“Mark, After 13 years it’s hard to find words… ‘AABBC is on the air!’ Man, how can we ever forget basketball, Jr High, elementary school, Jay Inslee’s group…and most of all, all the sandlot baseball, and football; Little League and kindergarten—Mark, you’ll always be my good friend! Great friends we are because it’s been so long…Always, Greg” 

(Greg’s message to me written in my 1969 High School Yearbook)

My sister Nancy called me the other day to tell me that our life-long good friend, Greg Brooks, had passed away after a long illness. The news wasn’t entirely unexpected, as I had known for years of Greg’s illness; nevertheless, on hearing her words their finality shocked me—and the memories came flooding back…

There was a time when we all were young, knew that we were immortal, and would live forever. Back then we weren’t worried about the future, it was only the moment that mattered; and Greg and I sure made the most of them. All through our youth at Shorewood kindergarten and elementary school we shared the same classes, the same teachers, the same friends; and, most especially, the same sports. As Greg alludes to in his message to me in my senior high school annual book (quoted above), it was our mutual love of sports; baseball, basketball and football, that initially bonded us. There was a group of us at Shorewood elementary who shared the same passion; a group that included, besides Greg and I, the now incumbent Governor of Washington State and Presidential candidate, Jay Inslee, and two other close friends, Barry Marshall and Mike Jury. These and perhaps a couple others are the guys Greg refers to as “Jay Inslee’s group.”

Greg was good at all the sports in our grade school days, but I remember him most as an exceptional basketball player. One of my great memories is seeing him being carried off the court by his teammates after his intramural basketball team won the Shorewood school intramural championship; defeating Jay Inslee’s team in a thrilling one game play-off. I don’t think Greg ever bragged about winning that championship over Inslee, but perhaps he should have. From what I can tell it’s one of the few times Jay has ever lost at anything.

As we moved on to Cascade Jr. High School our sports careers continued, by then mostly focused on tackle football and basketball. I well remember Greg nearly getting me killed in one of our football games during our 9^th grade season. The game took place on a cold day, with freezing sleet falling from the sky; the field muddy and wet. I don’t remember if we were winning or losing, but I can tell you it was a miserable day to play football. On this particular play Greg was the  quarterback and I was playing end. In the huddle I heard Greg call for a “Look-In” pass; a play that called for the end (me) to take a couple steps up field after the snap, then stop suddenly and look back at the quarterback who would fire a short pass to my mid-section. The play was designed to gain a few yards, but if a tackle was missed could be a big gainer. We broke huddle and I dutifully lined up at the end of the line, waiting for Greg to call the signals. With the snap of the ball I took off and ran the route to perfection, turning back toward Greg for the pass. For whatever reason the pass Greg delivered was a receiver’s worst nightmare—a ball thrown not to my mid-section, but very high, so that I had to stretch out to catch it, which I did. I remember vividly looking skyward and seeing that ball stuck between my two hands; the only problem being that my hands were so cold I that I couldn’t feel the ball at all. It was like having ping pong paddles for hands.  I tried to pull the ball down to my body while simultaneously turning up field to gain some yards; but as I did this it slipped from my hands—I just couldn’t feel the damn thing—and I frantically re-grasped it somewhere around my thigh pad. A split second later I took the hardest hit that I have ever received on a football field. A linebacker from the other team just flattened me, separating me from the ball and leaving me semi-senseless down in the mud. Prostrate in the mire, I could see the ball lying there a couple of feet from me, but did not have the presence of mind to do anything about it—understandable, as in the first few moments after that hit I had no mind. I saw a couple of players from the other team pounce on the ball and the referee indicate that I had fumbled. Thus ended what is most likely the single worst play of my football career—and all because of Greg!

Of course, I’m just kidding! I didn’t blame my friend for that play. Mistakes happen in sports and the truth is neither of us ever spoke of it again that I recall. Other than pick-up games, my tackle football career ended after that 9^th grade season, but not because of Greg’s bad throw. I tore some ligaments in my thumb during practice one day and played the rest of the season in pain. It all got to be too much, and I never played organized tackle football again.

Not so basketball and baseball, however. Greg and I both played on our Sophomore baseball team at Evergreen High School and on our varsity basketball team our senior year in 1969. In Greg’s yearbook message above you heard him mention the “AABBC” and perhaps you wondered just what he meant by that. Well, the story of the AABBC is one of the great, yet little known, tales of our senior basketball season at Evergreen.  It all started early in the season when our coach, a man named Bing Dahl, decided to put me into a game we were losing, perhaps to inject some life into our team. To that point I had been the 10^th man on a 12-man squad and rarely saw action. Greg, on the other hand, was our starting point guard. Once Bing put me in that game I went into the one of those zones basketball players speak of, where you can’t miss. I made both shots I took and made my one free throw, scoring 5 points in about one minute. Bing was impressed, and in the next game I was the 6^th man, first off the bench. Long story short, I missed the first shot I took, Bing lost confidence in me, and I spent most of the rest of the season languishing as a deep reserve.

Now, here is where the AABBC comes in. As the season wore on we were losing a lot and our team morale wasn’t that good. On top of this Greg lost his starting point guard position to a young guy in his Junior year named Steve Thompson. (with the season not going well I think coach Dahl wanted to build his team for the next season.)  The result of all this was that Greg and I and another friend of ours named Bruce Anderson would often be sitting at the end of the bench together. To pass the time during the game we started pretending that we were a radio broadcasting crew calling the game. We would feign holding a microphone and would whisper our game descriptions into it, passing the fictional mic back and forth to each other while laughing our asses off. You may have figured out by now that AABBC stood for “Arnold, Anderson and Brooks Broadcasting Corporation.”  The AABBC wasn’t much appreciated by coach Dahl and likely had the shortest run of any sports network in broadcasting history; but Greg, Bruce and I had a lot of fun with it while it lasted.

In the fall of ’69, for the first time in 13 years our educations took us in separate directions, with me going to the UW and Greg attending Western Washington in Bellingham. I made several pilgrimages to see Greg at Western in those days, and a little later he would come to visit us at the UW. These were the days of hippies, the anti-war movement, drugs and other attendant irresponsibilities, of which both Greg and I partook in various degrees. Our sports participation took a back seat to all of this, but in a way our friendship became deeper, richer and more spiritual during this time. Greg had a way of just letting you be who you are, with not a hint of evaluation. Much later I realized what a high skill this is, and how uncommon, but it is something that was just natural to him; and it made him a pleasure to be around. Of course, he was a great teammate, but he was also the kind of guy you could share, not just a beer (or two) with, but also your deepest felt beliefs and ideas. Such friends are special, and rare in the extreme.

I last saw and spoke to Greg at our 40^th high school reunion in 2009. By then his illness had taken a toll on him, but I could tell his mind was sharp and clear. That was the last time we shared some laughs and talked of the old days. Since then I have thought of him often, and every time I did it brought a smile to my face…and still does. Even with his passing, that spiritual connection is still there for me. Such connections defy space and time, and to me reflect the truth of our own immortality; just as we felt all those years ago as kids, when it was only the moment that mattered, and we thought we would live forever.

Wherever he is now, I know Greg feels the same way.

Copyright © 2019

By Mark Arnold

All Rights Reserved