The greatest highlight video of all time

As the situation currently demands, it is now time for Streak Talk to step outside the bounds of purely Kansas Jayhawks basketball pegs. While the subject of today’s newsletter does have a vague connection to KU—JaRon Rush was once considered a lock to come to KU, only to be frozen out when he criticized Roy Williams’ offense—that’s about the last time KU enters the equation here. On the other hand, I’ve been waiting to write this post my entire life. So here it is.

A fuzzy screen gives way to a simple title card: “Pembroke-Hill School 1997-1999 Basketball Highlight Videotape.” The YouTube card also gives away little about what you’re about to see, outside of a glancing mention of the proper nouns involved in the forthcoming highlight video. The user, PemHill99, shrouds his genius in this simple setup. He knows what he’s got will speak for itself.

Let’s back up a moment. In 1997, JaRon Rush might be the greatest basketball player on the planet. That statement—at the time, and even now—carries some gravity. Though Kansas City has probably punched above its weight as a basketball town, it’s not exactly a hotbed yet. So a player like JaRon Rush virtually comes out of the mist: the city’s scene had produced guards like Tyronn Lue and Earl Watson, but no one with the flash and power of Rush. Even standing alongside talents like Wichita’s Korleone Young—who will play in the NBA but whose star prospects will flicker out almost overnight—Rush had no peer.

Enter Pembroke Hill. Pembroke Hill is a private school attended by some of the city’s most affluent families, and both the Kansas and Missouri sides of the cities are represented. That Rush and his younger brother Kareem are even enrolled at a school like Pembroke (Missouri Class 2A, 4A being the highest) is something of a cosmic accident; a billionaire via his medical diagnostics company LabOne, local businessman Tom Grant is bankrolling the whole operation. It all eventually leads to one of the biggest sports scandals in Midwestern basketball history, and the three state titles Rush is responsible for are stripped from Pembroke. (A really good Rush brothers doc came out four or five years ago which you can watch here). But those state titles were never anyone’s primary concern. Watching JaRon and Kareem dominate all competitors was the real reward.

I’m going to say this again—just so it’s planted in your mind as we patrol forward—but this is 2A basketball in Missouri. Imagine if the #1 player on Rivals or ESPN, is, all of the sudden, plunked in the middle of a league whose participants are best known for their college acceptance rates. A Rush-led team with three other randos is a state title combatant at the 4A class. At this level, they are annihilating guards at Barstow who missed practice the week before to take an AP exam.

Even by the time LeBron gets on the national radar, he’s playing against college-level rosters like Oak Hill Academy. The Rush Brothers experience at Pembroke is the closest thing you can get to the Monstars’ first half in real life basketball, and that makes it way, way cooler.

I think the best way to approach this is to go through individual moments. So, let’s begin.

0:01 As long as I live, I will not be able to get over this music cue. Triple C’s—nominally short for Carol City Cartel, but that is disputed—was a rap supergroup that featured Miami’s Rick Ross and Gunplay and Torch from the Bronx. You know the names Rick Ross and Gunplay, because both would go on to different levels of stardom. (“Bible on the Dash”… still an all-timer). But when their independently released debut The Black Flag Prequel comes out in 2007, they’re nobodies on the national scene.

Of course, this highlight video precedes that timeline, meaning that PemHill99 likely uploaded it well after “Where Ya From?” came out. Which makes the choice all the more incredible. Given that the video’s clips aren’t super edited in a way that the modern basketball fan might be accustomed to, each vignette can breathe a little bit. Some details are included that would be clipped thoughtlessly from the average “House of Highlights” style social edit. I’ve truly belabored the point here, but the inclusion of “Where Ya From?” suggests a mind working on a higher plane. The table is set.

0:39 Rush enters, and it looks like something from WWE, not low level high school basketball. Rush is 6’6’’, but his energy is ten thousand feet tall, rounded down. His teammates, who are likely now bankers or insurers living in swank Kansas City suburbs, are spectators as much as you or I.

1:02 Blocks are underrated. I can’t think of a basketball move (besides the dunk, I guess) that’s more emphatic than the spike block. JaRon absolutely tees one up here, a tone-setter. It’s pure dominance, mentally and physically. That it’s the first basketball play we see Rush perform is :chef gesture:

1:20 The first of many run-outs we see from Rush. It’s heaven.

1:39 Rush smothers the ball and goes the other way, uncontested, for a dunk while everyone just kind of stands and stares. I mentioned the Monstars earlier, but this is another sequence that pop culture properties (video above) can’t even begin to emulate. I’d argue that Rush is dominating here more than Will is dominating.

2:02 I refuse to look this up but I’m going to go ahead and tell you: this is the only in-game windmill to happen in Missouri Basketball (2A) history.

2:28 Lol, I mean, if you’re not feeling this deep in your soul, I do not know what to tell you.

To the dude who tried to stand in front of that: I hope your freshman year at Bowdoin went smoothly and that you moved past this, in time.

2:39 There’s been some Kareem in a few clips before now, playing sidekick, but now we’re seeing both brothers in action.

