with the title of MVP. Their rationale was that LT generated huge statistics on a good team, and the Chargers owed their achievements to him.

Lo and behold, LT has stunk it up for the past two years, but you couldn’t tell from the Chargers. The boys in blue have made the playoffs anyway, not skipping a beat. How valuable could LT have been if his drastic downturn didn’t effect his team’s results in any way?

Last year, Kobe Bryant was awarded the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Trophy. This was a mistake. Falling into the team success trap, the voters rewarded Bryant for his team’s jump to the top of the Western Conference. In doing so, they ignored the fact that, oh, I don’t know, the best offensive center in the league joined his team mid-season.

Still, there are rare occasions when an individual singlehandedly lifts his team, whether it is from craptastic to respectable or from mediocre to great. Two players are having such seasons in the NBA right now. In Miami, Dwyane Wade has taken a team that won only 18% of its games last year to the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference. The before and after is clear. Last year Miami either had a crippled Wade playing or an entirely disabled Wade watching from the stands. The presence of Dwyane Wade has tripled Miami’s winning percentage.

Meanwhile, in Cleveland, LeBron James is accomplishing something even more spectacular. Not only is he guiding a team to the playoffs all on his lonesome, he has thrust the Cavs to the best record in the league. One man has taken over the NBA.

Make no mistake, the other Cavaliers (minus Mo Williams) are truly awful. LeBron, and LeBron alone, is responsible for 66 wins against the best basketball players in the world. Jordan couldn’t do by himself in Chicago. Kobe couldn’t do it in LA. Wilt couldn’t do it in Philedelphia. If the Cavaliers end up winning the championship against the Lakers, LeBron’s season will rate as the greatest of all time.

When Lebron is announced as MVP later this week, the media will make a small commotion. Yet to LeBron himself, it will be as if nothing happened. The NBA playoffs feature the greatest athletes in the world, but one man will stand out. LeBron James is one of the few indisputable MVPs in history, and it is a remarkable privilege to be able to watch him.

“There was money set aside to build a brand new weight room,” says football coach Anthony Allen. “We’ve always had weights.”

Not like this. There are about 20 stationary bikes, four squat/bench racks, three dedicated benches, three varieties of leg press, a rotational ab machine, hamstring curlers, and even a calf-machine that, to the adolescent male’s eye, resembles an obscene series of physical motions. All the machines are purple.

More remarkable than the quantity and quality of what is available is the emptiness of the room. On average, there are only about ten people each afternoon.

“More people definitely should come down to work out, if nothing else just to build your body,” says Coach Allen.

However, it is definitely appreciated by the few regulars.

“The weight room is great and saves me a lot of time and money,” says senior Henton Hailey-Marshall, a sentiment echoed by many others.

Still, in an era when TV is splattered with ads for pricey fitness programs and crummy home gyms, it is surprising that such a resource would be virtually unused by appearance-minded high schoolers.

However, the weight room could be empty because of the strict rules concerning its use. Shorts or sweats are required. This prevents many casual users from coming after school. Also, headphones are not allowed. The rationale behind these policies is relatively unclear.

“There was a meeting,” says Allen. “School rules carry over into the room. Different teachers have different rules.”

Despite these flaws, the weight room is still an incredible resource.

“Boys should go to the weight room because then they get big sexy rippling muscles,” says junior Sonia Giebel. “And for fitness and all that stuff.”

So come on down after school and find out what all the hubbub and funding is about.

Following up last year’s state title was going to be difficult. With key contributors Dylon Chow, Bo Cao, Justin Yan, and Tim Wilder graduating, coach Mr. Nomura was forced to put his trust into a new generation of players.

“We lost, like, a lot of people,” says Mr. Nomura.

This year’s A-Team, consisting of veterans sophomore Devon Manber and junior Zach Wener-Fligner, as well as new members freshman Kenneth Truong, junior Joseph Lachman, and junior Conor Bronsdon came into the year as somewhat of a question mark, but consistently proved its worth over a grueling league and state schedule.

“The prediction I made earlier this year was top two in Metro League and top five in state,” says Mr. Nomura.

The team came into state riding high.

“We definitely could have won,” says Wener-Fligner. “We were at least the third best team there. Unfortunately, the format of the tournament worked against us.”

