Earl the Pearl

by Earl Monroe

  He was very angry about what I did, because it might have damaged the surface of the wood for good. Now, I admit I was wrong, but I was about six foot three at the time, much taller than him—he was about five nine—and athletic. Plus, I was street smart by this time and had a couple of large, dangerous cousins, Jimmy and Joe, in my family who might have seriously hurt him if he hit me. So he couldn’t even think about physically jumping on me, though I wanted him to, because then I would have had an excuse to beat him up because of the way he was treating my mother.

  “I’ll kill you!” I shouted.

  He was shocked and my mother was afraid someone was going to get hurt, so she jumped between us.

  “Git out of the house!” he screamed. “Git out!”

  So I left, went down to Aunt Nicey’s house to chill out for a minute. After that the psychological mind games he’d always played on me didn’t matter to me anymore. They didn’t work, because by now people were always trying to use similar mind games on me while playing basketball, or when they didn’t want me to succeed. I just didn’t listen to that kind of stuff anymore, because I was beginning to know who I was and it didn’t make any difference what anybody said about me when they tried to play games with my mind. None of that stuff worked because I’d learned to just block it out.

  I never was very close to John Smith, though I didn’t hate him or anything like that. He was an okay kind of guy, but, like I said, I just didn’t like the way he treated my mother. For example, on occasions my stepfather would stay out late, or go away for a couple of days. Then, when he came home, he and my mother would argue loudly and fiercely about his whereabouts; they would fight sometimes, and he would hit her. I remember one time when this happened, my mother saw me watching, and she looked at me and winked, as if to tell me, “It’s okay, I got it. It’s under control.”

  If she hadn’t done that, I don’t know what would have happened, because I was so angry with him there’s no telling what I might have done. I think I probably would have jumped on my stepfather and beat his ass, even though I’ve always hated violence.

  Now, as I have said, my mother wasn’t a fat woman, but she was kind of big, being around five foot eleven—which is where I got my height—and she was very strong. She was bigger than my stepfather and could take a punch, too (and she took a lot of them in that relationship). My stepfather, who looked like the actor Courtney Vance (the husband of actress Angela Bassett), was a muscular man who always took care of himself and his body. Those fights I saw between my mother and stepfather were one of the things that led me to feel violence was never the answer to any problem even between men, but especially between men and women. That’s why I never wanted to get involved in hitting a woman, because I saw a lot of it when I was growing up and I knew what it did to me as a kid watching it happen.

  My mother would always do anything she could to try and protect me in those situations. But seeing those fights also taught me what men like to do when they’re wrong. My stepfather would come in late and try to have sex with my mother, as if fucking was the cure-all that would solve everything, but it didn’t. It never worked on my mother, because they just kept on fighting. I knew that my mother was trying hard just to keep everything together and to make sure we were able to grow up as painlessly as possible. So I grew up under those circumstances with my stepfather. It wasn’t a hard life, because he always brought home the bacon, you know, the money.

  My stepfather’s skill as a butcher came in handy later on, when he and my mother bought the building with the grocery store and renamed it Smith’s Grocery Store. The store was on the first floor and we lived on the second and third floors; our kitchen was located on the first floor, behind the grocery store. The building was located at South 26th and Manton Street. My stepfather butchered all the meats there, and that store kept my family—and me—in money, even after I graduated from high school. I could always go into the store and go through the cash register to get myself a little pocket change, fix myself a sandwich to go. Later on, when my guys came over after basketball games, we could eat well. My mother always said I ate up the profits. So having the grocery store was cool. My stepfather was always good financially for the family. It was just that he and I had this strained relationship because of how he treated my mother, and I always loved my mother more than anything in the world.

  We also had a certain dress style in the clothes we wore back in Philadelphia during those days, and we thought the clothes we wore reflected the kind of city we were: cool. There was a style called “yock,” and if you were a yock that meant you were a cool dresser. Yocks wore brogans that were always shined real high, or quarter vance (a shoeshine that was real high gloss). You wore your pants up a little high, a tad bit over the tops of your shoes. You also wore a little cap, you know, not the Big Apple kind of cap, but just a little straight cap with a little bill and a snap up in the front. When you dressed like this, this said you were cool. You wore coats and button-down shirts with no ties. But if you did wear a tie, you wore it with a button-down shirt. You might have a suit, whatever. But your outfits were always sharp and clean, pressed real well. We called this pressed look “blade,” which meant you were sharp as a tack, dressed to the nines, and looking good.

  Toward the end of my junior year, in 1961, Coach Klingman told me that Coach Coma was thinking of bringing Smitty, Leap, and me up to the varsity squad to stay and to play in the tournament games, and he did. The varsity already had a really good squad that many thought was one of the best in the city. Boyd O’Neal, who was a senior and one of two black players on the team, was All-City and played the center spot. The other black player was Willie Mobley, six foot two, who went on to be signed by the New York Yankees baseball team. The other three starters were Chris Kefalos, a six four sophomore forward; Bill Spencer, a six foot senior point guard; and Bob Lohse, a senior, who was about six one. With those guys already in place, we knew we might not play too much, but still it was exciting to get called up and I saw it as an opportunity to move closer to my dream of playing at a very high level and on a more public stage.

