This is an opinion column.

Allen … Allen … Allen…

Lameka Sears knew the tall man. The tall man amid the meandering thousands inside State Farm Stadium. It was last Saturday evening, a couple of hours before her son, Mark Sears, and the Alabama Crimson Tide tipped off for the first time ever in the Final Four.

Lameka knew the tall man. …Boston Celtics…shoot the lights out …

Amid the madness, though, since becoming the unapologetic face of every young athlete’s mama, the unbridled passion of dreams long named and claimed, the unbowed resilience of a life burdened by rejection, since becoming “hype mama,” as I dubbed her, Lameka just couldn’t quite … recall … his …

“Allen Iverson!”

The tall man’s expression said all.

“He just looked at me,” Lameka recalls, “and said, ‘It’s … Ray … Allen.’”

She laughed, blamed “mommy brain fog”, and told the tall man—the Basketball Hall of Fame tall man—about her son. Of course, she did. It’s what hype mamas do. What Lameka has done since her firstborn was in her womb. Before she even knew the gender of the life inside her.

“I spoke over him in the womb that he would be a male,” she is saying, “that he would be the big man on campus. It’s crazy to see all this come to pass. My husband and I can attest to where he’s at now because of what we prayed, believed, and continue to speak.”

It’s a few days after the tall-man faux pas. Days after Lameka and seven others—including husband Carl and daughter Makenzie, a talented 5-9 sophomore forward at Muscle Shoals High School—boarded a private plane in their city for the most memorable weekend in Alabama basketball history.

By then Lameka was a national television and arena big-screen cutaway favorite, as she mimicked her son’s free throws (she was a 5′7′ high-school guard in Tupelo, Miss—and, duh, a cheerleader, too) and his on-court moves.

Hordes of Tide faithful sought Lameka out for a selfie at nearly every turn in Arizona, then watched Alabama fall gallantly in the semifinals to eventual national champion UConn.

It had been weeks, long before the national spotlight hit, since folks began being drawn to hype mama, to the lady with —her words— ”all the high notes,” the golden mane, sequined tops, and that where-can-I-get-it, blinged-out red basketball shaped bag.

“It started with people just wanting to take a picture with me, then someone said, ‘Wow, you’re more famous than Mark,” she says with that bottomless laugh. “I said, ‘No, this is just me naturally. High energy. Positive. I just love people. This is just what I do.’”

Because she wasn’t always loved.

There’s almost always a journey behind the joy, one most often obscured by the bright light of the moment. Almost always hurdles behind the hype buried behind the bling.

“I can thank my absent dad,” Lameka begins sharing, “for that spirit of rejection I had to overcome.”

She calls it her “honest truth”, being the daughter of a—her words—a “pop-up” dad (“When he was in town,” he’d call), a dad who’s been married (not Lameka’s mom) for 43 years, a dad who adopted another daughter.

“I’m thankful for [him and his wife] now but growing up [absence] was a big part of my makeup,” Lameka says. “I generally just loved all people because I felt like I was missing something. My grandfather did a great job of making me feel loved, but there was still a difference—that void.”

A void she vowed to fill, vowed as early as a teenager when she prayed and wrote down her prayers: to have a family, a husband, and “be the mom, be supportive, all these things I wanted but did not have. And be there for my children to make my kids feel special.”

A practicing nurse, Lameka can laugh now about her self-diagnosis, how she “overdid” it trying to fulfill prayers and prophecy. To be present at every one of Mark and Makenzie’s games. Every one. You don’t have to go, she was often told.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “Other people didn’t understand my ‘why’. I did, but it wasn’t for them to know. You can’t share everything with everyone. I felt like I could have achieved so much more had I had the type of love and support we give to our son and daughter.”

Carl and Lameka met while students at the University of North Alabama. They met in the library. She was looking for a bibliography card on Florence Nightingale. “He didn’t let me go,” she says.

After working through the COVID-19 pandemic, Lameka joined UAB Hospital last year, before returning to Muscle Shoals. She now works at Huntsville Hospital. Carl teaches fourth grade at Harland Elementary in Florence.

