The day I almost met Shawn Bradley

Earlier, in the email thread through which the folks who write for this page communicate, we had a little confab about our up close and personal interactions with NBA celebrities. It was great. And at the end, it made me want to share with you, my very best friends, a little story of my own.

It starts like this — I’m Jewish, but I’m not very religious. I don’t often go to Temple. I’d like to, at least some, but my wife and I live in different places right now so I’m usually traveling. My grandmother loved going, though. She never talked to me about religion, and I don’t think that was the point. She was, and far more so than anyone else in the family, a people person. She loved them, and every one loved to talk to her. It’s been roughly 10 years since she passed and I miss her a great deal.

This story is about her, but it’s also about the time I almost met Shawn Bradley. So far, this will sound to you like a pretty dull story, since it is, of course, about something that didn’t happen. These are not considered to be among the better class of stories, generally speaking. People prefer the ones where something does happen. That’s people for you. Can’t live with ’em, can’t colonize a moon base by yourself. However, there’s at least a little more than meets the eye here.

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It all started when I went to Temple with my grandmother, which, you might well think, would be an unusual place to run into Shawn Bradley, who is Mormon. But the thing about Shawn is if he is at a place, you do see him. At that time playing for the Dallas Mavericks, Bradley was 7-foot-6 tall and was half an inch taller than Yao Ming and half a foot taller than Dirk Nowitzki. Certainly the tallest player I can really remember.

And I must add, don’t even try to stop me, that if you want to make a really tall person stand out even more than usual, a great place to put them is in the middle of a gathering of Jews, who are not particularly known for their height. I, a 6-foot-1 male, and the tallest Jew in the world, played center on my high school youth group team and averaged a Bradley-esque number of blocks. I ruled the boards like I was becoming a highly-regarded physician. Does that joke make sense? Let it pass.

As I recall, it happened during what was referred to as “Oneg Shabbat,” which is to say, basically dessert and punch after the service, when who should I see out of the corner of my eye — you’re going to kick yourself if you can’t guess — but Shawn Bradley. I turned to my grandmother, who was all of 5-foot-4, and said something like, if not exactly, “look, there’s Shawn Bradley. I wonder what he’s doing here.” “Well,” she said without hesitating, “let’s go meet him.”

I had really mixed feelings about this proposition, at the time. I’d never really enjoyed Bradley’s work with the Mavericks, although I now recognize he had a pretty tough job. I was fairly young and didn’t know what I would say, maybe I felt embarrassed. It’s hard to remember being embarrassed by talking to people. In your 30s, it’s just one stranger after another, lemme tell you. But my grandmother, evidently deciding I needed an example to follow, was already halfway across the floor. I trailed after her, sputtering ineffectually.

So I was in the perfect position to watch as she extended her hand to the perfectly normal-sized person standing next to Shawn Bradley and said, “hello, my name is June Tobolowsky, and you are a very special person.” I never met Shawn Bradley, but I did meet that guy, who was honestly probably pretty psyched by the unexpected compliment.

I like this story for lots of reasons, starting with the fact that my grandmother apparently intuited from my tone someone interesting to me was there and wanted me to go get it, and wanted, as well to set an example of what social bravery looked like. I also like the fact that despite that, and despite the fact the rest of us were always watching sports, she clearly had never heard of Shawn Bradley, nor even paid enough attention to make the mental connection that it might be the person roughly three times the size of anyone else there who was the celebrity.

Finally, in my 30s, less overawed by celebrities, having even spent some time in NBA locker rooms, pursuant to gigs like this, I like that somebody got told they were a very special person, who probably didn’t hear that very often, and probably benefited from it more than Shawn Bradley would have. I even get a little kick out of the fact that if my grandmother had made it all the way to Shawn Bradley, and me with her, she not only would have said the exact same thing, but would have meant it in the exact same way, having no more knowledge of him than the other guy. That probably would have been nice too. I bet few people ever tell Shawn Bradley he’s special for non-basketball reasons. He deserves better.

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So here’s to you, Shawn Bradley, the “stormin’ Mormon,” as I affectionately nicknamed you in my head. And here’s to my grandmother, a kind and brave woman, who went through life with an outstretched hand, a smile on her face, and a kind word. And here’s to that guy, who I’m sure was special, in his own right. I hope it helped to hear it.