Dell Jackson, the founder and driving force of LLHoops.com, died a month ago. And when his obituary appeared, I was struck by how many things I didn’t know about him.
He was from Wyalusing? Huh.
He liked beekeeping? No way.
He crafted stained glass? Whoa.
None of that ever came up during all the nights I sat alongside Dell in some gym or other, covering high school basketball. Nor was it ever discussed during the two long drives we made to and from games at Duke, where his brother Jon has long been part of the basketball machinery.
We never talked wives or kids. We did talk about jobs, if only when he was in coaching (notably as the head man at Penn Manor) and I was a sportswriter at LNP. But we didn’t delve into his life as a middle school math teacher in the Manor district, much less his role as school board president.
We talked … ball.
And that was enough.
Certainly that’s a guy thing. While women can meet each other for the first time and almost immediately learn the most minute details imaginable, guys typically repair to their safe space, discussing burning topics like the state of Joel Embiid’s knee or why Johan Rojas cannot seem to hit his weight.
But there was a bit more to it in this case. We were both part of a community, a community he had enlarged and improved when he founded his website a quarter-century ago. Certainly that community had always been a comfortable place – and a place I frankly missed when I took a job elsewhere in 2003, after 22 years at LNP. But he made it better. He strengthened it and nurtured it.
It was an extraordinary thing, especially in an age when folks are so deeply divided on so many other matters.
But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. David Aldridge, the Hall of Fame basketball writer, mentioned the “unspoken camaraderie” of the game in his introduction to the recent book “The Basketball 100”:
“People of all ages come to the game,” Aldridge wrote, “seeking, striving for … unity. Basketball connects communities, schools, races, genders. We are drawn to it, the notion that five people, working together, can create something magical.”
Spot on. There’s a rhythm to the game that is enticing, enthralling. And in creating his site Dell tapped into that. It was a virtual gathering place for those who played, coached and covered the league, and we were all better for it. Closer, too.
So while I hadn’t seen him in a long time before his passing on May 25 at age 67, and while we never had anything remotely resembling a deep conversation in all the time I knew him, we were friends. At the same time we realized the guardrails within which we were operating.
Sam Graham-Felsen, writing recently in the New York Times, noted how friendship evolves after men reach a certain age. He cited 2024 studies showing that 17 percent of men do not have so much as a single close friend, a 500 percent increase from 1990, and just 26 percent have more than six. That’s a 55 percent decrease.
Part of that is a product of the times. Graham-Felsen wrote that before the 20th Century men were much more open in their affection for one another, to the point of holding hands and sitting on each other’s laps in public (and, well, OK). But then the pace of life accelerated, the rules governing marriage changed and, as the author put it, “unspoken, byzantine bylaws to male friendship” became the norm.
But where Dell and I were concerned, there was always ball. And again, that was enough. That was always enough.
The first of two memorial services honoring Dell will be held Saturday, at Meadia Heights Golf Club, between 1 and 4 p.m. Once again he will bring people together. Once again the local hoops community will close rank. Feels about right. Feels like a helluva legacy, too.