There are five rounds in the state chess tournament. In each round, teams are paired up to play against the team closest to them in the standings. This format is designed to create match-ups in which the best teams play each other for the overall trophy, and it does. Unfortunately, it absolutely reamed Garfield.

The A-Team finished the 1st day (2 rounds) of the tournament in 1st place, with a score of 9.5 out of a possible 10 victories. This meant that over the course of the second day, the Bulldogs had to play the very best teams in the tournament.

“We could have done better, but we had by far the toughest schedule,” says Mr. Nomura.

The team fought to a 2.5 to 2.5 draw against Lakeside, but was disappointed by their performance.

“I had beaten the guy I was playing before, but it didn’t happen this time,” says Wener-Fligner.

The Bulldogs were tired and unfocused as they came into their match against Interlake and its savant number one player—master freshman Michael Lee—and promptly lost 1 to 4.

Just 15 years old, Michael Lee is the undisputed king of Washington High School Chess. With a rating of 2370, he is an International Master and the highest rated freshman in the nation.

“I like him more than Tony,” says Wener-Fligner.

Lee was also part of the national champion Odle Middle School chess team, which figures to feed more players into Interlake in the coming years.

“The competition is getting tougher,” says Mr. Normura.

While Garfield was falling from the top, other teams were taking a much easier rode to the podium. Seattle Prep, which underperformed on the first day, came into the final rounds against clearly inferior teams. By messing up the opening rounds, they were able to cruise through the rest of the tournament into third place over the clearly-superior Bulldogs.

Meanwhile, the Garfield B-Team was fighting through challenges of their own. Equally effected by the ’08 diaspora, B-team was led by grizzled returnees William Deng and Tal Levy. The B-Team finished 13th at state, a notable feat in its own right. Mr. Nomura was especially impressed by the overall depth of his players this year.

“I didn’t really predict the newcomers,” he says. “Kenneth and Joseph were suprising, and [seniors] Jonas Myers and Neil Eddington did really well.”

The team’s stay at state was not entirely filled with chess. Though a large contingent of intimidating baseball players staying at the same hotel frightened the chess team, the resilient members did their best to have a good time.

“I checked out the hot girl that beat Neil,” says Wener-Fligner.

This season can best be described as a rebuilding year for the chess team. Next year’s team will return all five players, and the Bulldogs will again test their collective might against Interlake and Lakeside. Then again, a fifth place finish in the entire state isn’t exactly bad. Going into 2010, Mr. Nomura is cautiously optimistic.

“We’re going to be definitely stronger next year,” he says.

Clearly reluctant to predict anything specific, Mr. Nomura ventures that another top five finish is expected. Interlake and Lakeside will be one year better, but it’s hard to imagine the Bulldogs receiving the schedule shaft in the same magnitude as they did this year.

As was once said of the Miami Hurricanes, “We don’t rebuild, we reload.”

North Carolina: 3:1
The preseason number one, North Carolina has had an up and down season. Though it has suffered mental lapses throughout the year that have resulted in losses, North Carolina is still the clear tournament favorite, a la Florida in 2007. Reigning player of the year and Dick Vitale boy-toy Tyler Hansborough has put up another spectacular year at power forward. However, he is not even the best player on his own team. Point guard Ty Lawson is averaging 3.4 assists for every turnover he commits. Versatile off guard Wayne Ellington provides a formidable scoring punch.

Pittsburgh: 5:1
I saw Pitt play last year, and let me tell you, these guys are scary. Tatted playmaker Levance Fields looks like he could eat all of UW for dinner, and Dejuan Blair is like a rebounding Popeye. Sam Young is less carnivorous, but his 18.4 points a game speak to an unholy ability to feast on the potent defenses of the Big East. The sheer physicality of Pitt means that they match up well with other elite teams, whose talent often leads to softness. Unfortunately, Pitt’s bruising style can also lead to foul trouble, especially for Blair. If this happens, Pitt could be headed for an early round defeat.

