Serge Zwikker

(by Bill Barnwell)

We at VP hate on basketball a little bit because, well, it is easy to hate basketball. My own natural doubts about the game are reinforced by the media telling me, often at the same time, why I shouldn’t care (most middle-aged columnists) and why I should (Stephen A. Smith, Bob Ryan, all other columnists), both of which make me want to avoid it like the plague. When you throw in that even most national telecasts aren’t broadcast in HD, I am not bothering to tune in.

But basketball does offer us possibilities rarely seen in other sports – mainly because it consists of lots of really, really tall men, not all of whom

have caught up with their limbs. It’s a phenomenon not really seen elsewhere; baseball players who can’t run at all don’t make it to the maj…oh, Jack Cust. Hockey players who can’t skate don’t make it to the NH…oh, no one makes it to the NHL. Well – anyway – goofy tall white stiffs entertain me. It doesn’t get much more whiter or stiffer than Serge Zwikker.

Zwikker is from the Netherlands. Instead of being the target man Ajax never had and making tens of millions of dollars in soccer, he decided hey – I will be the comically weak link on some Tar Heel teams. He got to play alongside some UNC greats like Rasheed Wallace, Antawn Jamison, and DANTE CALABRIA!!!! (deserving of an FPotM of his own). I am also sure Stuart Scott tried to do the Def Comedy Jam white guy voice to him at a party at some point and Serge probably punched him in the face and got him started on the road to his glass eye.

That may have been the highlight of Serge’s life, since he wasn’t much for basketball. He was drafted by the Rockets 30^th overall but didn’t make it out of camp. From there…he lived a short life playing in Europe until, well…let’s just present the translation of the Dutch press release, uncut and unedited – including a picture of our boy at retirement.

Serge Zwikker has stopped with immediate entrance at Conesco Den Helder. The 2.19 meters long center arrived after a long career at North Carolina, the Houston Rockets, Tau Ceramica in Spain, Gorizia in Italy and Breogan in Spain eventually in Den Helder, but say be able produce motivation no longer. Because he was still repairing of a blessure arrived he on the bank and hardly played, that he moreover knew a situation of its time in Houston and at Tau. Afterwards he, that it had been better to the Netherlands not come, puts. Zwikker, married with American, departure next week to its second fatherland to build a new existence there.

I cannot describe how the idea of Zwikker producing motivation produces me to tears of laughter. I cannot even FATHOM what Serge Zwikker does now as part of his new existence. What do you think he would do for a job? Work in a mall somewhere? Anyone who snaps a picture of Serge Zwikker working at Hot Topic gets $50 in VP Cash.