So long, PAA

The Pittsburgh Athletic Association once was my refuge

My dad was not an indulgent father. He believed you worked for everything you got. I started in the family business a few hours a week when I was 5 for a dime an hour. True. But if you really needed something, or he thought you did, he always came through. He embodied my all-time favorite T-shirt saying: “When the going gets tough, The Tough call Dad.”

So, early in 1970, he tells me, “Hey, JF, I just joined the PAA.”

“No, kiddin’. What’s the PAA?”

“The Pittsburgh Athletic Association. In Oakland, close to the Cathedral of Learning. It’s nice. It has a fancy dining room, racquetball courts, a basketball court, which I know how much you love basketball, and a swimming pool. You’re starting Pitt Dental and Lib’s coming down from IUP for Pitt grad school, and sheloves to swim.” “Doessound nice,” I said. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Italian Dadspeak, I will translate:

“My daughter’s getting an apartment in Crafton, so she must drive into Oakland three or four days a week for two years, with some night classes. I don’t want her chasing all over Oakland looking for a place to park, especially at night. The PAA has its own lighted parking lot, with an attendant. She can park there and I won’t have to worry about her walking alone in the dark. So I joined.”

Fathers and daughters have a relationship unlike any other, but Italian fathers have an anthropological mandate, or are DNAstamped, to try to constantly protect their daughters. I should know. My daughter, Rebecca, lives in D.C. and handles life just fine, but my dad radar is always scanning the skies, prepping me to spring into action.

• The PAA turned out to be as good as advertised. It did have a nice dining room. Great appetizers, especially the snails. Wonderful salt sticks. Nice entrees, and it could lay some serious dessertson you.

When I was about to graduate, Dad said, “Why don’t you and Tony (a dental school pal) go over to the PAA and celebrate on me?” A fine idea. Tony and I went after work and each of us had three different sandwiches. Don’t ask.

We ran into a few “names” in the locker room. Fred Rogers was a regular. Tony and I played racquetball, Lib swam and, of course,there were the hoops. Dad was a stud athlete, allcounty in three sports with a basketball scholarship from St. Francis of Loretto. (Instead of going, he enlisted in the Marines and served in World War II.) He kindly gifted me with his hand-eye coordination. Since he was taller, he played inside, and I became a deadly outside shooter. There’s a reason I’m telling you that.

I was in a five-year relationship, engaged for two. The wedding was scheduled, but it became apparent to me that we should not be married. So I called it off the night before the rehearsal dinner. That’s rough. Worse, the wedding was in Bethlehem, Pa., and some folks fromhere had already left for there. So I hit the daily double — misery and humiliation— with one phone call.

It was the right thing to do, but it left me shattered. The anguish and sadness were eating me up. I needed take my mind somewhere elsefor a while. And the PAA jumpedright in to help.

I played hoops there after classes, after homework, after my job in the night school at Pitt. Whenever the stress built up, I zoomed over to the PAA. I’d shoot by myself, or Tony and some guys from our class would meet up for a game. Sometimes there would be guys I didn’t know there, and I’d ask to play. I never had a problem insinuating myself into pickup games with strangers because my jump shot was money.

One night I showed up and nine guys needed a 10th. My team had a big guy who looked familiar, but I just couldn’t place him. Someone said, “Si, you ready?” And it hit me. It was Sihugo Green, Duquesne’s all-time great who had been drafted into the NBA ahead of Bill Russell!

To play with a guy like that was such a treat. He saw that I could hit from anywhere, so, instead of him scoring all night long, which hecould have done, he’d look for me on the wing. He saw that I liked the pass just above the middle of my chest and he put every one, bang, right there. I learned that night how to differentiate very good from great. Si was great.

Eventually I settled down, got social again, and the melancholy and the grief finally left. But for about two months, the PAA was my sanctuary, my refuge, my safe harbor for a few hours.

I know you’ve left the scene, PAA; but from the bottom of my heart, thanks, buddy, I owe you.