Seattle Sportsnet

Back in high school, I used to work at Champs Sports with a guy named Byron who had been a professional Slamball player. Standing 6’9″ tall and weighing in somewhere north of 250 pounds, Byron was essentially what you’d get if you crossed an NBA power forward with an NFL linebacker. He was big, strong, and could dunk like a mofo.

Now I had seen some Slamball games before I met Byron, but the dude definitely got me more into the fledgling sport. The reason he was working at a low-level retail establishment at the time was due to the fact that Slamball wasn’t able to renew their TV contract and had folded for a season or longer.

Fast forward six years and Slamball has finally made its long-awaited return to cable television.

Combining a makeshift basketball court with trampolines and what amounts to body armor, Slamball is the type of game you dream about as a kid. The physicality of football blended with the finesse of basketball, all while blessing every player on the court the ability to dunk like a superstar. It’s pretty much the greatest game ever invented.

After discovering Slamball on Cartoon Network while channel surfing this afternoon, I decided to do a little research and see what the league was all about these days. Come to find out, a number of big names populate the six-team league.

• John Starks, former New York Knicks point guard, is the coach of the Maulers.

• Kenny Anderson, former New Jersey Nets (among a host of other teams) point guard, coaches the Hombres.

• Rocket Ismail, former NFL wide receiver, coaches the Bouncers.

• Ken Carter, subject of the feature film Coach Carter, coaches the Rumble.

In addition to the pedigree of the league’s coaches, Slamball’s website features a great deal of hard-to-come-by analysis. Here are a few snippets of the brutally honest critiques:

• “Football player from New Mexico State, Al Jones lives in ‘the jungle’ a rough and tumble part of Los Angeles. Trains in martial arts. Wishes to be referred to as the ‘ninja jungle warrior’. Backup Stopper and sometime Gunner, coined the phrase “Stunner” as a combo-position that combines the two spots.”

• “Nicknamed ‘young kobe’ JT [John Thomas] plays ball overseas in Germany. JT brings an offensive onslaught to the Hombres with his throwing the ball to himself and making the Stopper look helpless at times. JT will never stop talking about Kobe Bryant, which is funny for a while and then just gets wierd.”

• “Speedy brings non-stop hustle and a ‘never-say-die’ attidude to the Hombres and will get up and do the frog dunk (a bizzare mid-air spasm that has so far defied adequate description) on anybody unfortunate enough to get in his way.”

• “Not only sporting possibly the best name ever, [Sheggy] Obebe is an accomplished basketball player that knocks down outside shots, while playing great defense and mixing in the occasional attack on the Stopper.”

• “Combines perfect timing with incredible aerial control to deny anything close to the rim. Credits his timing to bouncing on a tramp in his backyard his whole life.”

I mean, really. Where else are you going to get commentary like that? Gotta love Slamball.