Becoming Kareem

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  We were also in Little League together and spent as much time as possible playing stickball with the other neighborhood kids. When we were together, no one picked on either of us because we had each other’s back. They knew that even mild-mannered Lew wouldn’t back down from a fight if anyone threatened Johnny. As far as both of us were concerned, we were each other’s brother. Color didn’t matter.

  2.

  First Coaches: Mom and Dad Sang the Same Song

  My parents were my first coaches. Together they had just one goal for Team Lewis Alcindor: Education! Education! and—say it with me—Education! My mom was especially fervent in preaching the gospel of education from her kitchen table pulpit. Her child was going to go to school every day, study hard, and get straight As. Nothing short of an alien invasion would get in the way. Even then, she’d be the one yanking slimy tentacles and reptilian tails from Martian bodies if they blocked my route to the school.

  “Lewis, what are you doing?” she’d sometimes ask when she saw me being idle for too long.

  “Nothing.”

  “Lots of kids are doing that. But somewhere there’s a child doing extra schoolwork. That’s the one you have to worry about.”

  I didn’t understand why I had to worry about that kid, but I hit the books anyway.

  Most parents in America want a good education for their children. They attend Open House Night, they help build crude models of plant cells, they constantly bring up college as an inevitable destination. But as important as education is to white middle-class and upper-class families, it’s even more important to immigrant families, poor families, minority families. It’s the only practical hope for them to get out of the cycle of poverty that many live in. Education is a life raft on a stormy, dark ocean.

  I wasn’t aware of this when I was a kid and my parents were nagging me to study, study, study. They offered cash incentives for good grades. A good report card meant doubling my allowance to one dollar! That was as far as their hands-on involvement went. If I had a question about my studies, my dad would silently point to a book on the shelf, end of discussion. My mom would just shrug. My parents taught me that education was the key to success, and they did their best to act as cheerleaders to my studies. But when it came to the actual day-to-day learning, I was on my own.

  Fortunately, my default setting was Good Boy, which meant that I pretty much did whatever they told me. If they said study, I studied. If they said wash your hands, I washed my hands. I didn’t whine or complain or talk about how other kids didn’t have to study as much I did. I just said, “Yes, ma’am,” or “Yes, sir,” and got on with it.

  I enjoyed reading and was always ahead of most other students at school. While the rest of my class was working on one story, I had already consumed three. I was an excellent student with great report cards. I guess I was the child other kids had to worry about.

  But I was also reserved in class; I was anxious to please the teachers, so I could get good grades to please my parents. Because I was an only child, all my parents’ focus was on me to succeed. Sometimes I wished I’d had a brother or sister so they could back off from pushing me so much. For my daily routine, I got up, went to school, came home, briefly played with the neighborhood kids, ate dinner, did my homework, watched an hour of TV, went to bed. Being the Good Boy wasn’t exhausting work, but it was boringly predictable.

  3.

  Coach Dad’s Quiet Lessons

  My mom was a seamstress at a large department store. My dad was a transit cop for New York City. They shared a love of music—and of being secretive around me.

  As a child, I didn’t think of my dad as secretive so much as just nonverbal. He didn’t like to talk, as if each word he uttered cost him twenty hard-earned dollars. What he didn’t understand was that each word he didn’t utter cost our relationship a lot more. Days would pass without us talking. When I’d approach him with a problem, he’d react with a cool detachment, like a cop taking notes at a crime scene. Everything he didn’t say that I needed him to say—whether words of advice or encouragement or love—pushed me further from him.

  “Big Al,” as he was called, was two hundred pounds and six foot three. He loomed over my childhood, casting a large, cold shadow. Others in the neighborhood were equally intimidated by his size and his general demeanor of intense judgment. He was the Punisher and Judge Dredd of the housing project.

  My father was considered by many of his friends to be an intellectual because he read so much. Our house was filled with books and magazines, which he would buy, read, and sell back to the used-book store. But having such a well-read father didn’t provide the advantage I’d hoped for. On the one hand, there were plenty of books around that helped me develop my own passion for reading, which has become one of the great joys of my life. On the other, my father used books like the Great Wall of China, to keep intruders out of his private kingdom. If I asked him a question, he’d hand me a book. If I persisted for a more personal response, he’d shoo me away, his book open wide in front of his face so he couldn’t see me.

  While he was in high school, when homes in poor neighborhoods still used real ice as refrigeration, he had a job hauling fifty-pound blocks of ice from wagons up flights of stairs. That’s the image that most stayed with me through my life: my father as an iceman, as cold as the translucent, thick slabs he carried.