UConn: 7:1
No team in the country can come close to matching up to the inside duo of Hasheem “the bronchosaurus” Thabeet and Jeff “the pygmy” Adrien. However, weak guard play will make it hard for the championship to come back to Storrs. The loss of Jerome Dyson is especially bad for a team that prides itself on its stingy defense. Ultimately, UConn’s hopes rest in the hands of streaky distributor AJ Price. If he fails to penetrate the desperate presses employed by many tournament teams, UConn could fall early. If he is a successful caretaker and is able to feed the ball to his bigs, UConn will win the tournament.

Wake Forest: 9:1
On paper, this is as good a team as any in the country. They follow the textbook championship formula. Jeff Teague is the smart and crafty combo guard. Al-Farouq Aminu is the freak freshman talent. James Johnson is the post bruiser/martial arts master. Midway through the season, this team had beaten North Carolina and ascended to the number one ranking. However, a stretch of lackadaisical defense in the middle of the season caused them to lose 4 out of 6 games to clearly inferior teams. If Wake steps up to the stage and plays with passion, they could be cutting down the nets in April. Otherwise, they may be out of luck.

Duke: 12:1
Duke has been in something of a funk for the past few years. Despite fielding very talented teams, the Blue Devils haven’t made an Elite 8 in years. On the perimeter, this is the most talented team in the country. Gerald Henderson and Kyle Singler are NBA wings. Nolan Smith and Greg Paulus provide two entirely different yet equally viable looks at the point guard position. Inside is a different story. Duke has played a variety of pooptacular post players throughout the season, without much success. An elite team playing well will beat these guys. Nevertheless, Duke may find itself with a championship if the other teams self destruct.

Oklahoma: 15:1
There is a lemma that states that in important games, the team with the best individual player wins. According to this theory, man-child Blake Griffin gives Oklahoma a chance to beat any team. Personally, I disagree. Griffin won’t be able to physically bully players like Blair or Hansborough the way he brutalizes the Big 12. Indeed, Griffin could be the third player out of the Big 12 in as many years to post amazing numbers in the regular season, only to flame out in the tournament. Behind Griffin, Oklahoma is nothing special, as evidenced by its recent losses to Texas and Kansas with Griffin out of the lineup.

UW: 40:1
Washington is one of those annoying spoiler teams. On crack. The speed with which UW plays has the potential to upset one of the tournament favorites with weak guards, such as UConn. However, the Huskies’ midget lineup seems to prevent them from being a Final Four team. Isaiah Thomas, Justin Dentmon, and Venoy Overton can score with the best, but will any defense be played? In order to surprise the oddsmakers, UW must shoot well, Quincy Pondexter must play like the NBA player he claims to be, and somehow Jon Brockman and Darnell Gant must stop players four inches taller than them from simply shooting over their heads.

Gonzaga: 10:1
There are only seven or so teams that actually have a shot at winning the NCAA tournament, and Gonzaga is one of them. This requires specific contributions from its key players. Austin Daye can shoot well, but must rebound like a man, not the soft little child he truly is. Jeremy Pargo must not turn the ball over. Stephen Gray and Matt Bouldin must get their points while not hindering their team on defense. Josh Heytvelt must not run away like a nancy boy from the slightest suggestion of contact. None of these things are singularly that difficult, and if they all happen, Gonzaga could be on its way to history.

There are three ways to win an individual wrestling match. A pin is defined as when one competitor locks their opponent’s two shoulder blades to the matt. A decision is a point-based result at the end of the three periods. A techfault is when one competitor goes up by fifteen points. Points can be scored in a variety of ways involving holds, takedowns, and technicalities.

Team scores are an aggregate of individual scores in the different weight categories. Not having a competitor in a certain weight class forfeits those points. For this reason it is paramount for a good wrestling team to have many members. Unfortunately, the Garfield team is severely undermanned.

“Garfield has always sucked at wrestling,” says junior co-captain Clifford Rostomily. “All the city schools do.”

This portrayal leads to few people signing up for the team, which in turn leads to the team being bad. However, the team has been trying to change its poor image.

The gentlefolk of the wrestling team take the legacy of their sport seriously. The manly physiques of the upperclassmen grapplers bring honor to our cut-up ancestors. Nevertheless, females are an integral and successful part of the wrestling team.

Freshman Ava Klein recently took fourth in girls state wrestling. Efforts like this help create the in-school publicity necessary to field a full team.

