Hoops in heaven

It was 13 years ago this month that I met Herman Strickland in the backyard of his home in Bloomfield.

He picked up a basketball, bounced it a few times on the concrete patio and took aim.

Swish.

He dribbled again, lifted his hand and drew an imaginary line with his eyes, arching over the rim.

Swish.

Every day he would do this. He would go out in his backyard and shoot 100 free throws.

A few days before I got there, which happened to be Valentine’s Day, he made all 100.

A few months earlier, around Christmas, he told me he hit a cold spell. He only made 92.

If Herman Strickland had been 8 years old – or even 12 or 14 – it might not have been so amazing.

But he was 74 years young.

I wrote a column about Mr. Strickland. I called it “74 years of swishful thinking.’’

He was one of the most delightful gentlemen I have ever been around. I loved his spirit. He would log his totals every day on a calendar hanging from a nail in his utility room. It was rare when he didn’t make 90 or more.

He told me about his days in high school in Northport, Ala., -- just across the Black Warrior River from Tuscaloosa. His coach never understood the finer points of free-throw shooting. He made his player shoot under-handed, or granny-style.

Actually, Mr. Strickland’s first love wasn’t basketball. It was putt-putt. When he moved to Macon in 1953, he became involved in miniature golf. He finished second in the Putt-Putt nationals in Indianapolis in 1964 and third in the world championships in Fayetteville, N.C. in 1971.

When he moved to his home on Friar Court off Rocky Creek Road in 1982, he inherited a backyard basketball goal. His affection for free-throw shooting grew right along with the tomatoes in his garden.

I was sad to learn Mr. Strickland passed away this past Saturday. He was 87. And, when I went to visitation Tuesday night at Macon Memorial Park Funeral Home, his wife of 66 years, Girthie Lee, told me when they had moved several years ago from their Bloomfield home into some condominiums, he complained about not having a basketball goal.

God bless him. Heaven must have needed a free-throw shooter.