Sometimes things happen in sports that just make you smile. They aren’t necessarily big things, or major news. But they tug at the heart a little bit.
I felt that sentimental pull Sunday night when the Miami Heat announced Udonis Haslem had re-signed for a 19th season to play in the city where he was born and raised.
The news was no huge surprise. Neither is sunrise, but it’s still a wonderful thing to behold.
When everything around us is changing so fast, there is reassurance in sameness — especially in sports, where athletes spending an entire long career with one franchise is a dying breed.
I was 6 years old when my boyhood idol, Carl Yastrzemski, was a Red Sox rookie. When Yaz retired 22 seasons later I was alone in my first apartment watching what everybody knew would be his final game. In his final at-bat, I cried. It felt like a symbolic farewell to my childhood.
I was 15 when Don Shula arrived in Miami. I turned 40 and was a father of two when he left.
That kind of same-city longevity doesn’t happen in sports anymore. But it s happening with the Heat and U.D.
Babies born in his rookie NBA season are in college now. If you were a young adult when Haslem signed as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Florida, you are grappling with the onset of middle age today. And one of the constants in your life has been No. 40 in a Heat uniform.
No South Florida professional athlete has spent more seasons with one team. Dan Marino held the old record with 17. In NBA history only Dirk Nowitzki has spent longer (21 years) with one team.
Haslem’s No. 40 will hang from the arena rafters some day.
The occasional cynic asks me if it’s wise for Miami to “waste” a roster spot on an aging player who rarely plays anymore. The very premise of the question is wrong. Haslem’s value is in leadership and example. The notion of Heat Culture (with a capital C) is real, and Haslem embodies it. Hell, he may have founded it.
Beyond basketball, his love for Miami extends to civic causes, whether helping keep peace during last summer’s protests and unrest to more recently reaching out to Surfside after the condo-collapse tragedy.
Mr. 305 Inc. is the name of Pitbull’s record label, but, with due respect, Udonis Haslem is Mr. 305.
Marino and Dwyane Wade have been bigger stars in Miami, Hall of Fame-minted. But no athlete with Miami in his veins and tattooed on his heart has meant more longer than Haslem.
Two months after turning 41, he signed his 10th Heat contract Sunday night, for one year at the NBA veteran minimum of $2.8 million.
Heat president Pat Riley said this in the news release Sunday night, and the capital letters are his:
“Udonis Haslem has agreed to come back and play the game he loves so much. What he loves more than that is to be on the court teaching and competing against the world’s best. U.D. is a legacy player ... ONE PLAYER, ONE CITY, ONE TEAM. Thank you, U.D., for coming back to lead again in your city, your organization and your team.”
The family culture that Riley has built in this club shows in a lot of ways. Just this month, the Heat flew Duncan Robinson’s family down from New Hampshire, surprising him, to be there when he signed his contract extension.
The continued embrace of Haslem, long past his days of major on-court contribution, might be the greatest example of all of Heat family, and of mutual loyalty.
Haslem played a key role in all three Heat championships and still is the club’s all-time leading rebounder, but the past five seasons has appeared in only 45 games, total, with two starts. He played in a single game last season, in the home finale, entering to a standing ovation and playing a memorable 2 minutes 40 seconds.
He got ejected after two technical fouls, and left to another standing ovation.
“If this is the last one, I finished it the only way Udonis Haslem could — with an ejection,” he said that night.
Thankfully, it wasn’t the last one.
It’s likely his 19th season will be, right? Well, maybe. Or maybe he will want to make it an even 20-year career. Heck, maybe he has his eye on Vince Carter’s NBA-record 22-year career.
Whenever it ends, Udonis Haslem will have enjoyed a one-of-a-kind career as a “legacy player” who defined and embodied Heat Culture. As the hometown kid who made Miami proud.
