Published: July 03, 2009 10:50 pm      

HAMILTON: Jonny Flynn is more like Bo

I was taking some up-close photographs as Jonny Flynn received his key to the city and gave his speech before a rarely packed house in the Niagara Falls City Council Chambers.

Always looking for more than just the obvious in a story, from my perch on the floor I could not help but to notice Flynn’s shoes. They startled me at first. The thundering of applause that echoed throughout the room was raining down from the ceiling and pooling to where Jonny stood, and where I sat. In the rippling praise for those who helped him get to where he was — Sal Consentino, Paul Harris and others — in my spotting of those shoes, it appeared to me that somehow two mythical rug alligators had come to the surface and, in one of Jonny’s moments of glory, they were going to drag the kid beneath the carpet by his legs and consume him. Boy, Jonny has got some feet! But back to that in a moment.

It takes dedication and hard work to do what Flynn has both done and is doing. The National Basketball Association is no joke; it is a serious business that is stocked by professionals. They farm and choose the best. Flynn is now near the top of that mountain that so many other googly eyed youths aspire to climb Few will make it up its sparkling slopes; and fewer still will come down the often lose and rocky paths on the other side with the same integrity that they had upon first climbing it. I am confident that Flynn will.

The trickling drops of water from the melting, sun-kissed glacier at the top of Flynn’s mountain will form streams, creeks and then refreshing rivers that quench both our souls and thirsts. Flynn’s river of fame will flow from West St. Paul, where the Minnesota Timberwolves play, and cascade across the brinks at Niagara Falls where he grew up. We who live here and have known his family and him for years now stand at that brink and we marvel at the beautiful rainbow that his life has become. And that’s all right. As the cool misty spray of his extremely charming personality moistens our soul, we feel that his aura is now a part of our aura, and that we have found a source and connection to greatness, just by his very being and our closeness to him. We humans do that. But Flynn’s personal connection is to a power higher than himself, and we can and must focus upon that same power that inspires him.

Most of us will never reach that one great height in our endeavors, whatever it may be, like Flynn, our local hero, has reached in his. But I go back to the public breakout meeting that former Mayor Jim Galie had with Eddie Cogan’s people in the former Convention Center auditorium that is now the Bear’s Den of the Seneca Niagara Casino. After Niagara Falls Redevelopment promoters made their presentation, audience member Lou Ricciuti stood up and reminded us all that our success will not be in the ‘one’ big thing that someone else does; instead, it will be in the many small things that we all do. Ricciuti has since focused himself on the cleanup of Niagara, and others have focused themselves on other ‘one big thing’ projects; but in our individual lives, we have to focus on the many small things that help our lives reach their potential — whether we ever knew Flynn or not. That’s how we become, “In like Flynn.”

Now back to his shoes. As Flynn was recognizing so many of the people gathered in city hall that night that had helped him, his feet were walking a path that others have already walked. He will walk, or run, further still down that path. But knowing the quality of character that is Jonny Flynn, as he goes off to Minnesota to make us all proud, and having known the now-deceased Bo Erias, who also dribbled and shot for what was then the Minneapolis Lakers, I find a remarkable common attribute between them that needs reiteration.

Bo came to Niagara Falls from NYC to go to college at Niagara University and upon completion of his professional basketball career, he returned to the city and made tremendous contributions to our quality of lives by doing what Ricciuti called “the many small things.” Bo did so as a member of his Mount Carmel Church, through his Highland Avenue business, and with his own personal family, as well as the children that lived near his Whitney Avenue home. In the ally behind that house, Bo hung a basketball hoop and a garden hose, so that when the kids that he loved came to play the game that he also loved, they could readily refresh their thirst and cool their bodies. It is character like that which turns athletes into legends far past their professional careers and it is for the legends that were, and the legends that will be, that people like councilmembers Chris Robbins, Sam Fruscione, Mayor Paul Dyster and others will one day be dedicating the upcoming Legends Basketball Courts behind the YMCA.

I have heard about great people in my life; I’ve even met and worked with some in far away places. But, when my grandchildren are born, I’d rather that their inspiration for greatness come from the quality people that have climbed the mountains that we know from here, like Jonny and Bo.

Ken Hamilton is a Niagara Falls resident. Contact him at kenhamilton930@aol.com.