Those Were the Days is a weekly article in which Gamervision employees share video game-related memories. If you’ve got a story of your own to share, please do so! We love hearing from the community.

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NBA Jam holds a very special place in my heart.  Out of all the tens of thousands of video games I’ve played, I may have logged the most hours on NBA Jam.  When it was out in the arcades I would collect my allowance and any other money I could get my hands on and head down to the local mall to spend it all on Midway’s wacky hoops game, and when it came out for the Sega Genesis, I spent every latchkey minute of my after-school life glued to it.  It’s the only game I ever won money playing, it’s the only game I ever found a code for on my own, and it’s the game that facilitated my dropping out of college.  It’s also the only game that ever really freaked me out.  Not like a Doom 3 or Silent Hill kind of freaked out, either; the real kind.

Back in July of 1993, a friend of mine (who would later become my best man, my brother-in-law, and my boss) and I were at the Plymouth Meeting Mall in Pennsylvania.  As usual, we were in the arcade, known at the time as Supercade.  Though we dabbled in everything from Rampart to High Impact Football to that game where you punch the pad to see how hard you hit, we always came back to NBA Jam.  At the time, I was a huge fan of Shawn Kemp, the 7-foot power forward who lit up the league for 5 years, then got really fat and had a bunch of illegitimate children.  As such, I always used the Seattle SuperSonics, with Kemp and fellow big man, Benoit Benjamin.  Sean was a big Nets fan, so he usually used New Jersey’s deadly combo of Derrick Coleman and Drazen Petrovic, but this day, he chose to use the Boston Celtics, with their duo of Reggie Lewis and Kevin McHale.  Perhaps he was sick of losing and wanted to switch up.  More likely, however, is that he felt weird using the team since his favorite player, Drazen Petrovic, had died mere weeks before in a tragic car accident on the Autobahn.

Regardless, we tipped off and went about our high-flying, goaltending ways.  If I remember correctly, it was a very close game throughout, but I honestly don’t recall who won.  The score was inconsequential, however, considering the creepiness that occurred in the fourth quarter.  Sean was something of a gunner; he loved the three ball and shot from the perimeter pretty much any chance he got.  Therefore, when he launched up a trey with shot-blocker supreme Shawn Kemp under the basket, it wasn’t all that surprising.  What was surprising is the game announcer’s reaction to the shot.  For some reason, when Reggie Lewis shot the ball, the game shouted “Petrovic for three!”  We both heard it, and looked at each other, puzzled.  It was odd, but nothing that was going to stop us from finishing the game.  We finished, then went about our business, mentioning the occurrence again, but not thinking much of it.

That was on July 25.

Reggie Lewis died unexpectedly of a heart attack on the court on July 27, just two days later. 

Maybe since Sean used the Nets so often, it had Petrovic’s name cached under his profile.  Maybe it was a random fluke thing.  Or maybe, just maybe, the game was possessed by some demon with a mad-on for the NBA’s Atlantic Conference, like a high-tech Ouija board.  Either way, it happened, and for the last 15 years, it has haunted me.

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