by Kerry Michael Wood

Created on: March 18, 2009   Last Updated: May 06, 2010

"Ex-Basketball Player," by John Updike, is one of the most popular American poems of the second half of the 20th century. Often anthologized in secondary school textbooks, the poem conveys an easily recognizable theme, is accessible to students, and conveys artistic subtleties that provide opportunities for teachers to explain the nuances of names, word selection, symbolism, metaphor, simile and other elements of figurative language that enrich the reading experience.

Interviewed about this poem and its central character by editors of Poetry Foundation, Updike said, "Flick [Webb] came . . . in a poem written in 1954 . . .Then came Ace Anderson, hero of the short story 'Ace in the Hole,' . . . Lastly, written in 1959, Rabbit, Run['s] . . . Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is clearly a brother to the other two. . . . One of the dominant impressions of my growing-up in Pennsylvania - where I saw a lot of basketball games, thanks to my father's being a high-school teacher and a ticket taker at home games - was the glory of home-town athletic stars, and their often anti-climactic post-graduation careers."

Examining the poem stanza by stanza

Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off
Before it has a chance to go two blocks,
At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth's Garage
Is on the corner facing west, and there,
Most days, you'll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out.

The street name is not a haphazard choice. Pearl Avenue is the road to riches. It is accessible from the local high school where basketball players can begin making a name for themselves. Notice that all the verbs and one noun double as basketball terminology: "runs. . .bends. . .stops. . .cut off. . .blocks." The name of the workplace, Berth's garage, is also laden with meaning. A berth is a sleeping place on a ship or train. It may be luxurious and comfortable or simple. As a homonym of "birth," it might suggest bright futurity, but being the name of an automobile service station and facing not the rising sun of the east but westward, we see that Flick is in a lower berth of meager pay and no prospect of athletic stardom or future wealth and prestige.

Teachers of the poem have to remind students that when it was written, self-service, pump-your-own gas stations were not even imagined and would not appear for 15 years. Gas station attendants of the 1950's and 60's filled tanks, washed windshields, checked oil, did lube jobs, repaired punctured tires, and so on. Esso,

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