It was simple, really. Our photographer, Keith Major, asked Dwight Howard II to dunk the basketball. Keith was crouched on a trash can under a basket in the empty Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy gym, which placed Keith nearly eye-to-eye with the bottom of the net. "OK Dwight," Keith said, "Just run in and dunk it."
"Forward or backward? One hand or two hands?" Dwight asked. You know someone's a good basketball player when they follow a request to dunk with a response like that. "Forward, with two hands. I'm going to snap it just before you dunk it, actually, so kick your legs out, scream, do all that stuff."
Dwight stepped just outside the three-point line and tucked in his maroon SACA game jersey. He took one dribble, two steps and dunked the ball home with only vague force. He dutifully screamed, exposing the braces gilding his teeth. Keith snapped his flick, hopped down and yanked the Polaroid film out of his camera and found a shadow directly across Dwight's face. He moved the trash can a few inches to the left and climbed back on. Then Keith said, "Do it again, Dwight."
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So Dwight backed up and ran in again. And then all hell broke loose. He jumped from just outside the lane, about halfway between the free throw line and baseline. Dwight cocked the ball back with two hands, tapping it against the back of his neck. His hands and the ball fired forward in one swift, smooth movement, and with a scream that sounded like he meant it, Dwight dunked.
BOOOOOM!
When a backboard shatters, it sounds sort of similar to a gunshot or a car backfiring. Startled by the noise, Dwight hung onto the rim with both hands, and, as though it too was scared, the rim obediently folded and pointed itself at the ground. Dwight rode it down a few inches before he realized what was happening, and then released his grip so he wouldn't bring the whole thing down on himself. He crashed to the ground and landed on his back.
As Dwight fell, tiny pieces of glass freed themselves from the backboard. The first wave shot out all the way to the three-point line, eventually losing velocity until the last pieces kind of dripped down, pouring over Dwight's prone body. For about three long seconds, nobody moved. Nobody said a word.
The first real reaction, which was achieved in unison, was jubilation. Keith and I both kind of screamed. Dwight sprang to his feet and sprinted to the other end of the court and back again, yelling nothing and everything at the top of his lungs, hooting and hollering. He couldn't keep from grinning.
Our second reaction was to check on Dwight. We found him covered in slivers of glass, which we brushed off. Moments later, he was bleeding all over, tiny, invisible cuts that slowly dripped blood. But he was OK.
Our third reaction was to document the moment. We took pictures of the wreckage, then pictures of Dwight standing in front of the wreckage trying to hide a smile, then pictures of each of us with Dwight in front of the wreckage.
And our final reaction, which was perhaps the most practical, was, Oh, crap. Someone's gotta pay for that.
Later this month, Dwight Howard will almost certainly be the first or second player selected in the NBA Draft, a 6-11 beast with power who says he plays like Kevin Garnett - and then some. "I think I probably run the floor like Dirk Nowitzki," Dwight says, "and I think I have mental toughness like Tim Duncan." But two years ago, Dwight wasn't even considered the best high school center in his area. And 18 years ago, he almost wasn't born.
Dwight and Sheryl Howard had wanted two children. They ended up with three, but it wasn't easy. "We lost five children between my oldest daughter and Dwight," says Dwight's father, who is also named Dwight, but who goes by "Big Dwight" around the Howard house (even though he stands a good four or five inches shorter than "Little Dwight"). "We lost our first set of twins before my oldest daughter, then we lost another set of twins and three others between my daughter and Dwight."
When Sheryl became pregnant with Dwight, the Howards went to the hospital at least once a week, hoping to head off any problems at the pass. They put all of their faith in God. On December 8, 1985, Dwight Howard II was born. "It was trying," Big Dwight recalls. "I always tell Dwight, 'Think about this: Ten children, and only three survived. That's a real blessing for you to be one of the three.' I often remind Dwight and my daughter and my other son: Set your feet on the ground, and every day be thankful."
Not long after he was able to stand on those feet, Dwight picked up the game. "I started playing basketball when I was about 3 years old," he says. "I used to watch Magic Johnson all the time, his little tapes, because we didn't really have cable or nothing. Basically, I did what he did on the tapes, all his dribbling moves. We lived on a long street, so I put chairs in the street and dribbled around the chairs with my eyes closed, dribbled up and down the street doing moves. I wanted to be a 6-9 point guard. I always wanted to be like Magic."
Big Dwight figured his son wouldn't grow to be more than about 6-5, so he tried to teach Dwight the real importance of the point guard position. When Dwight hit eighth grade, his father backed off a bit. "I didn't stop coaching him, but I stopped being the coach," he says. Even though Dwight was beginning to sprout inches, he still considered himself a point. "I just never thought I couldn't be one," recalls Dwight. "But once I got to my ninth grade year, I knew I wouldn't play point guard anymore, because I was bigger than everybody else."
Dwight had attended SACA since kindergarten. At SACA, a small, private school with about 300 students, where every day starts with prayer and praise songs, he dreamed of playing on the varsity basketball team. He sat down one day in ninth grade and drew up a list of goals. Now, with a few timely adjustments, it still hangs over his bed and includes items like:
"And it shall (and) will come to pass that Dwight Howard II will stand head and shoulders over 2004 prospects in the name of Jesus. Will he do it? Amen."
Also, "And it shall (and) will come to pass that Dwight Howard II will be the Number 1 draft pick in the NBA draft."
