Every spring, in San Antonio, bunches of loquats appear on the branches of broad-leafed trees. The fruits pull each arm downward under their weight, as if beckoning a sun-tanned hand to reach up and twist them free. The tree grows tall, and many of the bunches have taunted me from towering heights where only the birds and beetles brave enough to climb can reach them. One time, my cousin scaled far up the tree in our neighbors' yard to retrieve a bounty. I'm not sure how he found footing in the dense thicket, for the loquat tree is not truncated but is instead bushy, shrub-like, layered--full of life.
Personally, I prefer tangy to sweet. Over the course of the season the loquat turns from bright yellow, sour and firm, to a soft, sweet orange. By eating them during the first few weeks of spring I'd usually be the first one there. Sometimes small holes where a worm or insect had already started feasting pocketed the skin, but most were still up for grabs.
I heard a story that the Portuguese first brought the loquat tree from China. Upon reaching the Forbidden City, the sailors offered a rose bush to their royal hosts, a thorny, ligneous gift that offended rather than flattered. In return, the Chinese gave their visitors a sapling they knew would yield a bitter offspring, acidic and nearly bile, plus a smattered mess underneath its canopy.
But when the rose bush bloomed, the imperial court was in awe at the beauty and smell of the flowers. And the loquat tree, with newfound rigor from the Iberian sun, produced fruit that matured beyond the premature into a delectible, succulent sweetness (I tasted these plump specimens in late May in Spain--sweetness they truly were). I assume the Spaniards or Canary Islanders brought the tree to San Antonio during their settlement in the 18th century. The South Texas climate has the same effect on the fruit as was first seen in Portugal.
In those spring days of the loquat, when San Antonio celebrates Fiesta, the end of the school year, and the sparing weeks before oppressive heat, Spurs playoff basketball would infect the town. The 2000s Spurs of my childhood were a legendary squad: consistent, lethal, always in the fray to win it all. And win they did. The two decades led by Tim Duncan's stoic excellence constituted an unprecedented streak atop the basketball world, with 22 straight playoff appearances and five championships to show. The players in the show seeped into the heart of the city: Tony Parker with his speed and soft touch, Manu Ginobili's obdurate boldness, the sage Coach Pop.
I would imiate the dribbles and pirouettes I saw on TV in our backyard ad nauseam. The titanic clashes between giants and sharpshooters and slashers were the stories I recreated. I rehearsed myself finishing in a whirl around the rim, swishing jumpshots at the buzzer. After tiring from sprinting corner to corner, I'd pick a few loquats and cool off under the shade of a floruit tree. Life revolved in this way.
Since I left San Antonio for college, the Spurs haven't played much playoff basketball. I aged and so did our team. I haven't been there when the loquats emerge--I haven't eaten one off a tree in many years. I understand. Things change.
But this spring, the Spurs struck gold by winning the top pick in the 2023 NBA draft. Who knows what prompted this blessing from the universe. Maybe it was in return for the years of service to the pure game. Awaiting is an otherwordly talent from France, Victor Wembanyama. 7-foot-5-inches tall, 8 feet from outstretched finger to outstretched finger, a shooter and shot blocker with Gen Z skills and that eternal unteachable skill, height. His impending arrival to the Spurs is widely viewed as a perfect fit; for the team, a chance to recapture the glory of sustained dominance; for the raw diamond of a prospect, a home to polish and refine into greatness. The pieces are fitting together. The people sense it.
Sports has a way of infiltrating the lives of its dedicated followers. This has been on my mind in the days since the Spurs landed the #1 pick. I have hesitated to write about basketball before given the tabloid-esque quality of sports media these days, but I've also serendipitously come across some stellar sports writing recently: Roger Federer as Religious Experience by David Foster Wallace, the first half of The Patch by John McPhee. How the promise of a lanky 19-year-old over 3,000 miles away can send thousands of people into ecstatic fervor in an instant, how it can tap into the soul of a boy who adored his team, is nothing short of special. There's really nothing like it.
With the resurgent aura of the Spurs rising, and the sun finally surfacing from under winter's cloak, I can taste the loquat on my tongue once more.
