When I was 16, I went to an ID camp at Gonzaga University. I wore my purple Vince Carter jersey proudly during workouts, and believe it or not it was David Stockton, son of John Stockton, who poked fun at the jersey. I still remember what he said. “Every Canadian kid has a Vince jersey hidden away in their closet. You’re wearing his jersey but he didn’t even want to be there.” In so many people’s minds — back in 2012, I suppose — Carter and the Raptors were divorced from one another. The politics of it all are out there, if you want to look further into what happened between the Raptors & Carter, but I’m not here to talk about that.
For me? I grew up in a town of roughly 600 people, and there wasn’t even consideration for the breakup between Carter and the Raptors. No one really watched or cared about basketball, so Carter wasn’t loved or hated, just known. It was Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Vince Carter, and the NBA exists. Carter punctured that bubble and found his way to me, and I found my way to a jersey. I’m not special in that way. Carter spurred on a love for basketball in so many people, and he knows that, and he knows it all started in Toronto, Canada.
“Have you seen me?” Carter said to a question asking how he’s feeling about the jersey retirement. Carter has a keen awareness of how he’s perceived — perhaps because he has experienced some of the most positive and negative perceptions that a human can — and he knows he wears his emotions on his face. He knows he’s been wearing that emotion around for weeks. He wore it on the broadcast in Montreal, he wore it on the broadcast on opening night, and he wore it at the revamping of his courts in Rexdale.
After the game, Ochai Agbaji said something incredibly insightful: “It was a long day – it feels like a long past two months for Vince – it’s been really long. This is kind of the closing day for him.”
How interesting to see it that way, and I think that is the way to see it. Carter, accepted and forgiven, and now being so openly, raucously celebrated for weeks – it’s new. It’s a lot, and it’s from the place where he wanted it most. He had to be part of the planning of all this, he had to tell the Brooklyn Nets to wait and let the Raptors go first. Constantly considering his own celebration and being part of how that consideration will look and feel – all the time. I imagine it’s a little bit like the stress of planning a wedding, only you don’t have a partner to stand up with you at the end of the day. So, when Vince stood up there, by himself, the dam burst.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that type of emotion. A huge, hulking individual, crying so hard that the tears don’t just run from his face, but leap. They leap, and are immediately replaced by more. It was like there was no end to them, drawing from a well that could never go dry. His fists were clenched, and when he released them he let his arms out, taking in the moment, and he was trembling. He held his arms wide like Christ the Redeemer in Rio, and he let the moment he’d been waiting for, for so long, wash over him completely. More tears. The crowd built to a fever pitch, the moment was written on his face, and he started screaming “COME ON” to the crowd.
It looked cathartic, and I imagine it was. It was visceral from my vantage point. Tears bounced off of his cheek as he screamed out to the stadium of people cheering for him. The music that was swelling behind him subsided, Carter screamed once more, and then he saluted the crowd. The ceremony began after that.
The ceremony was just that: ceremony. It was cool to see stars across the league wish Carter well, and to see it from Kyle Lowry & DeMar DeRozan. Everyone was surrounded by so many Raptor greats, because that’s what the night was for. It was for fans to revel in their once-beloved-again-beloved star, and to swim in the all the nostalgia attached to that. It’s an opportunity to stop and remember how things were, and to let those memories find their way to celebration. Carter had to thank people, and he had to cross the t’s and dot the I’s, and the organization had to figure out how to make this about everyone in attendance, and the man himself: Half Man, Half Amazing.
It was beautiful to witness Carter’s moments. When he hugged his son as he cried at the press conference. When he held his family as a whole as they watched his jersey rise above them. When he stood with the crowd and let them embrace him. Two parts became whole in that last moment, and that’s why Carter was right when he would reference the night and say “This is about us.” Carter is synonymous with the Raptors and Canada basketball, and either’s legacy would be missing something if it didn’t wholeheartedly embrace the other.
It’s not funny if a Canadian kid wears a Carter jersey anymore. It’s cool. It’s so god damn cool they put that jersey up in the rafters.
Have a blessed day.
