One frustrating reality that we superfans must learn to live with is the fact that it is impossible to see, to know, to own every bit of tape, information, memorabilia relating to our subjects. Unless that subject happens to be Stromile Swift.
Being Stromile Swift's #1 fan is not like being Kobe Bryant's #1 fan. For one, my claim to #1 has never been and will never be disputed, whereas surely those who claim to be Kobe's biggest fan number in the hundreds if not the thousands. Furthermore, materially pursuing my fanhood doesn't require an especially fat bankroll. So in some ways I've got it good.
In other respects it's a challenge. Stromile Swift's NBA career wasn't chronicled to the extent that a superstar's is, so the number of Stromile Swift photos, articles, and video clips surviving on the 'net is relatively limited. It is basically realistic for me to believe that I have stockpiled every picture, read every article, and watched every video. To find something I haven't seen before is very, very unusual, and it becomes all the more unusual with every passing year. It sucks because the best season of Swift's career, his sophomore year at LSU, is essentially lost; I can think of only two or three clips hidden within Youtube dunk mixes that are presently available to be viewed--oh, and one complete game: the one where Stro and the Tigers were completely dismantled and eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by Wisconsin. Figures.
So being a superfan of a dude who is, on mainstream standards, an obscure figure, it comes with its pros and cons. The pros do outweigh the cons, I think. I've been able to meet Stromile twice simply by wearing his jersey to NBA games, and I've purchased game-worn articles of his for under $50. I can even mail stuff from my collection to Stro and get it sent back autographed. Superfan daydream type stuff. But still, it'd be really awesome to punch "Stromile Swift" into Youtube and find as many results as "Kobe Bryant" generates, or even find one new clip uploaded in the past year, for that matter.
Several days ago some dude from LSU punched a between-the-legs dunk in a game versus Florida. The dunk sparked LSU in an important victory and inspired discussion amongst LSU diehards about the greatest dunk in school history. One such discussion yielded the photo at the outset of this post, a glorious photo that, somehow, I had never seen before. In a large number of fully-colored pixels, Stro bumps his head on the backboard foam as he reaches well above the square in what looks to be the beginning of the end for a rim that appears much too flimsy to endure its impending punishment.
There's an old SLAM feature from around the time Vancouver drafted Stro. In it, the author describes being stuck in traffic with Stro in the freshly minted millionaire's Cadillac Escalade. The vehicle has been equipped with several TVs and a VCR, so the author views a VHS tape of Stro's LSU highlights. This VHS tape is the Holy Grail. That I found the photo above when I wasn't even looking gives me hope that the Holy Grail might be out there somewhere.
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