Ostensibly Hoops

[Jungle Rat]

Cmon goldie, its times like this that you just need to sit in the back pew and stfu

[Dave23]

Damn...

RIP Hizzy

[sardis]

I can't believe this. Who didn't like Hizzy. I'm sick.

[hedge]

Damn. This sucks for us but even more for his fambly. I'm going to miss the tales of Pap Hizzy. My impression has always been that Pap Hizzy is still alive, but I'm not sure. So sorry for him if that's the case. I know Hizzy made him out to be a tough bird, but no matter how tough you are, it can't be easy to lose a child. Sad day all around. Really sad...

[T Dot O Dot]

honestly, I couldn't tell at first....

after rereading, the reality of the prior posts are beginning to set in

RIP Hizzy

[The Anti k*]

R.I.P. Hizzy...

As a side note, I always figured the basketball fanatics on these messageboards were around my age (I was 28 then) or younger when I first started posting on the internet back in 1995. One of my favorite posters on the first Carolina Basketball forum (Tar Heel Talk) was a poster by the moniker of Silverheels. Dude could talk shit with the best of us and knew his hoops. One day, we were just killing time in the offseason and I asked him if Silverheels had a double meaning, as a tribute to the Lone Ranger's sidekick, Tonto. He was surprised that I figured that out, as he thought only people from his generation knew anything about that series. Come to find out, he was 10 years older than my Dad.

Fast forward to 2005 or so...We'd noticed that Silverheels hadn't been posting on the boards in awhile and got concerned. Sadly, we were right, as he'd passed away. Tributes poured in on Inside Carolina, as a lot of us had become friends with him not only on the boards, but at Carolina games and the now defunct Bob Gibbons Tournament of Champions. Some of the folks at Inside Carolina alerted Silverheels' son to the tribute thread about his father on the boards. His son said his Pop loved Carolina Basketball so much that this tribute from his fellow fans would have meant more to him than anything outside of his immediate family.

Anyway, that was my first "internet death". We all talk smack to each other, but it's our common bond that keeps us coming back here.

[eCat]

oh man , I don't have the words right now

[Jungle Rat]

Good post Anti

[Bklyn]

I caught a reference from Dot over Twitter, but I racked my brain looking for an alternate meaning to his post. I was hoping to God that he wasn't saying the Hizzy we knew and loved had left us.

Hizzy referenced his health at times over the boards, but I never gave it a grave circumstance. This is laying on me hard. I've "known" Hizzy/Redd for about a decade now. He wrote for us (the old NBA Boarders) on our (now defunct) magazine. He single-handedly almost got me a follow up writing assignment with a different magazine just by forwarding the link to an old RunDMC article. More importantly, that cat brought me Esperanza Spalding. I never laid eyes on him, but I'm gonna miss the shit outta him. That neice (if it is the same one) was the love of his life. I guess he kinda knew it was coming, but I sat ignorant of the severity of his ailments. This hurts. Fucking hurts.

Shit.

Damn.

I hope that he's at rest. I hope that if he suffered, he's at peace. I hope that the weight of this is alleviated, over time, with his family as they remember the patience, humor and even hand of my homie from Houston by way of FLA.

I will hate all things Oklahoma for the rest of the month in his honor.

[It's me Karen]

Hugs to you Bklyn.

[Bklyn]

Back atcha Karen.

[Fifer]

I loved Hizzy's College football predictions. They were clever and elequent. He was a Florida ex pat as I am. He will be dearly missed. What was wrong? Heart cancer?

[BigRedMan]

Yeah it is amazing what a simple little board like this can do for people. I know AA and Mook stormed off and we have lost others along the way. However, bottom line is some weird way we all care about each other and that is what counts. If someone has Mook's and AA's information, you may want to touch base to let them know.

[aTm]

If I post "I have it but I don't give it out" is anyone going to get pissed and leave?

I might drop Mook a line.

[Cletus]

I loved Hizzy's College football predictions. They were clever and elequent. He was a Florida ex pat as I am. He will be dearly missed. What was wrong? Heart cancer?

It was either heart cancer or knee AIDS. I can't remember which one. Either way, it sucks. He seemed like a good guy.

[eCat]

Hizzy really seemed to enjoy the more human aspects of our lives, whether it was the rather mundane stories I share of my daily frustrations or our discussions about rating how hot women were that we watched growing up - he always brought a grounded pragmatic but still edgy viewpoint I enjoyed reading. His stories about his family were too few for the comedic value they added to the board as well as his opinion about local restaurants.

My favorite Hizzy moment is the story about the woman who found out her cheating husband gave her VD from the neighbor and how she was going to stab her as soon as she got over "the Gonorrhea".

I can say he enriched my life which seems like an overstatement for someone you only know thru a messageboard but after a decade of reading what little of his life he opened up to us I considered him a friend. His experiences he has posted on here have shaped how I tell stories about my family in a humorous way to others.

He will be missed.

[The Talent]

Just wanted to pop in and pay my respects to Hizzy, one of my favorite posters of all-time. His football predictions were great, but he about as good-natured a poster as I've ever come across--the best kind with whom to enjoy respectable sass. I'll miss Horn Hizzy and Croc Hizzy and Owl Hizzy and Tide Hizzy and all the rest of them. Pretty sad.

[hedge]

I was trying to send a message to his fambly on his Facebook page, but evidently there's not much action on it. Didn't see anything posted on his wall. I wasn't going to go into the gruesome details of this place, but just wanted to let them know that even though I never met him, I considered him a friend and that I will miss his presence in my life...

We are the first generation (however you want to define that) who are having to deal with stuff like this, b/c we are the first generation who have friends that we have often never met (or maybe just once or twice) in "real" life, but who hang out with each other regularly. Hell, daily. I mean, I have alot of Facebook "friends" that by previous standards of "knowing" I am somehow understood to "really know" them just b/c I went to high school with them or have met them a few times or that we have mutual friends in real life or some shit. But I know the people on this board much better than I know most of those people. Most of them are just names from the past. I am certainly comfortable dropping somebody like that a quick line, mostly along the lines of "what's been going on with you for the past 20 years?" and I do feel friendly towards most of them, but I don't really know them anymore and certainly don't interact with them hardly at all. I don't even interact with most of the people I consider my close friends as much as I do with you guys. That's not to say that simply hanging out on the internet puts us in the same category as that small handful of people we consider our truly close friends (except Stu, but that's a different case), but I definitely consider you guys to be closer friends than almost all my facebook friends that I supposedly really know in real life and certainly feel much more comfortable saying things in here (and not just sassery) that I would never say to the majority of those other people. And when it comes down to it, feeling comfortable enough to say what's really on your mind is one of the main characteristics of friendship. Either that or not giving a fuck what anybody thinks of you. It's probably some combination of those two in here. Either way, it makes for good conversation...

[BigRedMan]

Well I did make a post on Hizzy's Facebook page and also dropped Mook an email through Facebook.

And the rumors of The Talent's demise have been greatly overstated. Hope you stick around some more good sir.

[aTm]

I was considering sending flowers to the funeral.