Game 18: Angela Worthy - Pecan Pie
One of my favorite shirts is a snug fitting white T of James Worthy in a law office. He’s standing next to his heavy mahogany desk, one leg crossed over the other (the power cross) and two fingers resting on the table (power fingys). It’s straight out of an L.A. Power Lawyers of 1988 special advertising section in Los Angeles magazine. What it actually shows is a reprint of Worthy’s 1980s Costacos Brothers poster, those iconic aesthetic treasures of the Greed Decade featuring sports heroes in over-the-top fantasy scenarios based off their nickname or team’s city -- or in Worthy’s case, a popular TV show that had nothing to do with him.
Costacos Brothers posters were knowingly ridiculous, but I guess Big Game James Worthy decked out in colonial Safari gear and a giant hunting rifle was too on the nose?
Worthy’s photoshoot law office is decked out to give the impression that Worthy practiced tort legislation during the off-season. There’s a pair of purple and gold New Balance sneakers on his desk and a Nerf basketball hoop with a backboard that reads “Worthy’s Law.” There’s even a gorgeous, attentive secretary bringing him papers to sign. That woman wasn’t some for-hire model for the day. That woman was James’ wife Angela Worthy, someone who was most definitely not resigned to the fate of some background prop.
Like most of the Laker Ladies, Angela likely knew deep down inside that her husband was a cheater. That’s just how it was for the Showtime Lakers. They all -- except A.C. Green, who was in a committed relationship with God -- cheated. As long as he brought home the bacon and she kept the house and kids in order, everyone put on a happy face in public. But Worthy broke that very Sopranos-esque pact between the players and wives: He got sloppy and she found out. But she found out with the rest of us on national news.
On November 16th, 1990, James was arrested by two undercover vice officers of the Houston Police Department after trying to arrange a 3:00pm double blowjob hours before the Lakers played the Rockets. Worthy was arrested, booked, and then released, making his way onto the court just after the start of the 2nd quarter. He scored 24 points. Angela was shopping for new furniture for their home when she found out.
Stashed suspicions aside, this was still a shocking blow to Angela. She had just given birth to their first child seven months earlier and now her name was known by people who didn’t even know what team Worthy played on. They were once college sweethearts, but now they were tabloid caricatures. During breakfast, she opened the LA Times to find writers like Mike Downey defending James Worthy while also chastising a local news anchor for saying “our hearts go out to Angela Worthy.” Just days after his arrest, it was also reported that James’ name was listed on the log of a Portland escort service. Angela would later tell Oprah that she drank herself to sleep every night during this period.
According to Jeff Pearlman’s Showtime, Angela wrote “the theme of our marriage is loss” in her diary and left him soon after. She was forced into signing a prenup early in their marriage and risked losing everything if she didn’t take him back. Hopefully, she was able to find some cracks in that prenup because their legal separation wasn’t finalized until 1996.
Several years after their divorce, Angela, now going by her maiden name Angela Wilder, became a family therapist and counselor. In 2004, she wrote a book titled Powerful Mate Syndrome: Reclaiming Your Strength and Purpose When Your Partner Is the Star of the Relationship. It was released around the time of Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault case when his wife Vanessa, finger clad in an enormous diamond, became the late night talk shows’ newest target of fidelity fodder. The book offers self-empowering advice to women stuck in an imbalanced relationship like hers with James, which she describes as enthroning him “as the king of my world and, rather than doing what it took to be a powerful queen, I assumed the role as the king’s subject."
After multiple leg injuries forced him into early retirement at 32, James went on to the usual path of a star athlete who excelled in high school, college, and the pros. He did a little acting, then settled into the expected role of an in-studio analyst for the Lakers. Big Game James now rests on his laurels, offering up the kind of stale commentary you can expect from the majority of ex athletes with a cushy job. Meanwhile, Angela has turned her past pain into her own business as a self-improvement consultant for “identity capital.” What is that? As Angela puts it in her own words: "I coach my clients in building their identity capital and consequently consciously creating their identity as opposed to allowing it to be created randomly. Our identity is like an investment portfolio; the more we put into it, the more we will have to draw upon later."
15 years after writing Powerful Mate Syndrome, there’s some ambiguity as to who was the powerful mate in hers and James’ relationship.
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Pecan Pie
Pie crust:
1 ½ cups flour
½ cup all vegetable shortening
¼ cup ice cold water
¼ teaspoon salt
Pecan filling:
1 pound light brown sugar
3 eggs
¼ cup butter, melted
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon rum
2 tablespoons milk
1 ½ cup pecans, chopped
Pie Crust: Add shortening to flour and salt and mix thoroughly with a fork. Add the ice water and blend well. Roll out and place in pie pan.
Pecan Filling: Stir eggs, lightly. Slowly beat in the sugar and butter. Add milk while stirring constantly. Add salt, vanilla, and rum to mix. Sprinkle ½ of the pecans over the bottom of the unbaked pie shell. Pour in filling, sprinkle the remaining pecans over the top. Bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the pie is almost set. Reduce heat to 225 degrees and cook for 15 minutes, or until pie is thoroughly set. To serve, to top with vanilla ice cream or freshly whipped cream.
“The Pecan Pie is the South’s most popular pie. Recipes tend to vary from one to another. This one has been used in my family for many years.”
I cheated with this recipe. I didn’t make the pie crust. But I have a good excuse.
I was pushing a stone out of my penis.
In a future post, you’ll read about Mitch Chortkoff’s broccoli and chicken recipe. It involved baking chicken in a whipped cream mixture. It was not good. It was so bad that when I woke up the next day at 6am with pain in my lower back and heavy nausea, I thought it was the insane meal trying desperately to escape my body by any means necessary.
It was not the meal. It was a kidney stone slowly making its way from my kidney to my bladder through a thin tube called the ureter. I still maintain that I threw up from the chicken and not the pain.
Long story short, I spent most of the week of 11/18/19 alternating between Kaiser Permanente and my toilet, trying to piss out my new friend. It was not a great week. And I while I had confidence in my ability to make a pie shell after watching a single YouTube video, I was too busy focusing on my penis. A rock came out of it. I hope you understand.
Oh, the pie! It was great. I’ve never had homemade pecan pie before. With Angela’s recipe, the hefty pound of brown sugar ensures that with each bite, chunks of pecan are grouted into your chompers. Make sure your fillings aren’t loose before you make this.
