They were trending last week, but it took so long to get this blog out I’m already behind the curve.

If that isn’t an indicator for you–I’m not a trend follower.

Take my first summer job at Bob’s Big Boy–the name speaks for itself. And I never could bring the silverware before the meal, so they relegated me to the ice cream counter instead. I’d be lucky to get one customer and a nickel tip on a good day. Come to think of it, they should have fired me, but I beat them to it; I quit.

That day, I came home saying, “I’ll never wear a hairnet or polyester ever again.”

My famous last words. Only, hairnets still exist (check out food industry workers, ballerinas, and wig wearers). And worse, polyester took off from those itchy days. It’s even in our underwear now.

With origins like that, do I have it in me to be trendy?

But then there’s Jay Wright & The 76ers

I saw a friend the day before her daughter’s wedding. And, you know what we were talking about–how my Dad was in Friday’s Philadelphia Inquirer. The entire sports section was devoted to Jay Wright and the 76ers. Of course, she doesn’t get the actual newspaper anymore, so she suggested I buy a paper so I could see for myself.

And then she asked what I was wondering, “Wait. Where do you even buy a paper anymore?”

Jay Wright and the 76ers could be the trendy topic I needed. Here’s a woman who’d rather talk about this than her daughter’s wedding. Is that a sign, or what? I had to buy a newspaper.

Searching for a newspaper is as archaic as it gets

Well, there were the dinosaurs first, and then newspapers. But this could be the answer to my blogging prayers–a real, trendy topic.

Three stops later (a gas station, where they were all out–please. I’m trying to be hip here. (Do people still use that word?) A drug store (yes, they only sell drugs and light household goods, no papers). And, finally, a 7-Eleven.

I plopped down $2.95 for a paper that was so flimsy it looked like it was missing all the inserts. They should have been paying me to buy that thing.

Why the sudden urge to be trendy, you might rightfully ask.

I took a blogging strategies class, and the instructor told us we’re supposed to find the trends and write about them. People skim. They want headlines that are literal, not cute.

Uh-oh!

I write about trends, all right–what’s trending in my life, not what’s necessarily trending in the world around me. I write long copy, and my headlines are the only cute thing in my life!

Enter Writer’s Block–What to say when I learn my writing style is nearing extinction, and I have to go trendy.

Then Jay Wright quits three days before our school auction.

And it made me worry because, thanks to my Dad and the kindness of Jay Wright, we had a Villanova Wildcats auction item. Suppose no one wanted to bid on it without Jay Wright as the Villanova men’s basketball coach? Could he have waited three days until after the auction to make his announcement?

There’s a reason I have angst over auction donations.

I’m not trendy, remember? But it goes deeper than that.

Once, a friend asked us to attend an auction in Connecticut and donate a signed ball from my Dad. My Dad had been out of basketball for some time, and Alex and I had a bad feeling that it wouldn’t go well.

Our friend insisted it would be a huge hit. So we brought the ball and had to endure the humiliating experience of having no one bid on it.

Our friend urged us to start the bidding off–you know, to get others to follow. So reluctantly, we raised our paddle. “Going once. Going twice. Sold.” Yes, we donated a basketball that we then bought back for $250.

With an experience like that, no wonder why we freaked out over the news that Jay Write quit. Would we have to repurchase this auction item, too?

(I’m not endorsing worrying. Ask your doctor if it’s a wise choice for you.)

But the paper, Stephanie, remember the newspaper?

I’m sorry to say that this search for the newspaper to find a trendy topic wasn’t any different than buying back the ball we donated to that auction.

Yes, there were three pages on Jay Wright retiring and two pages devoted to The Greatest 76ers of All-Time, and Dad was number nine on that list of 50. And there wasn’t a trend for me to write about, except this little nugget.

“Cunningham is probably best remembered now as the coach of the 1982-83 NBA champion Sixers.”

Somebody remembered.

Ah, yes, the 76ers. They’re trending right now.

They were on Friday, at least, before they lost the last two games in the playoffs. Maybe they’ll win the next game?

Ah, screw this trend thing; it’s boring. It’s way cooler to check out when Dad quit coaching, which was the rave in 1987.

So I got out Grandma’s scrapbook and turned to the last pages of all the newspaper clippings she had saved and pasted.

