Tyrone Kelley sneaked behind the defense, took a pass on the baseline and guided the ball onto the metal backboard, where it bounced off and went through what was left of the net.
Shirtless because of the heat and humidity that hung in the air Tuesday evening, it was evident Kelley, 31, carried a few extra pounds. Still, he ran to the other end of the court, grabbed a defensive rebound, fired a pass to a streaking teammate who quickly scored another basket for Kelley’s team.
A few moments later, Kelley shot a long-range jumper for a 3-point basket.
If it seemed like Kelley and the other players on the court in the shade of the Interstate 630 overpass were playing like there was no tomorrow, they were.
After 31 years, Tuesday night was the last time for a while that Kelley or anyone else will play basketball at one of two courts under the Interstate 630 freeway at Kanis Park in Little Rock. Perhaps forever.
“They’ve been playing out here for years,” Kelley’s girlfriend, Tasha King, 29, said while she glanced up from her cellphone to take in the action from the concrete picnic table that passed for the court’s grandstand. “They’re upset, so they try to come here every day now.”
They won’t go there any time soon. On Wednesday, city crews removed the basketball goals to make sure of that.
It was part of the many preparations underway for the past couple of weeks as workers geared up to widen a 2.5-mile section of I-630 that runs right over two side-by-side basketball courts where legions of pickup games have been played over the years, featuring some of the city’s best players.
Work is scheduled to begin Monday on the $87.3 million project to widen the interstate between Baptist Health Medical Center and South University Avenue.
The courts had seen better days. The posts once were painted in bright red and white stripes when the twin basketball courts and an adjoining volleyball court were built in 1987 for $10,000 in the unused section under the freeway adjoining Kanis Park at North Rodney Par-ham and Mississippi Street.
Back then, the white backboards gleamed.
They appear to be bare metal now. The underside of the bridge deck was coated with light blue paint that has blackened with grime over the years. The court itself is made of the same “green quality material” used for tennis courts.
Back then, two former members of the Harlem Globetrotters traveling professional team with Little Rock ties, Hubert “Geese” Ausbie and Tom “Cochise” Brown, held a weeklong basketball clinic for boys and girls before participating in a ceremony to dedicate the courts on a July day 31 years ago.
In the years since, some of the city’s best basketball players developed their game in the cacophony of traffic noise at the Kanis Park courts that have been compared to famed outdoor courts such as Rucker Park in New York City, where Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Julius Erving and Chris Mullin honed their basketball game.
Joe Johnson, who starred first at Central High School, then the University of Arkansas and then in the National Basketball Association, is among those who are Kanis Park alums.
Kelley and the others have replaced the likes of Johnson. Murals depicting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and poet Maya Angelou have replaced the bright paint that once adorned the court.
The players feel it belongs to them. Now it’s being taken away.
And there is nothing they can do about it. Like many other things in their lives.
“It doesn’t matter what we say,” said 18-year-old Miolin Cummins, who just finished his freshman year at the University of the Ozarks.
“It’s messed up,” another regular groused as he walked onto the court for the start of another game.
They had hints but didn’t taken them. In the past few weeks, the contractor began staging equipment in and around the project site.
A huge crane is parked on the south side of the court. A road sign blocks access to the pedestrian bridge that goes between the basketball court and the parking lot.
On Tuesday night, the players improvised and tightly parked their cars and trucks on a strip of grass, the court and bridge support on one side and Rodney Parham on the other.
Brandon Madden, at 35 still able to keep up with players half his age, is another one who has played on the courts for years.
“Every time it gets hot, I’m down here three or four days a week,” he said. “I’ll get off work. This is how I use up my energy. It’s something to do.”
It is something for younger black men to do, too, which is a good thing, Madden said.
“It keeps the community straight,” he said. “They don’t have a lot to do.”
The official word from the city is that it would like to rebuild a basketball court once the road work is completed in early 2019.
“We are working with [the Transportation Department] to evaluate possibilities,” said Lamor Williams, the city’s communication and marketing manager.
“Our hope is to be able to return the courts to that area after the project is completed.
“In the meantime, we would like to encourage people to utilize the basketball courts at Boyle Park as an alternate site.”
Buddy Villines, the former county judge of Pulaski County, was a member of the Little Rock board of directors and assistant mayor when he took a few shots at the net during the dedication ceremony in 1987.
He hates to see the demise of the basketball court, too.
“I hope it’s not permanently lost,” he said. “I’m not a big fan of the I-630 widening. You end up losing a lot. It’s just sad to see that it’s not there.”
Madden said he grudgingly accepts it, too.
“I do understand,” Madden said.
“They have to do what they have do do, but we love it.”
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