On the drive and dunk, does it seem like everyone is going about .5x and Kareem is at like, 2x? That’s kind of the Elon Musk of drive-and-dunks. Does that make sense?

3:40 Kareem lefty spike block. I always loved that Kareem was a lefty. Both brothers could drive with their dominant hand and carve out different sides of the floor. This is not capable of being stopped.

Also, looking back at old reports, it’s definitely funny to see Kareem often described as “passive.” This is a byproduct of JaRon’s extreme aggression, but if this is passive basketball…

4:05 Have you seen angrier dunks than these dunks? I’m rifling through my brain, and I know there has to be some competition here. Amare Stoudemire rookie year comes to mind:

But yeah, these dunks scan as emotional art.

4:18 A fight breaks out, which maybe isn’t that notable on its own. But what is notable is that neither Rush is on the floor. This is just how juiced the whole team is, by proxy.

Have you noticed how this clip doesn’t really slow down or lighten its pace? It’s ten minutes, and it takes me maybe an hour to get through each time because there’s so much to digest.

HALFTIME ANECDOTE

As one of the top niche sports memorabilia purveyors in my area, I’m always on the lookout for items that hold some kind of personal connection but are also dubious as investments. My house is basically the Animal Crossing house, but instead of random shells and KK Slider pictures I’ve got a Tyler Self gameday giveaway poster. In my personal algorithm, something signed by Royals utility outfielder Jarod Dyson holds much higher value than something more conventionally demanded on the circuit, like a baseball card with a sliver of Eric Hosmer’s jersey embedded in it. My collection won’t make me a rich man, but maybe it’ll make me rich in spirit. At the very least, it’s something to do.

A couple of years ago, I came across an auction on a memorabilia site and I could not believe my eyes. However, the auction site—which was not at all one of the main second-hand sites like eBay—had deactivated the listing. I had to mentally archive the finding, and somehow find a way to move on in my life.

About two years later, it popped up on eBay—the exact article, but now double the price. It was just as glorious as I remembered, and I immediately doled out. Here is the item:

This is a game-used JaRon Rush jersey from his time at UCLA, complete with a LOA. Yeah, I know!!!!

Back to the program.

5:07 “Where Ya From?” fades out, and nothing replaces it, because there’s simply no way to follow it. The video now hits a little bit of a reset—we see another player introduction sequence—and its well-timed.

5:32 Bigger venue, better competition, and still JaRon is throwing the ball back in dudes’ faces.

5:45 Come onnnnnnnnnn!

5:50 Haha. This is something that happened in a high school basketball tournament.

7:27 You see this look constantly from the teams facing the Raiders: pure resignation. JaRon walks it right up the heart of the lane and just loads one right up. The nearest defender isn’t even looking at the finish, and the ball comes through the hoop with such force that it bounds off of his left arm. But he’s too numb to feel anything.

8:00 There’s a couple of baseline tomahawks here that are horror movie-level. Like, this is nightmare fuel. If he did this in an NBA game now, they’d have to stop it.

Something I’ve been doing a lot lately (time on my hands!) is going back and reading old sports articles from prestige publishers. They’re generally pretty amazing, both in how much they get away with and also how most writers really make the most of the opportunity. Like, this ESPN The Magazine article about the Piggy scandal describes JaRon as a “player of protean athleticism.” Protean! I love it!

8:29 This is the part of the video I wish was not silent—Pembroke’s coach, with cinema-ready resolve, is rolling up his sleeves and doing some hard core coaching. We don’t see the Rush brothers clearly in the video, but a teammate is smirking in the background, actively disregarding whatever coaching is going on.

Imagine the insights needed here to make this team soar at the minor league Missouri level: “Ok you’re gonna get JaRon the ball and he’s either going to score it or he’s going to dish it to Kareem and he’s going to score it. If two players are cloaking either Rush, they’ll kick it to a teammate, who will have an “alone in the driveway” level of space to get a short jumper off.” Whatever this coaching actually was, it was good for three championships.

9:19 One more powerhouse slam for the road. In about a minute, the video will fade out, gone just as quickly as it entered your life.

Before I also leave you, I want to talk about a dunk that did not make the video.

My memory betrays me all of the time, but this I remember somewhat clearly. It was late in the week, maybe Thursday or Friday. We were watching MetroSports or some other local program and a breaking news item came onto the screen: “RUSH BREAKS BACKBOARD.” Back then, you couldn’t just summon that footage to your smartphone. So we scrambled all night to find the video on AOL or whatever, but were ultimately unsuccessful*. (*This is how I remember it, anyway, Clark feel free to hop in the ‘mments and correct me). But that image lived so large in my imagination, and does to this day—not even seeing the video, it’s a potent on a mythology level as any sports memory I have.

The video does exist though. And it’s more incredible than I could ever remember.

Earl J Watson @Earl_Watson

JaRon Rush. #HoopLegend #CMH76ers #KC #AAUcollegeteammate

Thanks for reading my magnum opus.