I have distinct memories of going inside a Naga bamboo hut and being stunned they had a giant tapestry of Jesus holding a lamb on the wall.

Those were the days...

Above all, I’m just glad I got to know him—and, as always, constantly humbled to have the opportunity to affect people whose lived experiences are so unlike my own. Rest in peace, Jerry.

And though I understand McHale might never make the Hall, I contend he deserves at least a small display in which his mighty contribution to the sport is acknowledged. Your favorite player might’ve missed dozens more games without McHale’s ingenuity.

When we said goodbye, of course, I knew it would be the last time we’d ever speak. He passed away yesterday, surrounded by loved ones. But I’ll always think of him whenever I see a wounded basketball player with their face smooshed behind a face mask.

With a shaky voice, McHale managed to update me on his Hall of Fame campaign. He said he’d reached out to Isiah Thomas in the hopes he’d lobby for his posthumous candidacy. And he told me a story about a cool prosthetic arm he’d jury-rigged for a soldier in Alaska.

Then about two weeks ago, I got an email from McHale’s nephew. Jerry had just entered hospice and he wanted to speak to me on the phone. Of course I said yes.

But the Hall wasn’t all we’d discuss. He’d let me know how his family was doing, and he’d inquire after my own. He’d tell me how proud he was of his son who is an accomplished documentary filmmaker. And he’d share yarns about all the artificial limbs he’d designed over his long career.

Every so often over the two decades that followed, McHale would drop me a note about his continuing efforts to be elected to the Hall. Using my story as Exhibit A in his case, he managed to make the preliminary ballot a few times. But he could never muster enough votes to break through.

Back then I rarely gave my stories a second thought after hitting “send” on the final draft. But this one was different: McHale was quite taken with the idea of making the Hall, and he reached out to express his gratitude for my advocacy. And then we…just kept talking. For years and years and years.

I decided to write a brief piece for @slate.com in which I argued that McHale deserved enshrinement in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Think of how much viewing enjoyment his invention preserved for us peons!

McHale never patented the mask he designed for Laimbeer, so he never profited from the proliferation of the device in the NBA in the years to come. But he was delighted to have played a small-yet-vital role in basketball history.

A little more digging led me to the inventor of Laimbeer’s mask, a Michigan-based orthotist named Gerald “Jerry” McHale. I called him up and we chatted at length about his work, which had enabled untold hundreds of basketball players to play through grievous facial injuries.

James’s triumph over adversity made me curious about the history of plastic face masks in basketball. It turned out that the first player to wear one was Bill Laimbeer, who started doing so after getting his cheek shattered in 1990.

But James missed almost zero time, largely thanks to the plastic face mask he started wearing to protect his broken cheekbone. He scored 26 versus the Hornets just days after getting thwacked with an elbow that would’ve killed you or I.