A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DUNK
CHAPTER V: A REALLY REAL LIFE BASKETBALL DUNK
[Rural Alabama, Summer 1929]
“Cousin Billy, why don’t you play basketball with us?”
Billy Kimball, age 17, looked up from his seated position on the porch and removed the well-chewed piece of straw from his mouth. “I ain’t no good at any of them sports,” he told his younger cousin Abraham. “You and the other kids go on and play without me.”
“C’mon Billy! Don’t it get boring just sitting on that there porch? Momma says it’s because you’re dumb, that you ain’t good at thinkin’.”
“She ain’t wrong,” Billy said, standing up. “But if it’ll make y’all happy, I’ll play…whatchu call it again?”
“Basketball.”
Billy followed his cousin to the rear of the house, where a makeshift basketball hoop had been affixed to the side of the storage shed. Seeing the hoop triggered a recollection somewhere in the far reaches of Billy’s mind, and he stood dumbfounded for half a minute until he finally located the memory he was after. “Hey, I seen this before. You try to get the ball through that ring up there,” he said, proud that he already knew the rules.
“You’ll be on a team with Henry,” Abraham said, pointing out the even younger Henry. “Ernie’ll be on mine.”
Billy nodded. His head already felt cloudy from standing in the direct sunlight. Before he knew it, the ball had been passed into his chest; he caught it and ran towards the basket.
“You gotta dribble it, ya big oaf!” Abraham said, laughing. Knowing that his dull-witted cousin wouldn’t know the meaning of the term, he clarified, “bounce it up and down while you run!” Billy stopped and tried to do as his cousin said. His uncoordinated hands struggled with the action, but after a few attempts, he thought he had it down pretty well.
“Now shoot it, Big Bill!” his teammate Henry yelled. Billy took the ball in both hands and pushed it towards the basket, where it careened violently off the topmost corner of the backboard.
“Aw shucks,” Billy said apologetically as the ball rolled away down the dirt path, prompting the ever-energetic Henry to run after it. “I told y’all I’m too dumb to play sports.”
“You don’t know your own strength. Shoot it from closer in next time,” Abraham said. “Try to get a layup. It’s a whole lot easier than shootin’ it from way out there.”
Billy followed this advice, but his next attempt also missed in much the same manner as the first, despite standing very close to the basket. A third attempt was not much better. Frustration began to take root in his brain, and the next time he was passed the ball, he didn’t even realize what he was doing until it was too late.
Billy woke up to find his three cousins staring down at him. His head hurt. “What’d you do that for?” yelled Abraham.
Trying to remember what had just happened, Billy found that he had no recollection. “What’d I do what for?” he asked, wincing as the act of sitting up caused his head to throb painfully. When he saw the backboard and hoop lying on the dirt near the shed, he failed to make the connection that he might be the responsible party.
“You just jumped up and threw the ball down into the hoop. I ain’t never seen anybody jump that high,” Ernie said. “And then you kinda grabbed on the hoop and it fell off the shed and hit you in the head.”
“We thought youse was dead!” Henry exclaimed.
“I just wanna sit in peace on my porch,” Billy said surlily. “I’ll grab pa’s ladder and put the hoop back, but this’ll be the last time I ever play basketball, I reckon.”
—
Billy Kimball’s vow would prove false. Thanks to the gregariousness of his cousin Henry, the 6’8” Billy was eventually recruited by his high school basketball coach just before his senior year at Wadley High School was due to begin. It was in this way that Billy not only threw down the first slam dunk ever, but also dunked the first dunk ever in a sanctioned contest.
Other dunkers would hone their craft independently in different parts of the US. But none of them were the first. None except Billy Kimball. And while his dunks were impressive to spectators of the time, nobody had any inkling as to what literal and figurative heights the art of dunking would be taken to in the coming decades.