Gorman goes Greek
This week, the Herald’s Sunday NBA notebook takes you on a trip to the Greek islands — specifically to the village of Apollonia on Sifnos. And you don’t even need a passport. Celtics television voice Mike Gorman and wife Teri found themselves there this past offseason, and because you’d rather listen to him than me, we’ll let Mike explain how all this relates to basketball.
“We decided to take a 45-foot sailboat and sail around the Aegean Sea for a week and a half before the season started,” said Gorman. “There were four of us — the Greek captain and his wife and Teri and me. We decided to avoid the big islands like Mykonos and just concentrate on the smaller islands. We thought it would be more fun — fewer people, fewer boats.”
(We’ll pause here while you ponder for a moment just how cool it is to be Mike and Teri.)
Anyway, Gorman continues with the play-byplay: “We go into this one cove one night and we sleep overnight. The next morning, the captain said, ‘It’s pretty rough out there for about three or four hours, so let’s stay here. You and Teri should take a hike up to the village on the top of the mountain. It’s small, but it’s quaint and you’d really like it.’ So we hike up to the village on the top of the mountain and we get there around five minutes after 12. Well, what we don’t know is that everything closes between 12 and 4 because they do a siesta kind of thing.”
(Pause again while GreekAmerican writer explains that it’s known as “mesimeri,” an afternoon relaxation time that is part of the Mediterranean lifestyle and diet we all say we want — but none of us ever actually gets around to adopting.)
“So we’re walking around and we’re the only ones on the streets of this little village — and it truly is spectacular, but we can’t find anything open,” said Gorman. “No place to go sit. We’re just walking. Every store is closed. Every cafe is closed. Finally we
hear some kids playing down the end of the street, so I say to Teri, ‘Let’s walk down there. At least there’s some life down there.’
“So we go down and, sure enough, there’s a guy sitting in front of a cafe and these two little kids are playing in the street, obviously his kids. I said, ‘Excuse me, can you tell me is there any place we could get a glass of wine or a cup of coffee or anything while we’re waiting for the stores to open.’ He says, ‘You come in. I open for you. I open my place for you.’
“So we go in and we sit down, and without even asking, he comes out with a pitcher full of wine and three glasses. He puts them on the table, sits down and joins us. So we’re talking for a few minutes, and finally says, ‘Where you from?’ And I say, ‘The United
States,’ and he says, ‘I can tell you’re from the United States. Where you from?’ I said, ‘Boston.’ “Then he says, ‘You have best basketball coach in the world. Brad Stevens. I love Brad Stevens.’ I said, ‘Are you serious?’ and he says, ‘I coach local basketball team. I have NBA package. I watch everything Brad Stevens does. Everything he does, my team does. I teach them everything.’ He told me how he runs Brad Stevens’ inbounds plays and everything.”
The man knew everything about the Celtics, but he didn’t know that at that moment he was speaking to the man who’s been calling their games since 1981. “I didn’t tell him that,” Gorman said. “It was more fun to listen to him talk.” Pressed on why he kept his identity a secret, he said, “I wasn’t looking for free wine or anything. Teri was kicking me under the table, like ‘You should tell him who you are,’ but I liked it better this way. I told him I was a basketball fan and I said, ‘I go to games.’ But that was it. I was really enjoying being off the grid.”
But not as far off said grid as he may have thought. Mike Gorman learned something very valuable that day: “Brad Stevens is huge in Apollonia on the island of Sifnos in the middle of the Aegean Sea.” Among other locales.