Over the years, Pat Riley has coined a term, "Forever Men." He uses it to describe the players who have been through the battles with him. Superstars like Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and Dwyane Wade.
Once you live through all that together, how can you ever grow apart?
My dad and I, long-term die-hard Miami sports fans, know the feeling.
We didn't coach Dwyane Wade, but we absolutely have gone through a lifetime of battles with him.
Even if now, weirdly, Wade doesn't play for the Heat anymore.
Like many of you, I became a sports fan because of my dad. Unlike many of you, my dad is borderline irrational when it comes to sports. There was always a game on TV when I was growing up. There was also a lot of yelling at the television, both joyful and filled with angst. Occasionally, there was cursing. Oh hell, who am I trying to fool? There was a lot of cursing.
Having been born in Cuba, my dad, Jorge, wasn't a huge basketball fan at first. It's just not what my people did. Cuba is a baseball and boxing country.
Although, if you're a sports fan, it's hard to turn away from greatness. As a kid in the '80s, there was no Miami Heat. So I started watching hoops and fell in love with the Lakers versus the Celtics. My dad took an interest because you could clearly see how exceptional the level of play was. Slowly, he started watching more and more games with me. The NBA crept in.
Then the Heat were born in 1988. We had our own team to root for, short shorts and all. But they didn't make it easy for a couple of Sedanos who mostly rooted for transcendent sports moments. The team lost the first 17 games of its expansion season. So much cursing.
There were the young teams of Rony Seikaly, Steve Smith and Glen Rice, when they did make the playoffs but couldn't get out of the first round (1991-1994). Then the Alonzo Mourning, Tim Hardaway and Jamal Mashburn teams were better but not mind-blowing, losing to the Knicks three times and to the Bulls once.
It took us years to get over that stupid f---ing Allan Houston shot. My father literally called it, "the stupid f---ing Allan Houston shot" for several years.
The 2003 draft came with a special kind of hope. Somehow, Wade fell to us, and here was a player who created the moments that delighted my father. We had a chance to have the kind of basketball we loved in the city we adored.
As I returned home from covering the 2003 World Series between the Marlins and Yankees in New York, my father suffered a massive stroke. He was lucky to survive, though he was left with some battle scars that ran deep.
From that day forward, Dad lost his ability to speak more than a few words, and was partially paralyzed on his right side. In essence, he has been trapped in his own body for the past 13 years.
Challenge accepted. There have been many phases of his struggle. Eventually, after several years of therapy, he regained some mobility of his right limbs. Luckily, his ability to comprehend, read and emote were all intact, which allowed him to train his brain by reading the newspaper daily in both English and Spanish. Eventually, a few words would leak out. He can call my mom "Nana," which is close enough to Nancy.
Now, his days are mostly moving from bed, to a wheelchair, to the living room where he reads and watches TV.
Sports always starred in our relationship. But since the stroke, they mattered more than ever, quickly becoming a rare and powerful escape from a cold reality. In a weird way, this situation and sports made us way closer than we ever had been.
Most of our communication, since the stroke is me asking him questions and him nodding yes or no. Occasionally, he'll point to words in a newspaper or write something with his left hand. There are lots of charades. For example, when he wants to go to bed, he looks at my mom, and points toward the room.
But he can still watch sports.
Right on cue, Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat became the center of that universe.
Three years after my dad's stroke, the Heat were down 2-0 in the 2006 NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks. By then I had a job on Heat radio broadcasts, doing pregame and postgame interviews, for which I sat behind the bench. During the games, I'd look serious, and take notes to use during the broadcast -- I had this fancy leather folder I had bought to keep my notes in -- but half my mind would imagine my parents at home, and whatever my dad would be doing in reaction to the game.
Technically, he doesn't curse anymore -- because he can't enunciate the words. Although, I know my father. His face is still extremely expressive. From his facial expressions and I always know the tone and volume of the curses in his head.
After each of the first two games, I called my folks the following morning to chat with Mom and to see how the old man was reacting to the games. Needless to say, Dad was not happy. Mom told me, he was so upset he shut the game off and told her he wanted to go to bed. Basically, my dad was pulling the elderly version of "I'm taking my ball and going home."
In Game 3, their first home game of the series, the Heat found themselves down and practically out thanks to a Jason Terry bucket that gave the Mavericks an 89-76 lead with 6:34 to go. My phone was alive with one text after another from friends upset that the series was over and the team had no heart. It was an avalanche of annoyance and I took out my nervous energy with my sweaty hands, somehow mangling that fancy, and unfortunately rather expensive, leather folder so severely I had to throw it away.
But thanks to Dwyane Wade, that folder didn't die in vain. You know how the rest of the story went. Wade played the fourth quarter with five fouls, scored 15 of his 42 points and famously said postgame, "I was just looking up at the score and thinking, 'No, I ain't going out like this. I'm not going out 3-0.' "
Immediately after the clock hit zeros, I called my parents. My mom picked up and I asked if she saw the end of the game. She said she hadn't, that my dad told her to turn it off when they called timeout with six and a half minutes to go.
I started laughing and said to her, "Are you kidding? They won!"
Shock and disbelief were her only responses. I repeated myself. They did, in fact, win.
She turned to my dad and told him that the Heat had won.
He yelled, "NO?!" and began laughing maniacally and screaming. Mom initially began to laugh as she explained he was pumping his fists while lying in bed. Then she tried to get him to pipe down because it was after midnight and "you'll wake the neighbors."
I couldn't help but getting misty eyed as I heard his voice and the pure joy in it. Still do just thinking about it.
And then I got to returning some of those texts. I remember using that line from Jerry Maguire, "No heart? [They're] ALL heart, m-----f-----!"
Cursing is hereditary.
I said goodbye and went on with my work. I would call or visit my parents after every game, just to make sure the old man was watching. We'd talk about the games. Sometimes we'd even play them back and watch again together. My mom later told me that for the rest of the series, my dad would jokingly threaten to turn off the television and go to bed whenever the Heat found themselves down double digits. To this day, he still does that just to mess with her.
Miami won the next three games, then the series, capped off with Wade's winning Finals MVP.
Those are moments you'll never forget. They live forever. Moments that only sports and special players can provide.
Beyond that first title run, Wade provided numerous more opportunities for those types of personal moments between my father and me. Like the time I went to see my parents the day after the 2008-09 NBA MVP Award was announced. Wade had a magnificent season but finished third in the voting behind LeBron and Kobe. I asked my dad if he had seen who won. He responded by grabbing the page of the newspaper that showed LeBron beating out Wade and presented it to me. I told him I had seen it.
In the most "my father" moment ever, he looked at me, rolled his eyes, and sneered as he crumpled up the newspaper and shot it into a waste basket.
I couldn't do anything but laugh.
When Wade extinguished the Hornets last season, Heat fans were galvanized against that self-absorbed, "Purple Shirt Man." Mom told me when "Purple Shirt Man" was jawing at Wade, my father became enraged.
"It was as if that guy in the purple shirt was yelling at you. He was screaming at the television and gave the guy the finger for yelling at Wade," she later told me.
Yup. That's my dad. Welcome to my world.
I could go on and on with the memories. Moments that run the gamut of emotions for my family and an entire community, all attributed to Dwyane Wade. The Big 3 forming, and winning those two titles, is bar-none the greatest four years in Miami sports history. It's not even debatable.
Thank you, Dwyane.
Unfortunately, Wade's departure from Miami also resonates. It resonates like a thud. It signifies the end of an era. An era that produced more professional championships than any other in South Florida sports history.
The old man was crushed.
I was in town covering free agency for SportsCenter and I went by the house. He showed me the newspaper. He was clearly looking for answers. I gave him my thoughts. He rolled his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. Everywhere I went in town people had a similar reaction. Complete disbelief.
Everything comes to an end, I get that. But Dwyane Wade should be Kobe, Magic, Bird, Dirk, Jeter and Marino. He should have finished his career as an icon who played for one team.
Heat President Pat Riley is the patriarch of basketball in Miami. Fans call him "The Godfather," and rightfully so. He's also known to wax poetic about loyalty. Except that loyalty comes with a caveat. One day, just when you least expect it, it won't be reciprocated.
Self-preservation 101.
When asked to comment on Wade's departure in the immediacy of it, Riley began a text to my colleague Dan Le Batard by saying, "SADDDDDDD!!!! SO saddddddd!"
On Thursday night, weirdly, even though he'll be 100 feet from his rightful home, Wade will pull on his game jersey in the visitors locker room of the American Airlines Arena. The jersey will be bright red and say "BULLS" across the front. And he'll go to work trying to defeat the Miami Heat.
My dad will be watching. And he told me, by nodding at the right moments, over FaceTime, that he'll be rooting for the Heat to win. But he also nodded when I asked if he'd be rooting for Wade to have a great game. Because to my dad, Wade is a forever man.