for example, some pieces of his SI article from the '80s

Posted on: November 2, 2017 at 13:48:05 CT

"I love sugar. Ten Twinkies and I'm energized. Then, once I'm up and all the sugar's gone, I go into down syndrome. Listen to some records, old-time records. I was born after my time. I should have been born in the Cooley High days, with the shoo-bop-de-bops and the ooh-baby-babies."

About the media, of which he considers himself a member, he says: "I'm beginning to wonder if they think I'm ugly. They can't even hook me with a picture. My mother says, 'Oh, but they wrote something nice about you.' But no picture. And you see these monsters on the magazine covers - soooooo appealing."

"Coach Stewart says, 'Pull to the ball.' But the face check is the best D." The face check? "That's when you get close to a guy's face and tell him what toothpaste he used that morning. 'Oooh, you used Crest!' Or, 'Oooh, you used Close-Up!' "

"I can't understand this 'Let's go,' 'C'mon,' 'Rah-rah' stuff. In the park, you've got 12 Pearls. If someone's not doing the job, another guy just does the work."

"Al McGuire, he speaks the gospel to me. But Dick Vitale should have never taken his glasses off. They were his gimmick. They made him look like Bullwinkle. That's Dow Jones, a guy who takes his glasses off"

The NCAA had him film an antidrug spot. "I show up, and I'm looking like New York with rings and things, thinking, 'Wow, this is national, I want some girls to check me out.' So I've got my Available-Just-Tonight look. I go, 'Drugs stink. And you know that's not the word I want to use.' The producer says, 'Oh, you don't mean it.' And I tell her I do, only that it's gonna get me killed. Back home they'll say, 'Yo, man, you didn't really mean that. That's bad for business.' "

"I just want to play basketball, get my degree and get out of here. When I get my degree I'm gonna have on nothing but punk panties under my gown and a big rope with a medallion around my neck and a Word-Up hairdo. Have a city graduation, instead of a Missour-uh one. Then, get a job - nine to five, behind the scenes. Think about the future. For so long I lived life day to day. Living in this different atmosphere gets me thinking, 'Hmmmm, maybe I will be around tomorrow. Maybe I won't walk outside my apartment building and get shot at.' 'Paper" is my new word. Represents money. Once I make that, I'll pay back my dues to my mother."


You need a glossary to decipher some of his more colorful word inventions:

Comazones. Naps. "With all the Snickers in me, I get hyper and jittery. Then I feel ready to bag in. And if I don't go into comazones, I get Wall Street syndrome - a little sluggish." On a questionnaire he completed as a Missouri freshman, Chievous listed sleeping as one of his hobbies. "If I'm at the crib [home], I get six hours a night. But I only get five out here 'cause of the time difference."

Expensive. Anything trendy or glamorous. To "drive a Porsche, wear gold chains and go to the Regal Beagle" is expensive. "I talk to [St. John's guard and fellow Queens product] Mark Jackson, and he says he's been living expensive. Going to the Roxy and the Silver Shadow. What am I supposed to tell him? That I went to this club and saw some dude from the St. Louis Blues hit somebody with a hockey stick?"

Hook me. Take care of me, do me a favor, deal me in. "I'm trying to get Johnson & Johnson to hook me with an endorsement contract."

Jimsons. The sneakers in which one plays his best. First appeared under the Chievous byline in a 1982 issue of the Holy Cross High Lance, his high school paper, in an article about the Knights' freshman team: "On November 26, the 'Tranquilizing Ten' will put on their 'jimsons' to take on Power Memorial in their first real game of the season."

Scientific. Stilted, formal or fundamental. Vanderbilt, which three-pointed Missouri to death early this season, has "scientific players." Too many TV sportscasters, in Chievous's view, are "scientific."

Skeezers. Women.

Steaking. Trying to impress. A "steak daddy" tries to impress skeezers with dinners and gifts.

Stupid. An intensifier, always complimentary and usually attached to an adjective. Michael Jordan has "stupid fresh springs" that is, unbelievably supple jumping equipment. Says Chievous, proudly, "I've got all of Columbia using it."

Television School. A team that gets on TV a lot in spite of having done nothing for years to justify it. Notre Dame is a television school. So is UCLA. "But DePaul's the alltime television school," says Chievous, whose cousin Kenny Patterson played for the Blue Demons a few years ago. "Kenny came on more often than the news."