In addition, the boys of the team had moderate success at districts. Senior co-captain Gordon Loop won two matches, as did Rostomily. Unfortunately, senior Taji Thomas and junior Andrew Bennett received terrible draws and went down early. However, Rostomily’s loss was most cringe-inducing.

High school team wrestling is officiated and scored by referees. As anyone who saw Garfield-Franklin can attest, referees are the great satan. In a sport where points are paramount, the refs have power almost unsurpassed by any other sport. This makes it especially frustrating when someone gets blatantly shafted. The ref in question failed to give Rostomily points that he had clearly earned, points that even the official scorer believed to have been a sure thing. Rostomily went on to lose by one point, a heartbreaking end to a promising season.

Next year’s squad will have a strong foundation to build upon. Freshmen Gabe Tran, Wes Rostomily, Mark Paul, David Gonzalez, Ava Klein, Brohani Brostofferson and Kengel the Destroyer provide a solid foundation for superstars Bennett and Rostomily.

Ultimately, the only way the team will truely be succesful is through broad recruitment.

“Join the wrestling team,” says Rostomily “We’ll make a man out of you. Even if you are a girl.”

Millions of people spend at least a part of their youth training to this end. For the majority, the impossibility of the goal becomes apparent through lack of focus, athleticism, or skill. For others, the dream looms large. These select few are placed in a system that constantly forces them to be better. Better than they were before. Better than athletes were 10 years ago. Better than what is possible. That is why we watch them.

Currently, in order to fulfill the standards of elite competition, athletes gear their whole lives to being better. Major college athletes practice for seven hours a day. Most carefully regulate their intake. They eat food designed to maximize body performance, and take prescribed vitamins to strengthen their muscles and bones. And some take steroids.

Anabolic steroids do not make someone stronger by themselves. In reality, they increase post-exercise muscle growth rate. This is still very useful. Athletes can train harder and more frequently, as recovery time between workouts is drastically decreased. For most people, thorough muscular workouts require two days of recovery time. For the steroid user, this time can be reduced to a few hours. Faster recovery equals more workouts and more strength, making more awesome athletes.

Just as elite athletes and those training to become them sacrifice much in order to obtain their goals, steroid users sacrifice their health. Steroids have a Pandora’s crate of side-effects. Psychologically, they cause “significant psychiatric symptoms including aggression and violence, mania, and less frequently psychosis and suicide” according to Central Nervous System Drugs, a scientific publication. Physically, steroid use leads to heart disease, balding, acne, and testicular shrinkage. And to think Alex Rodriguez went through all this, just to live up to the money we were paying him. I’m honored. Actually.

As knowledge of the human body is expanded and chemical synthesis is refined, performance enhancing drugs will become more effective and less harmful. Vitamins are harmless and beneficial. They are drugs nonetheless. When I go to the doctor, they make me fill out a form that asks me what drugs I am taking. The footnote says to include vitamins.

Eventually, other drugs will be afforded the same acceptance that vitamins are. Even now, gene therapy is progressing to the point where doctors can deactivate certain harmful genes. In time, they will be able to activate genes to make all athletes run like Bo Jackson or jump like Michael Jordan. Indeed, scientists will be able to make anyone into a Lebron James.

There is no denying that modern technology is beneficial in addressing diseases and conditions. Is it not also beneficial for my kids to be able to run 40 yards in four seconds and jump 50 inches high? Think of how awesome pick-up basketball games will be in a few generations. On the other hand, will professional sports diminish in importance as talent takes a backseat to treatment?

This leads to a moral quandary much broader than the world of sports. How will humanity move forward into an age in which evolution is not the product of eons of natural progression, but rather a function of treatment, and consequently wealth? Evolutionarily speaking, there must be a reason that that vast majority of humans are mediocre. Do we dare do God’s work, not knowing the consequences of our actions?

For hundreds of years, humans have been regulating what they take into their bodies in order to improve their health and abilities. Alex Rodriguez and the rest of the doping athletic world are doing the same, just in new and therefore threatening ways. Will we follow them?