  The star of the varsity team, Boyd O’Neal, was a really good guy and a tenacious rebounder. When he graduated from Bartram, he went on to Southern Illinois University, where he played with Walt Frazier. The other good player on that team was Chris Kefalos, who was a really good shooter. (Chris was Greek, and later, after playing ball for Temple University, he went over to Greece and played for the Greek national team; he stayed over there for years, playing and coaching.)

  My two friends and I were overjoyed when we were promoted up to the varsity, even though it happened at the end of the second semester. Coach Coma brought us up because he wanted to have a stronger team to play in the championship tournament, and adding the three of us did make our team better. I became a starter when I was called up, although I didn’t score much. I did manage to do a few things that made people notice me, though.

  Bartram went on to play in the city championship game at the Palestra that year, which is where we played all the championship basketball games in Philadelphia back then. We were matched up against Saint Thomas More High School, a Catholic school, on Saint Patrick’s Day, with two Irish guys, Art McNally and Tom McCollum, serving as referees. We lost that game 51–50, in a very close back-and-forth, nip-and-tuck battle.

  That championship game was very competitive and the loss hurt me real bad, because I thought we really had the best team. Some people said the referees impacted the game because Saint Thomas More was a Catholic team comprised mostly of Irish players. So the loss was a little controversial. But who was going to say anything? Saint Thomas More had some good players, even if I don’t remember their names, except for Bobby Zell, who I think scored 11 points in that game. They also had a guy named Larry White who maybe had about 12 and another guy named Joe Burton who led them with 14 points. For us, I think Lohse scored 11 points, O’Neal had 13, and Mobley had 14. I played for four minutes and scored 4
points, and I think Leap played in that game but I don’t think he scored. In truth, I also thought there were some questionable calls. But it is what it is and they won and that’s history now. Case closed.

  Playing in the city championship game was really memorable for me, especially because I was playing at the legendary Palestra—the University of Pennsylvania’s gym—for the first time and hearing all those screaming people. It was a shot of adrenaline for me, and it gave me a lot of confidence going into my senior year.

  There was something I noticed about playing with my white teammates at Bartram, and with Boyd O’Neal also, who was black. What I understood was that the white players hung with each other off the court, and even when we weren’t playing together in the gym. Maybe it was because they were from the same neighborhood and it was a cultural thing. Maybe it was a racial thing. I don’t know and didn’t think too deeply about it at the time. On the other hand, the black guys on the team did the same thing; we hung with each other in the same way, with the exception of Boyd O’Neal, who kind of hung by himself. See, he was from an upper-class black family that lived in integrated West Philly, and me and my other black teammates were all from our section of South Philly, which was almost all black. Maybe that was cultural, too, or a class thing. Again, I don’t know, but it was just something I noticed then and would see a lot of on teams I played for over the years—and in society—later on.

  I worked harder to get better and that hard work and focus helped me a lot in terms of improving my game over the summer of 1961. By that summer I had developed a lot of different skills—my passing, dribbling, and shooting had all improved significantly—out on the playground with the Trotters, and by this time I was the star of that team. But as we got better individually, we also grew as a team. I had started out with these guys as the low man on the totem pole, but by now I was the top man on that pole. At that time, we were playing on the playground against guys in college and my confidence in my game was growing by leaps and bounds. It’s funny because I went from sitting on the sidelines watching other players get to play and hoping to get picked to being the one who got picked all the time. That was very satisfying.

  By the time I was going into my senior year in high school, everybody wanted me on their squad in those playground battles, and those games were great. We had a saying on the playgrounds in Philly, “Rise and shine,” which meant as long as your team won when you played in a pickup game, the team could keep playing. If you lost you had to sit down and wait until some other team lost; then you might play again. But that losers list was long. So when you were playing, everybody played hard, played their asses off, so they wouldn’t have to sit down and wait for another chance to play, which might take all day. Essentially, those people that were beginning to know about me in Philadelphia knew me for being able to go to the basket and do trick shots off of the backboard. Besides, after I lost a game the other team coming onto the court always picked me to run with them.

  During that summer, I added a skill that improved my game dramatically. This happened when an older guy named Ron Ford showed me how he did the spin move, which I had watched him do a couple of times out on the playground when I played against him. The move really excited me. So one day he showed me how he executed the move. The way he did it was that he used two hands when he spun, but the hand he had the ball in was held away from his body. For instance, if he was dribbling with his left hand he would transfer the ball to his right hand out on the court and then spin with it in that hand and go to the hole. When he spun, he would do it with the ball in his right hand, but it would be away from his body, and that was too slow for me.

