It started with whispers. Then awe-filled words.
"Tracy Mitchell was here." The Tracy Mitchell. In the 1970s, growing up in Lowell, Mass., a city of more than 100,000, everyone under the age of 25 who dribbled a basketball had heard of the legend.
Mitchell was a dunking machine whose fame on the court spread to all parts of the city. Such were the breathless accounts that I thought Mitchell, who is six years older than me, was 7-feet tall.
Our heroes are always bigger in our eyes, I guess. Mitchell grew from a playground legend to Lowell High scoring machine. Though he was only 6-foot-2, the high-flying guard played in the clouds.
I recently did a story on Mitchell for The Sun. He talked about stops at a Maine prep school and California junior college. Mostly, he told stories about being one of the last cuts of the 1985-86 Boston Celtics, one of the greatest NBA teams ever assembled, a squad teeming with Hall of Famers.
Mitchell never played in a regular-season NBA game. But he harbors no bitterness toward the Celtics - or the game of basketball. Today he is 62, in terrific shape, and best known for being a terrific referee.
Most of the players involved in the games he refs have no idea of his background. They have no idea how close he came to playing for one of the greatest basketball teams ever. They have no idea how revered he was in Lowell, how proud he made the city. He never talks about his professional basketball days, well, not unless he's asked.
It's not his style. He doesn't own a basketball anymore. What's the point? Shoulder surgeries about 10 years ended his playing days. Still, he remains connected to basketball through refereeing. That's enough for the local hero.
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