If Lemeka’s the high notes, Carl and Makinzie are smooth jazz. They’ve grown used to her crescendo, to watching her become the center of every circle.

Not surprisingly Lameka was widely recognized at the stadium—and not just by Tide fans. “You’re that mom! You’re her! You’re Mark’s mom!”

The Sears clan arrived at the stadium about two hours before game time, but Lameka had to be dragged from photo-seekers (Carl and Mackenzie—”Just look at mom,” the teen said in a very teen tone—went ahead to their seats) by friend (and outfit designer) Misty to their seats so not to miss tipoff. “We made it by ten minutes.”

Michael Cummings calls his daughter “Shenae”. During their rare telephone calls or visits over the years, Lemeka told him of the gifted calling she and her husband spoke over his grandson. When it began to manifest during Mark’s high-school seasons, he came around more often. “He told me, ‘Shenae, you were right.’,” Lameka recalls. “I said, ‘I told you. The standard didn’t change because now you’re showing up.’”

Carl struggled with Cummings’s absence in his wife’s life; how own father was absent, too Lemeka says. “He cannot understand why a man can’t be there for their child.” Carl watched his wife hurt, watched her process through it, sometimes directing the pain towards him. “It wasn’t easy on him because I would retaliate on him,” Lemeka says. “Thank God he understood me and was more patient with me.”

Michael Cummings was in Arizona, certainly. He and Lemeka’s brother Dion. Both men flew in from Michigan on game day. The Sears scrambled to find between 20 and 30 tickets—Final Four tickets. “I need just one more ticket, just one more,” was Lameka’s mantra. “We were that family,” she says.

Some were secured at the last minute. Meaning some were going to be scattered around the venue, not with the family’s primary block near the bench (“My mom was gonna be right there,” Lameka said. “I wasn’t gonna bump her. She’s always been there.”)

Meaning someone was not going to be happy.

Minutes into the game, Lameka received a text—at 8:26 p.m., she still has the text—from her father’s wife, who was not at the game. It’s not worth sharing the word-by-word. Suffice it to say the text was about Cummings’ seat. Yeah, a seat.

He and Dion were in separate single seats, floor-level seats Lameka conjured just minutes before the game. The text questioned whether the separation was “by design” and perhaps reflected “how far apart you really feel about him.”

“That text sent me. …” Lameka paused. “I just shattered. It brought back so many memories.” Memories of the rejection, memories of lack, memories of being there for him during a health scare.

Memories that fuel her now, that inspire her to break the chain for her children.

“I thought, “You’re talking about [apart] for a game and I’m talking about a lifetime.’ I felt, like, ‘Wow.’”

She paused again.

“I said, ‘I am so sorry. That is in no way by design. I did the best I could. Can I please just ask for some peace while I watch my son live his dream?’”

At halftime, Lameka learned seats in the row behind them belonged to fans of Purdue, which won the doubleheader opener. By halftime they were empty. She called her brother and told him to get their father and come to their section.

Yeah, seats.

Lameka always tries to seek the message of God in all circumstances.

It wasn’t for everyone to know then, not last Saturday evening in the Arizona desert. Not then. Yet if you wondered why you didn’t see as much hype mom as you thought you might, now you know.

“It was a dagger,” she says of the text. “But let me tell you, I said, ‘Satan, I don’t how to come, you’re not going to rob this moment we prayed for, that we believed for. I cannot hold back the joy, the happiness God is allowing me to celebrate in this moment.’”

I gotta be me, is what she told herself. Gotta be hype mom—too focused on her son, on the manifested moment to even catch herself on the stadium’s big screen or give a care as the score moved toward the inevitable.

“I was gonna be right there in the moment with Mark,” she says. “We’ve lost before but I’m still standing. Still cheering. Still motivating. Still doing the things that I do because he was not going to experience that moment by himself.”

Like so many she experienced alone.

I’m a member of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. My column appears on AL.com, as well as the Lede. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj.