Amid the sound and fury of Super Tuesday and the din of idiots signifying nothing, we can forget real news. Like Thomas Lee.
Lee loves the Jackson State University Tigers. I mean, loves them.
Growing up in Mississippi, Lee used to hang out at the Tigers’ basketball practices, usually with snacks in hand. Skittles were the favorite, hands down. Over the years, Lee became a fixture to the team, a walking concession stand of sorts, earning him the nickname ‘Snacks.’ It’s an apt title. Lee has clearly partaken in some.
Lee was so enchanted by the school he once mentioned to an assistant coach for the Tigers that he wanted to be the school’s team manager someday. The coach told Lee something the boy took deep to heart: Stay on the honor roll throughout high school, the coach said, and when he was admitted to Jackson State, Lee could be team manager.
“I kept my word,” Lee said in a local TV news interview. “And he kept his.”
And for four years, Lee had the college experience of a lifetime. He hung out with players after practice, always willing to feed a shooter who needed extra shots — and take a few himself, of course. He always carried Skittles for, you know, emergencies.
This year marked Lee’s senior year. Throughout the Tigers’ season, kids and their social media avatars had been calling for “Snacks” to make an appearance in a game. Lee admits he did nothing to squelch the rising call.
In fact, Lee must have been feeling pretty cocky. He showed up at the college last week before 6 a.m. on Senior Day — in uniform, donning the number 35 for his favorite player, Kevin Garnett.
Tigers coach Wayne Brent told reporters he was surprised to see the manager suited up, but made a promise to the hopeful. If the Tigers run up the score in a blowout win for the school’s final home game of the year, he could play. Though the Tigers had a mediocre year, Brent had the genius idea to the let the team know of the wager.
The Tigers kicked Arkansas Pine-Bluff’s ass. Running up a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter, Brent sent Lee out. The auditorium buzzed with his entrance, and collectively gasped — and sighed — when Lee took and missed three shots.
But with 32 seconds remaining, a Tiger on a fast break found Lee open on the right wing, far beyond the three-point arc. But Lee does not lack for guts, and recalled the preposterously long shots he’d take with players after practice. Without hesitating, he turned and arced a shot.
Swish.
By the end of the game, players and students had mobbed him, chanting “Snacks!” “Snacks!” as they led him out of the school. The Southwestern Athletic Conference named Snacks its Player of the Week. NBA superstar Kevin Durant (who has a great nickname, “The Grim Leaper”) tweeted that Lee should change his nickname from “Snacks”to “Snipe.”
Promises made, promises kept. Sometimes, it matters. Usually, the news isn’t fake. It’s just overlooked.