  So, the way I taught myself to do it was that I would be facing my opponent out on the court, coming at him at full speed. Then I would stutter-step the defender, fake right, and when he moved to one side or defended me going right, I would spin to the left with the ball in my right hand, close to my body, and get my shoulders past the opponent. Then I would move my head and shoulder by him just as I was spinning with the ball still in my right hand (it could be my left hand, too, because I taught myself to do it with both hands). Then when I was past the defender—the only way he could stop me was to put his arm out and that would be a foul—I’d be on my way to the bucket, and then there really wasn’t much anybody could do but just watch me go up and score. That move was a revelation for me. It was also a fluid move, all in one motion, and it had to be executed lightning quick. It was also a devastating move for my opponent to guard, and once I got it all together it raised my game to another level. When I added the spin move to my repertoire, you know, that was the beginning of me being able to hold my own against anyone playing basketball in Philadelphia.

  That was the difference between my spin move and Ron’s: Mine was quicker than his and got me to the basket faster. But I only did the move out on the playground, never in organized games, until I left Philadelphia to go to college. Still, I give credit to Ron Ford for showing me the move and to my great friend Smitty for letting me know who showed me the move after I had forgotten who it was.

  The interesting thing about becoming “the man” in any sport is that when you become a star you start to carry yourself differently. Your walk changes, as does your attitude. And your ears start turning around like those of cats and you can even pick up the whispers that are going around in the crowd when you walk in to play. When you’re the man, you hear people whispering your name, almost in awe: “Look, that’s Earl Monroe—‘Thomas Edison,’ ‘the Duke of Earl’! Man, he’s a bad motherfucker! One of the best around!”

  When I started hearing those things being said about me it changed the way I felt about myself and my game. Now, I started wanting the ball in my hands at crunch time out on the playground and in my last year at Bartram, so I would have it in my hands so I could take the last shot if that’s what was needed to win a game. I found myself starting to strut a little, even though I was a very shy person. But I found myself getting used to it, even reveling in that role to the point where I was not afraid of taking that last shot because I believed I could make it and, more importantly, my teammates believed I could make it, too.

  I remember a girl who was in my homeroom class in 10th grade. Her name was Patricia Holte, and she later became Patti LaBelle. She became the leader of the group Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, which was later shortened to just plain LaBelle. Then, she went out on her own and kept right on putting out hits. Patti was just a friend back at John Bartram; we never went out together on a date. I remember her winning the talent show in our junior year of high school with her singing, which was off-the-charts great even back then.

  That talent show was organized by a student teacher named Eileen Brown, who later became the president of Cambridge College in Boston. Anyway, people were already whispering about how good Patti was when she just blew all the competition away with her fabulous voice in that talent show. What happened was, Patti was part of a girl group and another girl was singing lead and she couldn’t cut it, couldn’t hit the high notes. So Patti just kind of pushed her aside and stepped out front and bam! she hit all the notes and everyone went, like, Whoooooo! Her voice was unbelievable and it’s been like that ever since. Her voice never really seemed to change, she’s been able to transform herself so many different times. She’s had a phenomenal career and she’s just an incredible person. I guess hearing her at that talent show was just a sign of things to come, because I always knew she had it in her to be very successful.

  Sometime during my senior year I ran into Ollie Chamberlain, the younger brother of the great Wilt Chamberlain. See, Ollie went to Bartram with me and I had always liked the socks that Wilt wore when he played. The socks were called “hunter” socks. They were thicker than regular socks and they had red tops. I wore them because Wilt wore them and because I had little skinny legs. So the socks were long and could cover up most of my legs because they extended up to and over my calves. But I always wanted to get a pair from Wil
t because his were even longer. So one day when I saw Ollie at school, I asked him;

  “Ollie, does Wilt have an extra pair of hunter socks laying around? If he does do you think you could get me a pair?”

  So he said, “Yeah, Earl, he’s got plenty, I’ll get you a pair.”

  The next day he brought them to school with him and I wore those socks in practice, in games, on the playgrounds, everywhere I played. I wore them so much I wore the bottoms out of them. After that I wore them over other socks when I played, which hid my skinny legs a little more. Man, I wore those socks my whole senior year and then I retired them and put them in safekeeping. But there’s a final story about these socks that I will tell toward the end of this story, which comes at an important moment.

  We had another good squad during my senior year at Bartram, with Chris Kefalos; John Lampe, a six-foot-four forward; Leaping John Anderson; Frank Kunze, a six three guard; my friend Smitty at point guard; and me playing center. I had a real good year and led the city in scoring, averaging 21.4 points a game. That’s when people—you know, sportswriters, college coaches, and fans—really started to notice me. I think our record was 13 and 3, and we played for the Public School League championship against West Philadelphia, which we lost 76 to 73. That was another hard-fought, very close game.