There they were. All the articles about Dad retiring from the game: Dad was 41 years old–what a baby!

Screw the trends. We just dialed up the top 75 NBA Story–#41.

Dad had only coached the 76ers for eight years (800 games) to Jay Wright’s 28 seasons as a collegiate head coach (with 21 at Villanova). There’s no way to compare the two coaches or the pro game vs. college experience, so I won’t.

But the difference is that Dad quit in the glory days when no one had to tell us what was trending. We knew Dad was retiring and that mattered most.

Readers had time to read every luxurious word. No one skimmed anything. And the sportswriters wrote long passages and descriptions with such intimate details.

The papers glorified my Dad’s retirement in a way that, unfortunately, no one can do for Jay Wright.

Of course, they could still write it, but would anyone still read it?

***

 "Cunningham Quits" by Phil Jasner. -Philadelphia Daily News May 28, 1965

Billy Cunningham is not the 76ers' coach anymore.

He is not the guy who will stomp his foot along the sideline when a promising fastbreak dissolves into a turnover.

He is not the guy who will drop kick an icebag, trying to squeeze one more NBA championship out of the Philadelphia franchise. He is not the guy who will lose sleep, lose weight or lose his patience when the playoffs start.

Billy Cunningham is not the 76ers' coach anymore.

***

Billy C’s eight years as coach of the 76ers have gone quickly -The Philadelphia Inquirer by Joe Juliano May 28, 1965

Billy Cunningham retired as a player on October 18, 1976. His left knee, which was torn up 10 months before that, refused to respond to repeated efforts at rehabilitation.

At his news conference that day, Cunningham said, “I just hope I can give something back to basketball. Basketball gave me so much in my life and in my career. Now I’ve got to go out and make a living.”

Little did we know then that we would see Cunningham return to the Sixers bench just more than a year later making a living as a coach.

Has it been eight years already? Where did the time go?

***

“There’s No Quit In Billy C’s Resignation.” -The Philadelphia Inquirer by Bill Lyon May 28, 1965

It is the obligatory question of someone who is leaving of his own accord. How do you want to be remembered? And Billy Cunningham rolled a thick cigar between his fingers and then fixed you with that stare, the one that pierces like a lance, the one that is utterly without deception. The one straight from the asphalt proving grounds of Brooklyn, and he said.

“That I worked as hard as a human can.”

Did he ever.

The image that will remain always is of Billy C stomping the sideline, face contorted into a snarling frenzy, so immersed in the game it frightened you, his gym rat’s pallor pastier than chalk, his body jerking convulsively as he tried –simultaneously — to defend, pass, shoot, rebound and officiate. Sometimes he would wander far out onto the floor, clear up by midcourt, and then realize, with a start, where he was, like a sleepwalker brought awake at an intersection.

***

Later it made me nostalgic to read Dad going through the empty nest syndrome, just like I am now. “One of my daughters came up to me the other day and said, ‘Dad, I’m going to Europe this summer. I’d swear it was just the other day she was in grade school. They grow up so fast.”

***

It’s weird to read stuff I supposedly said, but I don’t even remember. Supposedly, there were rumors that Harold Katz, the owner at the time, forced my Dad to retire, and I was sad about it.

***

Billy C Denies He Was Pressured to Resign – The Philadelphia Daily News by Phil Jasner.

“One of my daughters read the story and began to cry at the breakfast table,” Cunningham said during his news conference yesterday at the Quality Inn. I’m not sure which daughter was that, but most likely, it would have been me. It still makes me sad that the papers said that, considering Mr. Katz is a dear friend of my Dad’s.

***

 When Dad quit, it wasn’t a trend. It was the real deal.

I guess that’s my problem. I’m not a trend either.

My writing style’s nearly extinct, and I’m not a trend-setter or follower, for that matter. My muse is too long. Who’s gonna take the time to read it? Quitting isn’t what it used to be, and Bob’s Big Boy went out of business long ago.

And regardless of what happened in 1987 when Dad quit, polyester’s no longer itchy, and Jay Wright and the 76ers are trending.

And that auction item? We didn’t have to buy it back. Who knew? People want to check out the next best thing, Coach Neptune.