I was standing in the 76ers suite at the game, with my dad hovering above me in the background.

Moments like this only happen once a year, after we gather to honor our Wilt Fund scholars. Before the game begins, we come together for a reception. It’s only thirty minutes—not much time to meet all the scholars or the seventy people in the room—but enough time for conversations to collide.

I found myself talking with Paul Arizin’s sons. One had gone to the 50th reunion with his father. The other had gone in his place for the Top 75. Their dad wasn’t alive anymore, but he was hovering in the air.

Between the scholars, Wilt, Paul Arizin, and my dad, I felt a little disoriented—like too many threads crossing at once. Then we landed somewhere solid.

The ’66–’67 team.

Common ground from a time I wasn’t even born yet, when one of the Arizin sons had only been eight years old. I mentioned that my dad was the sixth man, and someone asked, “Who were the starting five anyway?”

Wilt.
Luke Jackson.
Wali.

They forgot about Wali.

How could they forget about Wali?

Then we stalled.

Who else? Hal Greer. Chet Walker. How did we miss them? They had to look them up. All of us faltering together.

Dad would have been shocked that I couldn’t remember after all the stories he’d told me. How could I forget something I practically lived myself?

And then it hit me—they didn’t know Pop Jones.
I did.

Then there was one more detail—who was it that broke his leg, the one who gave Wali his break?

One of the sons pulled out his phone.

“Larry Costello?” he said.

“Yes,” I said immediately. “That’s it.”

It felt strangely satisfying to know more than anyone else, as lacking as my knowledge was, standing there in that huddle, looking up. I tried to catch Oliver Chamberlain’s face, but all I saw were bright lights and half-faces blurred together. And just like that, I was pulled back.

I had that old, familiar feeling again—the one from when I was a kid. Reporters huddled around my dad and me. I didn’t understand anything anyone was saying. I didn’t need to. There were lights and faces and my dad was right there beside me.

And I was the happiest girl in the world.

I stayed in the shadow of those lights for the rest of the evening, letting the noise, the action, and the brightness blur around me—the way they used to when I was a kid.

I didn’t have words for what I was holding. If it was a feeling, I couldn’t name it. I only knew it was familiar, and somehow mine.

I realized then that I was inside my dad’s stories because his stories are inside me. Those locker-room moments in the car ride home. His encyclopedic memory of anything basketball. Somewhere along the way, it all passed through me. I carried it from game to game without noticing.

I knew those stories the way teammates do—not because I was the thirteenth man on the bench, but because I lived them, and they lived in me.

And somewhere that night, something shifted. When I’m standing in for my dad, a part of me is standing in for myself, too.

Apparently, this story was bigger than I realized. Bigger than one night, one conversation, or even two teams and history itself. It had been moving quietly through me for years, waiting for the moment when feeling could finally meet language.

That’s recognition—not something you search for, but something that finds you when you’re ready.

Aging gives us the chance to fit the pieces together again—
and to recapture the childhood magic when they finally do.