Scooter Race
The third floor was built for speed. The smooth laminate surface allows the rider to achieve criminal speeds while using a wheeled transportation device. Logistically, it is difficult to transport a bike to the top of the school, and skateboards are difficult to use. Fortunately, your dusty scooter has a new calling. One scooter can facilitate a fun hour of time trials. Two scooters will give you an exhilarating race. Several scooters with give you a formidable peloton as you rage past Stever’s room. The fastest time that I have ever observed is a 55 second lap. Beat it.

Stampede!
Some see the busy corridor between the library and the orchestra room as an impediment. I see it as an opportunity. This activity requires a running start, and it helps to be a large person, but it can be performed by anyone. Accelerate to full speed before crashing into the wall of bodies outside Ms. Gumbs’ room. Do not slow down. See how long it takes to make it to Alder from the stairwell. For added fun, take some large compadres down the hallway with you. Clear the whole place out. Toss some freshmen. Have fun.

Rugby
Hallway rugby is very similar to normal rugby. Where one is played on a field, the other is played in the halls of Garfield. The two teams, respectively holding the Alder and Jefferson sides of the building, battle in the utmost test of strength, speed, and mental fortitude. The objective is simple, reach Alder or the front parking lot. The varied passages of Garfield offer a strategic puzzle for even the most astute minds. The physical impact of two intersecting teams registers on the Richter scale. There can only be one champion.

Security Guard Sneak
Akin to the video game Splinter Cell, the security guard sneak consists of dangerous covert ops. In this case our protagonist must navigate the halls undetected. People tend to consider this sort of sneaking as the terrible price of using the bathroom on finals day or extracting a friend from the tech rooms. This is wrong. Sneak for love of the game. When your teacher offers you a pass, politely decline. Go to the bathroom to check up on how your elbows look today. Find a friend and see how long you can last wandering the first floor. Good luck!

*The Messenger is not responsible for any cracked ribs, pulled hamstrings, freshman grime, or possible mandatory transfer to Redmond that results from participating in these activities.

The Summit at Snoqualmie

Located just under an hour from Seattle, and with plentiful night-skiing opportunities, the Summit at Snoqualmie is certainly the most convenient resort for Seattle skiers.

The skiing available at Snoqualmie is very diverse. From the backwoods of Hayak to the bustle of Summits Central and West to the steep slopes and relatively high elevation of Alpental, the Summit at Snoqualmie offers terrain for all skiers. The main problem with the Summit areas is their low base elevations of around 3000 feet. Snow at other ski areas is often rain at Snoqualmie.

Programs such as the Ski-Bus transport students up to Snoqualmie every Friday night. If you want to drive there, head west on I-90.

Crystal Mountain

Featuring the highest elevation lift skiing in the state, Crystal Mountain is the Puget Sound ski area most akin to the massive resorts of the Rockies. The southerly weather, the absence of the rain shadow and convergence effects of the Olympic, and the influence of Mt. Rainier gives Crystal weather conditions that are often disconnected from what is happening elsewhere in the Washington Cascades.

Crystal features expansive terrain, 3000 feet of elevation gain, and large resort lodging. This, combined with its relatively far 2.5 hour distance from Seattle, make visiting Crystal as an overnight an attractive option.

Stevens Pass

One and a half hours from Seattle lies a Northwest gem. Stevens Pass is severely underrated, featuring a large variety of terrain, and the lightest snow this side of Mt. Baker. Personally, Stevens is my favorite Puget Sound area. There are many excellent, deserted lines to be found scattered all over the mountain. The backside of Big Chief Bowl is a personal favorite.

Located on Highway 2, Stevens is easy to access. However, adverse traffic and weather can extend the drive far beyond the normal one and a half hours. Still, Stevens is the second closest area to Seattle, and has a delicious 1000 foot higher base than Snoqualmie.

Mt. Baker

Baker is the granddaddy of them all. Holder of the worldwide annual snowfall record, at over 1000 inches, Baker gets hammered every winter. Cold air coming down from the Frasier River Valley in British Columbia mixes with Pacific moisture rushing down the Strait of Juan de Fuca to poop fluffy snow all over this ridge between Mt. Baker proper and Mt. Shuksan.

Drive time to Baker matches Crystals Herculean two and a half hours. However, staying in Bellingham is a viable and cheap option. I’m sure Jake Linde has room in his dorm.