Negative99

A news story (linked on the picture and again below) reminded me of the arcade game NBA Jam that I played on occasion. This NBA 2 on 2 basketball game’s popularity came not only from the fact that it featured real digital likenesses of real NBA players with their real team jerseys (before this time it was common for players’ and teams’ associations to make this prohibitive), but also featured fantastically cartoon-ish physics and gameplay. While unrealistic, this made the game mad fun (imagine that). Of particular note, due to it’s pop culture inroads, were some phrases from the game’s dialog. When one player would start to do well and score a couple baskets in a row the announcer would say “He’s heating up”… and after another score made successfully by the same player the announcer would shout “He’s on fire!” The player who was “on fire” would be shown almost glowing, his shots at that point had a huge success rate, and the basketball in his possession would appear as a fireball.

From Wikipedia’s article on NBA Jam:

In certain subcultures, the phrases “He’s heating up” and “He’s on fire” have entered into common usage. The phrases, as in the game, are used to (self) describe someone doing something successfully twice or thrice respectively.

Well, here’s an amazing story of that “heating up” occurring for real. Some autistic kid with a lot of heart and spirit gets the chance to suit up for the last game of his team’s season… and the coach decides to throw him in at the end of the game. Hmmm… let’s just say he made the most of his big debut. I’ll let the story tell it best.