Remembering the Run TMC Poster that Never Was

Back in 1991, if you lived in the bay area and played basketball, you knew about Run TMC. That year the Golden State Warriors had the highest scoring trio in the NBA. The trio (consisting of Chris Mullen, Tim Hardaway and Mitch Richmond) averaged 72 points a game.

At the time, I was in high school at Castro Valley. The NBA had just coined the new nickname for the trio, and decided they needed to make a poster to market them with the new name.

My school was chosen as the backdrop for the poster, and over the weekend a professional graffiti artist came in to paint up the wall at the outdoor basketball court where I used to play every day. The three superstars came suddenly, took the photos for the new poster and left.

Within days the Golden State Warriors traded Mitch Richmond to Sacramento, and Run TMC was over even before their first poster could be released.

But all wasn’t lost. Me and my brother made good use of their backdrop every day when we went to play basketball.

In the second photo, that’s my brother trying to post me up down low, wearing the ’85 Reebok high tops. I had switched to canvas converse because I wanted to be ahimsa. Those converse shoes would kill your feet when you played basketball – blisters and blood.

A year later I moved into the Berkeley ISKCON temple, and then a year after that I left to India for a new life, never to go back. It’s now been 27 years.