Creative Triple Word Scoring

One recent evening, while comfortably ensconced at dinner in the Pforzheimer House dining hall, something—a name, a memory, a vision—caught my eye. On the far wall, facing me, hung the illustrated bracket for the House Scrabble Tournament, with each participant designated by first initial and last name. Towards the bottom was the appellation “M. Simon.”

I now know this to be the entry of a forgiving young lady called Maya, but at the time I could scarcely help but lapse into a daydream about former Arizona Wildcats shooting guard and college basketball star Miles Simon.

You know the expression “don’t let your imagination get the best of you”? It’s a funny one. Erroneous interpretations of reality, the phrase suggests, proclivities for the idealized or the fictitious, can threaten our safety, happiness, or otherwise get the best of us. Take, for example, if at this very meal I had foreseen myself a champion eater and ingested 150 popcorn shrimp. Bad idea.

But here is the beauty of writing: on paper, in words, imagination has free reign. The untrue or hypothetical can withstand trial, cannot get the best of you, and folly is permitted.

In the spirit of imagination, then, of Wonka-esque creative rendering, permit me this brief flight of fancy: Miles and I are seated at the Scrabble board, prepared to engage in this trivial pursuit, and the competitive juices start flowing like it’s the 1997 NCAA Final Four all over again.

He draws the better tile and gets to go first, running “magic” off the center square to the right. With a double letter score on the “C” and a double word score from the middle, he picks up 26 quick points. I get the allusion: Orlando drafted Simon with the 42nd pick in the 1998 NBA draft. Unfortunately, Miles didn’t stick, playing in all of five games and launching just five shots.

For my turn, I play “major” for 15 points, which leads to the following exchange:

Miles: “What are you majoring in?”

Me: “History and Literature.

Miles: “Cool.”

Me: (pause) “What did you major in?”

Miles: “Stuff.”

Me: “Cool.”

I don’t press him. I know he missed some time during college due to academic suspensions.

Simon’s turn again. He seizes upon the “I” from magic and makes “dish.” Another topical word, I see, not unimpressed. He ranks among the top 10 in Wildcats history in career assists. But it’s a no-look pass, a bit of misdirection; he adds three more letters to the beginning and spells out “Swedish” on the double word score, for a cool 28.

The puzzlement on my face must be evident—and it is not just the snobbery of a Harvard kid getting seven-letter schooled by an Arizona barely-grad—because he quickly explains that he was born in Stockholm, and is, in fact, Swedish.

Big as his lead now is, he left me a double word score of my own. Miles never was known for his defense. From the “S” I generate “straw,” the familiar nickname of Simon’s brother-in-law Darryl Strawberry. With a double letter score on the “W,” I receive 24 points to get back in the game.

He follows with “lute,” running into the “E” of Swedish. I’ve got him now, I think. Any dummy knows no proper nouns, like the first name of his Wildcats coach Lute Olsen, who incidentally just hired Simon as an assistant coach, are allowed in Scrabble.

As tactfully as I can muster, I remind him of this stipulation, but with patience he informs me that a lute is also a string instrument or a clay-like substance. The education continues.

Still, it only counts for six points, and I continue with a masterful bit of psychology, playing “bell” onto the new “L”. Simon had a run-in with the authorities in 1999 when he broke into the house of baseball player Albert Belle, where his ex-girlfriend was staying. In my haste to conjure some painful memories and throw him off his game, I left him wide open from downtown for the triple (word score), beyond the arc, where in a clutch spot Simon rarely misses.

At Arizona, he shared the backcourt with future NBA All-Stars Jason Terry and Mike Bibby, yet Simon, for those two weeks in March of ‘97, was the unquestioned hero, dropping 30 on Kentucky in the overtime title game and receiving Most Outstanding Player honors.

At this juncture, his shot drops down from w in “straw” to win the game at the buzzer. At once show-offy and poignant, the word cuts to the very nature of our contest and my thinking: “wishful.”

It’s breezy fantasy, to be sure, because in no known reality is a Scrabble game conducted with every word carrying the utmost pertinence. And only in my head can I easily share a table and conversation with a college hoops legend.

So here’s to you, Miles Simon, wherever you might be and wherever this crossword game called life might take you, for as Willy Wonka puts it in his soaring, climactic ditty: “There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.”

—Staff writer Jonathan Lehman can be reached at jlehman@fas.harvard.edu.