A Look Back, Part 2

I had a unique experience growing up a basketball fan in Chicago during the mid 90s. Youngsters naturally gravitate towards the best players in the NBA, and it just so happened that the best player played for my hometown team. But what made my experience truly unique is that the aforementioned best player took two years off in between championships. And it just so happens those two years were when I fully began to comprehend the game of basketball and its star players.
Jordan was gone and I was too naive to appreciate how good of a player Scottie Pippen actually was, so I gravitated towards the newest NBA sensation. No other than the point/shooting guard hybrid known as Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway.
The funny thing is, I can't recall every watching Penny play. I'm sure I did at some point, but nothing sticks out in my mind about the type of player he was. What I remember most is the the way he was marketed. Kudos to his public relations team. The fact that I can remember so much about his brand and very little about his play counts for something. Or maybe it just illustrates that I was an impressionable seven year old.
I first read about Penny in an issue of Sports Illustrated For Kids. That magazine alone deserves a blog tribute. Anyway, I always loved reading about athletes in that magazine because they always broke things down very simply for young readers. They interviewed athletes about their favorite food and movies, etc. And they always found a way to gloss over serious issues for some of these athletes growing up such poverty and managed to tell stories in a kid-friendly way.
Firstly, I liked the cover with Penny on it. It was a penny (creative, I know), with his face on it instead of Lincoln's. In the article they explained that his nickname "Penny" was in fact a misunderstanding. His grandma used to call him "pretty" and people thought she was calling him Penny, and the name stuck. His first name was also supposed to be Anthony, but who ever was writing the birth certificate misheard his mother and wrote down Anfernee. At age seven, I thought Anfernee was the coolest name ever. I have to admit, I'm more partial to Anthony nowadays.

When discussing Penny, it's impossible to forget about his sidekick Lil' Penny. Lil' Penny was the precursor to the LeBron and Kobe puppets that Nike currently advertises. The puppet was voiced by Chris Rock and looked like an exact replica of Penny himself. The commercials were engaging, funny, and smart. The puppet was really a perfect marketing strategy because it appealed to both kids and adults alike. I remember I had a Lil' Penny shirt. It was mostly white, blue letters, with the faces of Lil' Penny and Penny in black and white. I dont' remember what the shirt said. I've been searching for it, but can't find a picture on the internet.
Here's a few of the classic Lil' Penny commercials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK88MQWsYj8 (One of the best sports commercials ever, period).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URNwiRPQf1A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMiQy4gDJE0 (This one came after Shaq left for LA, so they were trying to hype Penny up as the lone superstar in Orlando).

The last point I'd like to make is how tight the Air Penny I and II's were. The picture above is of the II's, my personal preference. They may not look like much nowadays, but I can't stress enough how popular these were back in the day. The Magic were a team growing in popularity in the mid 90s, and the Penny's with the Magic color scheme were a natural hit.
The thing that used to annoy me about those shoes is the people that wore them could never ball. Worse yet, most didn't even know who Penny Hardaway was. As a kid, there was nothing more frustrating than playing recess basketball in Payless shoes, while the kid who couldn't even make a layup had the new Air Penny II's.
Injuries derailed Penny's career, allowing fans to speculate about the type of career he could have had if he'd stayed healthy. Nonetheless, he will go down as an integral part of the 1990s NBA for the impact he created on popular culture alone. He's been in the news lately because he has said he wants to return to the Miami Heat, which inspired me to write about him in the first place. Stay retired Penny, your place in basketball history is already secure.