  But my dad also had a secret identity: He wasn’t just a cop, he was also an accomplished musician. He had a musicology degree from the Juilliard School of Music, one of the most prestigious music schools in the country. He played trombone with a lot of well-known jazz musicians, many of whom he introduced me to. He and my mom even sang together in the Hall Johnson Choir, a famous black choral ensemble that performed in Broadway shows and movies featuring African American spirituals. Music animated my father. When he was either playing music or dancing, he was smiling and happy. When he wasn’t, it was as if someone had opened his valve and let all the air out. He sagged back into his easy chair, as lifeless as a deflated doll.

  Dad was coaching me even when he didn’t know it. His love of music, especially jazz by greats such as Miles Davis and Gil Evans, infected me, too. Even Big Al noticed my enthusiasm and asked me if I wanted to learn the trombone. He didn’t offer to teach me on his own sacred instrument, of course, but if I wanted to take it up, a friend of his was selling one. The problem was, I didn’t want to play the trombone, I wanted to play the tenor sax like my musical hero John Coltrane. Dad knew I was interested in the sax, and that his musician friends had even offered to give me free lessons, but he never spoke of it. In the end, I abandoned the idea of becoming the next Coltrane because it took too much time and I wasn’t getting any encouragement from home. And as far as Big Al was concerned, either I followed in his rigid footsteps or I was invisible.

  For some fathers and sons, sports can be a bonding experience. Not so much for me and my dad.

  Baseball was my first love, and I gleefully played Little League for four years, from the time I was eight to when I was twelve. My mom and dad came to a couple of Little League games during those four years, but it wasn’t a priority. At least I won Player Having the Most Fun Award. That was a pretty accurate assessment of my sports skills.

  One day, my father decided to play basketball with me. I imagined we were starting a new tradition of the two of us doing more things together. No more just pointing to books and grunting, or freezing me out in silence when I asked a question. Today was the start of a whole new father-son relationship. Soon we’d be chatting about our favorite athletes over breakfast.

  It didn’t happen.

  In his determination to beat me, he threw his elbows into my ribs, shoved me out of his way, and knocked me around as if I were a tackling dummy. “This is how you protect the ball,” he said, then elbowed me in the face. “You gonna let me drive on you like you’re a mannequin?” he’d say, then shoulder me aside as he drove to the basket. I had hoped that he would patiently teach me,
help me improve so he could be proud of me. That we’d laugh about my mistakes the way these father-son scenes played out on television and in movies. Instead, he had brutishly proved his point that he was the man of the house.

  We never played again.

  4.

  Coach Mom’s Practical Lessons

  My mom was a more reasonable coach, and from her I learned how to be pragmatic about daily life, especially about money. Mom controlled the household budget, and though she and my father often argued about finances, Mom always won because Dad had no clue how to budget, pay the bills on time, and make every dollar stretch. Years later, after my mom had died and I was taking care of my dad, I would save money for him just as she had done. Otherwise, he would have gambled it all away on lottery tickets and trips to Las Vegas.

  She also introduced me to one of the most influential coaches in my life: movies. We went to the movies often, especially if the film starred William Holden, whom she had a crush on. At that time, Holden was in his early thirties, a handsome man who often played a lovable rogue, someone just out for himself at the start of the movie, but ending up doing the right thing. We sat through the exciting Holden war films like Stalag 17 and The Bridges at Toko-Ri, as well as the sappy movies like Sabrina and Picnic. I didn’t care as long as I had a bag of popcorn and a cold soda. Those hours we spent watching the movies flicker on the big screen in front of us brought us closer. It was as if we were sharing a secret life filled with adventure.

  I especially loved Westerns, which was a little ironic because my mother was part Cherokee and the villains were often savage Indians. Plus, there weren’t many black people shown, so we didn’t have anyone our color to identify with. I didn’t care. Westerns were a major part of movies and television when I was a kid. There were Westerns on TV every night of the week, and it seemed like a new theatrical release every weekend. One episode of a favorite Western TV show, The Rifleman, particularly affected me. The guest star was Sammy Davis Jr., a popular singer, dancer, and actor who was known for being part of Frank Sinatra’s infamous bad-boy celebrity crew called the Rat Pack. I had seen Sammy on other shows, singing and dancing, but this was the first time I saw him in a Western, and it was the first time I saw any black man as a main character in a Western. At best, black people in Westerns carried baggage, held other characters’ horses, or swept the saloon floor. But Sammy was a gunslinger. He fast-drew his gun from his holster, spun it around his fingers, threw it in the air, and caught it in mid-spin with his trigger finger. He threw a knife at a barn door, drawing and firing his gun as the knife flipped toward the door, so the knife stuck in the bullet hole he’d just made! What? A black man who could do all that?

