Slam Dunk (1972)

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:28 PM -0400 8/24/02, Fritz Juengling wrote:
>In a message dated 8/24/02 2:49:25 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
>laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
>
>  > The first time I remember the issue coming up was several years
>>  earlier.  Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who was then still known as Lew
>>  Alcindor, was in his freshman year at UCLA the same time I arrived as
>>  a grad student, in '66.  The NCAA decided to ban (what we now know
>>  as) the slam (dunk), many at the time believing the goal was to slow
>>  down Alcindor's expected dominance of the college game.  The upshot
>>  was that he developed a full repertoire, including his patented sky
>>  hook (most certainly coined OF, if not BY, Alcindor), and dominated
>>  the college game anyway; his legendary coach John Wooden always
>>  claimed that "Lewis's" skills were helped by the ban and how it
>>  forced him to work on his game.  Anyway, it might be useful to check
>>  the L.A. Times issues around '66 (possibly in Jim Murray's columns)
>>  to see how the slam was then described in articles and columns
>>  relating to the NCAA ban (which was, eventually, reversed).  Maybe
>>  "slam dunk" wasn't used, but "slam" was?  I can't recall.
>
>Yes, the ban was the best thing for his game.  However, I had season's
>tickets to the Trailblazers forseveral years back in the early 70's and do
>not ever remember the phrase 'slam dunk.'  Early on, we heard and referred to
>it as 'stuff', as in 'Chamberlain stuffed it!!"  Then I remember hearing
>'dunk' and THEN 'slam dunk'  several years after that.  It seemed to me that
>'slam dunk' came some time later--when b-ball became so much more of a show
>thing.  maybe I just wasn't paying attention or we pre-Blazermaniacs just had
>a different term???

I think this and previous points are well taken, and they weren't
referred to "slam dunks" (maybe just "dunks", from the earlier verb,
"dunk (the ball)".  As Barry was wondering earlier, the reference to
Dr. J (Julius Erving) in the early 70's (see Barry's subject line
above) may have been among the first occurrences of "slam dunk" per
se.  As it happens, Dr. J's athletic Philly team was upset (he said
hoarsely) by Fritz's team-concept, nifty-passing Trailblazers for the
in 1976-77 championship, a Trailblazer team led by Alcindor's
successor at UCLA, Bill Walton, and coached by Dr. J's rival medicine
man, Dr. Jack (Ramsay).

>While we're on b-ball lingo, here's one that has has always puzzled me.  When
>the ball goes out of bounds and I am the last to touch it (but still in
>bounds), someone will say, "it's out ON you."  Why 'on'?  to my mind it
>should be 'off.'  "The ball is out off you" seems to make much more sense. I
>do remember some folks saying that, but the 'on' folks seem to have won out.
>Is this usage the norm in other parts of the country (it is in OR and
>MN)--for those of you who play (pick-up) hoops?
>Fritz


I wonder whether it isn't an extension of a foul being "ON you", or
on whoever committed it.  The result is often the same (other team
gets it out of bounds), although not entirely, and the shared sense
of "your bad", "you're responsible" is clear.  Also used in "he
dunked it ON you", where it's your bad for not stopping him.

Larry