When the Dallas Mavericks introduced Mavrello Ballovic as their newest mascot or whatever he is, I almost lost it. Give me a break. Where do I start? OK, first, I rode a Boys Club van every day with him to middle school. It took us from East Dallas to Trinity Christian, in Addison. So don’t give me this Ballovic stuff. Back in 1980, he was Mavrello Muldoon. Look it up. He was in my confirmation class. He picked Saint Drogo, the patron saint of unattractive people, because he thought it was funny.
Great athlete, though. No question. I know he’s a bit round, but don’t let that fool you. He ran like the wind. I don’t think a single Trinity Valley player ever tackled him. Sorry, I know it’s confusing. Lots of schools around here with Trinity in the name. Holy Trinity. And then there’s Trinity Industries. Trinity River. Trinity Groves. Trinity Hall.
Where was I? Oh, anyway, this whole thing was a Citizens Council deal. You know that, right? The Mavericks needed—I don’t know what you’d call him. He’s not exactly a puppet. An avatar? So, you know, Brint Ryan and Elaine Agather and Tony Romo and the rest of them all got together and decided that Mavrello would get the job, even though he hadn’t accepted anyone’s LinkedIn request in, like, forever. I guess it was all the degrees? You have to give him that. He’s got DeVry and Phoenix and too many others to keep track of. Dude can study.
I could have told you how this would turn out. I saw it coming. When you take a job like this, you need allies. That ain’t Mavrello. He likes to eat wings by himself, if you know what I mean. So he comes in, buys a bunch of expensive office furniture, takes a side job as basically a Walmart greeter at a law firm, and refuses to even talk with Champ or Mavs Man. It’s weird. No way does that situation play out well. You need either Champ or Mavs Man on your side to get anything accomplished. It’s pretty easy. T-shirt cannons are awesome. And even if you think dunking off a trampoline is silly, why not give the guy some love? But Mavrello treated them both like they were Kiki Vandeweghe. Good luck with all that.
Where does he go from here? Some folks will tell you that Mavrello has his sights set on Eddie Bernice Johnson’s seat in the 30th Congressional District. I’m not so sure. Think about what that means. He is a basketball who is faking a Slavic accent and has one foam hand, a permanent 5 o’clock shadow, and a gold front tooth. I’m not sure what’s going on with the hair. I don’t see it happening. Plus it’s really strange that Cynt Marshall claims she has never heard of him.
