By Matt Bruce

Photos By George Hunter

Sanctuary is an oasis of refuge. A fortress of equanimity nestled upon resilient timbers sturdy enough endure turbulent sea changes.

Many look for sanctuary in the traditional realms of church pews and scripture. Others find it in work or hobbies while some turn to yoga mats and nature trails to find their place of solace.

But a local group of hoops lovers found theirs in sport. Three times a week, they crawled out of bed before dawn and convened at the Robert D. Fowler Family YMCA on Jones Bridge Road for early morning pickup basketball games.

Theirs was a refuge that existed between the black lines of the hardwood court. Saggy-eyed engineers and insurance salesmen filtered in for shoot arounds at 6 a.m. Minutes later, the kinetic pace of full-court runs energized the gymnasium.

For two hours, the chorus of sneakers squeaking against the synthetic wood floors mixed with the snap of the roundball swishing through the net. Afterward, each of the men went their separate ways for an honest day’s work.

It was a ritual that held true for decades at the Peachtree Corners Y. Dozens of recreational ballplayers, hungry for good pickup games, cycled through the gym on different days. As many as 75 players were signed up on an email distribution list for the 6 a.m. runs.

But COVID forced statewide shutdowns of Georgia’s gyms last spring, stripping the local hoopers of their beloved sanctuary. Gov. Brian Kemp issued a shelter-in-place order April 2, 2020, officially closing all gyms, hair salons, barbershops and many other businesses across Georgia. That executive order came two weeks after all of Metro Atlanta’s YMCA facilities temporarily closed.

Thirteen months later, many of the shutdowns have lifted. However, the morning ballers had yet to return to their haven on the court.

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Terry Hogan said during a recent interview. “It’s just another loss for me. It’s like the whole world’s been rocked and this is a piece that I miss and hate that it was taken away.”

COVID-19’s devastation has extended to all aspects of life, affecting everything from work and school to the ways we shop, vote, congregate and worship.

One of its overlooked impacts is the toll the pandemic has had on casual friendships. Researchers say those relationships add depth to people’s lives and help eliminate the feelings of isolation that have crept into many households over the past 14 months.

Before the pandemic-forced closures, Hogan, a 56-year-old engineer, had been playing basketball at the Y since 1998. He and three of the other group’s mainstays sat down with Peachtree Corners Magazine last month to discuss life sans their pre-dawn basketball rendezvous.

“It feels good because it’s a sense of normalcy,” Hogan said of seeing some of his old buddies for the first time in more than a year. “Normalcy’s about to return, that’s how I view it.”

‘It’s Sort of Like Family’

For this group, normalcy meant starting their day with a workout. They met at the Peachtree Y around 6 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The majority of them are working professionals so the early starts gave them enough time to muster a handful of pickup games before cleaning up and heading to the office.

“It jumpstarts your day,” Jesse Mills said. “The thing about it, once you get into a routine, your body adapts.”

Mills, a 39-year-old tech analyst, was recruited to play about 12 years ago. He’s a part-time referee and was officiating a rec league in which Hogan played at the time. Mills said he was about 300 pounds when he first started waking up for the morning scrimmages. He’s slimmed down to about 200 pounds and now brings an explosive style to the pickup games, capable of slashing to the bucket and knocking down 3-point shots.

The ensemble includes a mixture of ballplayers from across the Atlanta metro region. Some drove from as far away as Cherokee County — over an hour away — to get in on the action. The players ranged in age from early 20s to mid-50s. Some of the regulars were women.

Between 12 and 15 players showed up each morning. The crowd swelled to over 20 during the summer months, when college students were home from school and local teachers joined the fray.

“All the basketball personalities are there at different times,” said Karl Barham, a regular of the past 20 years. “You dread it, but you can’t beat it. Every morning, I get up with the same feeling of ‘I don’t want to go, I want to sleep.’ But on those days, the second I get on the court and get that first game in, that feeling’s gone. And I never regret it. I never feel like I should have stayed home. It’s the days that you don’t go that you regret not going.”

Barham, a 48-year-old New York City native, plays a physical style patterned after the Patrick Ewing-led Knicks of the 1990s. Without real options to play basketball over the past year, he said he’s struggled to stay in shape. He’s tried alternatives like the Peloton and running outdoors.

“But you don’t get the cardio, you don’t get the exercise you get with running on the basketball court,” Barham said. “Even just getting up in the morning, keeping that routine.”

Trash talk was an integral part of the players’ bond. Barry Blount, an automotive engineer, moved to the area from Michigan in 2012 and quickly stumbled upon the morning rec runs. He said the boastful banter begins with text messages long before they hit the court. And the smack talk continues right after the runs are over for the day. It’s all borne out of the spirit of competition that draws the ballers to the gym.

“It’s sort of like family because even when we argue, we all know what the limits are and it never really lasts that long,” Blount said. “We have the games and everybody loves it. It’s the kind of group that would hang out outside of work.”

While Mills may be effective on the court, he catches flack for the volume of fouls he calls during the games. It’s become a running joke in the group over the years, with his comrades wisecracking that he should leave his whistle at home. Mills shrugs it off.

“I’m a ref, so anytime I call something, they’re always yelling ‘bad call,’” he acknowledged with a wry grin. “But it’s a pretty good group of guys that we’ve got on a normal basis.”

The Love of the Game

Jiles Parham, who turned 77 in May, played morning basketball for more than 30 years in Albany, Georgia before moving to Conyers in 2012.

Parham has a special bond with the game. Basketball is credited with saving his life. During a morning run at the Albany Y in 1995, Parham collapsed on the court. He came up to Atlanta to have five heart bypasses at the Emory University Hospital.

“The doc that did the surgery said, ‘Keep playing, keep doing what you’re doing,’” Parham recalled. “They said it was the reason I survived, because I was in good shape. But I say it’s because the Lord saved my life.”

When he moved to the Atlanta suburbs, Parham said he first tried out a gym in south DeKalb. But it only offered recreational games once a week on Monday nights.

“So I called around, and this was the only Y that had 6 o’clock basketball. That’s why I started coming up here,” Parham said.

Before the early pickup games at Peachtree Y were suspended last year, Parham woke up at 4:20 each morning in time to travel from Conyers and hit the court by 6 a.m. “If you love basketball, you’ll do it,” he said.

“If the world could live like we play basketball, we’d be a lot better place. That’s for sure,” Parham added later. “If we have disagreements, we take turns on a ball. But if you have a bad call, we’ll shoot the three for it. And whoever makes or misses it, we keep playing.”

Shaking Off the Rust

All of the members of the group said they miss the fellowship. Blount said a few tried to arrange times to catch up around Christmas, but those plans eventually fell through because of scheduling conflicts.

“I love the basketball,” he explained. “But I also love the fact that I found a group of guys who all kind of have the same mindset as I do. They’re all family guys…And a lot of us are not from here, so we don’t have family here. So it gives me, like, a group that I can affiliate myself with.”

The bug to get back on the court started to set in around late March when the winter weather dissipated. Several people started texting each other about going back to the gym.

“At least get the guys sparked back up to start playing again,” Blount said. “Everybody wants to get back in the gym, to get in shape and just kind of see each other. Get that camaraderie going again.”

Mills said he’d already started back at different gyms throughout the area, but his game wasn’t the same as before the pandemic. He’d heard whispers of other local courts that were set to open.

Hogan reflected on losing his connection with the group. He was itching to get back on the court but had some apprehensiveness after being away for a whole year.

“I’m worried about my age,” he said. “It’s hard at this age to stop and start back up.” Despite those concerns, he began making plans to get the word out and round the gang back up.

“This is perfect timing,” he told Mills, Parham and Barham as they sat at Towns Center plotting a return to the courts. “This is like going to be the restart. It’s like we’re close to restarting, and talking to us now is the perfect reason to restart.”