UT grad loses for a living
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By Eric Page | Monday, December 31, 2007 |
Three words into explaining his rise from little-known high school basketball player in the Quad-Cities to member of the Washington Generals, Matt Cunningham paused during a phone interview last week and took a deep breath.
“Do you want the detailed version, or just kind of the quick summary?”
There are two stories, both worth telling.
The quick summary, as the 1998 United Township grad put it, is that Cunningham, a mediocre-at-best high school player who bounced around in college, got noticed at an exposure camp this past summer and signed a contract this fall to play for the
Generals, the loveable losers who tour the globe with the Harlem Globetrotters.
The quick conclusion is that Cunningham will return to the Quad-Cities this week for a Thursday night showcase featuring the
Globetrotters and Generals at the i wireless Center.
But there was nothing quick about Cunningham’s journey, a winding, crisscrossing path that landed the unlikeliest of basketball talents in the most unconventional circumstance in sports — he is, literally, losing for a living.
Matt who?
Don’t remember the name? Don’t feel bad.
Cunningham doesn’t remember his statistics from his senior season at United Township. Not because it’s been a decade, but because the numbers were so forgettable.
“Boy, if you put two points a game, that would be a gift,” Cunningham laughed. “Maybe a couple rebounds.
“I was like 6-foot-1 and 180 pounds and playing center. I wasn’t making a whole lot of noise in the Western Big Six.”
Travelin’ man
After graduating from UT, Cunningham headed to Black Hawk College, where he enrolled in the fall of ’98 with the intention of growing his game for two years before finding his way to a four-year school.
He never got on the court, though, and he left Black Hawk after one year and transferred to MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., the only school that had showed any interest in him coming out of high school. Still, he did not see the court.
He landed at Davenport’s Marycrest International University in the spring of 2000, and then-head coach Ron O’Brien welcomed him aboard and inserted him in the lineup immediately.
A lot about Cunningham’s game had changed since high school. He grew 3 inches and spent a lot of time at the YMCA redefining his skills.
“That year off, it kind of transformed the game for me, going from a defensive post player to a perimeter player and being able to shoot and play more aggressively on offense,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham averaged close to 14 points that first semester at Marycrest and continued to get playing time through the next season.
But then, another roadblock — Marycrest shut down after the 2000-01 school year, taking with it Cunningham’s basketball haven he had searched so long to find. Ever the journeyman, he transferred again, this time to Iowa Wesleyan, where he quietly closed out his playing career in 2002 — or so he thought.
“There wasn’t like any overseas offers coming out of the woodwork after college,” Cunningham said. “I basically thought my playing career was over.”
Delayed exposure
Cunningham remembers receiving an invite to an exposure camp — a basketball combine at which professional scouts evaluate talent — after his last season of college basketball. “But I think pretty much every college senior gets that invite,” he said.
He didn’t go.
Despite all that transferring, he managed to graduate from Wesleyan with a degree in social work and wound up living in Phoenix working for the State of Arizona the past four years — working for the state and playing a lot of rec league basketball.
“I was playing on a team that was good, and the players around me were good. Several of them had played overseas and in several different variations of minor league basketball,” Cunningham said. “I didn’t think they were that much better than me. I was holding my own.”
This past June, he wound up holding another invite to an exposure camp. This time he bit, flying across the country to Orlando, Fla., where he caught the eye of Generals management.
It’s a fix, right?
A little history on the Generals: From 1953 through 1995, the team played the Globetrotters in more than 13,000 exhibitions, winning only six, the last came in 1971. That Generals win, a 100-99 decision that came on a buzzer-beater, snapped a 2,495-game losing streak.
It has been the safest bet in sports, though both organizations, which maintain separate ownership, contend the exhibitions are legit.
“We never go out there with the intent to lose,” Cunningham said. “There is never a situation where we’re missing shots on purpose, where we’re turning it over on purpose or anything like that. Some of the scores have been close. We were within four once. We’re staying competitive, and, hopefully, we’re getting close.”
Not too close, though.
The Generals are making a comeback on the “Magic as Ever” tour, and part of the magic is and always has been seeing the Globetrotters win. So far, since the tour began Nov. 12, Cunningham and the Generals are 0-18.
They’ll resume the tour Wednesday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, before playing Thursday in Moline.
“Every show is going to be different — every game, every atmosphere is always going to be different just because of the crowd that’s going to be there. It’s always going to be different,” Cunningham said. “It’s basketball. You just never know.”
Before it’s finished, the “Magic as Ever” tour will have played 240 games in 190 cities across North America. Cunningham will be there for them all.
Living a dream
In a world where multiple new minor basketball leagues pop up every year while countless others go by the wayside, achieving professional status as a member of the Washington Generals is nothing to be ashamed of.
It is, after all, one of the oldest and most celebrated — albeit for losing — franchises in professional sports.
And Cunningham is, by definition, a professional.
He quit his job with the State of Arizona, and this gig pays enough to foot the bills. He isn’t allowed to disclose his salary but said it is comparable to those in the American Basketball Association, which pays its players $200 to $500 a week.
It’s not the dream. But it is a dream he’s living.
“Every kid picking up the basketball in the driveway is going to have the dream of being some sort of pro athlete,” Cunningham said. “I never looked at it like that. My goals were set small — to play in college, then to start in college. After college, I definitely thought my playing days were over. I definitely didn’t imagine this.“
So, what’s next?
After this tour wraps in mid-April, Cunningham might have the opportunity to tour with the Globetrotters overseas. Then, he’ll just go wherever he can play.
It’s not like he hasn’t done that before.
“I’m just trying to finish the next part of the tour. I’ve never really played this much basketball. I definitely want to see what kind of toll that takes on the body after three or four months,” he said.
“There are things you can do if you stay on long enough. You can become captain or player/coach and kind of work your way up the ranks, maybe into the front office.“
Who knows? If he hangs around long enough, maybe one of these days they’ll even let him win a game.
Eric Page can be contacted at (563) 383-2277 or epage@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
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