  I fell in love with Westerns not just because there was a lot of action, from gunfights to Indian attacks to train robberies, but because I loved the idea of a frontier where people from any background could start over with a clean slate and become who they wanted to be, not who everyone expected them to be. It appealed to that part of me that was frustrated with always being the polite, well-mannered, obedient Good Boy. I imagined myself living in a Western town, making my own choices about who I should be and what I would stand for. I’d wear the hat, I’d wear the gun, and I’d be a little bad from time to time.

  My passion for Westerns didn’t diminish as I grew older, but increased because I started to read history books. I discovered that despite the all-white cowboys of movies and television I grew up on, nearly 25 percent of cowboys were black. Many were ex-slaves trying to start over as free men. I also found out about Bass Reeves, a former slave who became one of the best and most feared lawmen in the Old West (and some say is the basis for the Lone Ranger character). I read about the ruthless black outlaws, the fearless black stagecoach drivers, and the courageous Buffalo Soldiers, black members of the 24th and 25th Infantry regiments of the US Army, formed in 1866.

  My passion for Westerns started out as a child’s fantasy for adventure, but it evolved into a source of cultural pride as I discovered the extent to which African Americans contributed to the development of the Old West, the time in American history that some say most defines America’s personality of fierce individualism. As much as the history books tried to erase black participation—and the movies and TV shows I loved followed that example—we were there, helping to build a mighty country out of wilderness. I didn’t want any one to forget that. As an adult, I began collecting memorabilia from the West, including various antique guns. I even have a buckskin cowboy outfit, custom-made to fit my seven-foot-two frame, and a buff cowboy hat that I’ve worn in parades. When I’m dressed in my cowboy outfit and waving to the crowds, I become a living reminder of the true American history of black cowboys that is rarely taught.

  So I guess my mom sparked that passion in me to explore history, even if she didn’t realize she was doing it.

  Actually, most of my mom’s lessons as a coach were inadvertent. She wasn’t a reader, nor did she have much interest in what was going on in the world, even though it was one of the most exciting times in history: The civil rights movement was making waves. But Mom’s focus was on protecting me from whatever was going on in the outside world. Even though I could talk with her more easily, I couldn’t speak openly about my real thoughts because they would have frightened her. But we ate dinner in front of the TV, watching the evening news. This was how I learned about everything that was going on outside. But if I asked any questions, they were met with silence. My parents had faced racial discrimination all their lives, but now that people were raging against it, they seemed frightened of the change.

  I was ten years old in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth.

  “Wow! Did you see that?” I asked. “They put a rocket ship in space.”

  “Communists,” my dad said with a frown.

  “Not our business,” my mom said. “Eat.”

  Between her overprotectiveness and my father’s remoteness, I felt imprisoned much of the time, but I was luckier than many other kids my age in that I had my own room. When my friends came over to play, they were often envious of my private bedroom because they had to share with one, two, or even more family members. My room wasn’t just a source of pride; it was my Fortress of Solitude, like Superman’s, only without all the alien technology.

  My mom thought she was doing her motherly duty keeping me safe from the world outside on the streets. My father thought he was doing his fatherly duty providing a home, clothing, and food on the table. However, they didn’t teach me about the most important thing: being black in a white world. I had no coping skills when it came to racism.

  But I got a crash course in racism—not from my white schoolmates, but at the all-black boarding school my parents sent me to for fourth grade. My time there was perhaps the single most transformative year in my life for a long while.

  I came back a very different little boy from the one they’d sent there.

  5.

  Boarding School: Good Boy in a Bad Place

  When I first saw Holy Providence Boarding School’s red-tile roofs and endless archways, I thought of it as just another Catholic school masquerading as a tranquil abbey. It was run by devout Catholics, and that meant lots and lots of rules strictly enforced. I’d already done three years in Catholic school, so I was an old pro at pleasing authority. The only difference, I figured, was that forty boys also lived there. There would be no daily escape to my home, especially to the safety of my room. No hours spent alone pleasantly reading adventure stories. No privacy. Ever.

  I soon discovered there was another difference: Most of the boys were sent to Holy Providence not because education was a priority, as in my house, but because they had behavioral problems. Teachers, authorities, even their own parents didn’t want them around anymore.

  It was a reform school designed to transform tough kids into model students.

  I didn’t need reforming. I was already the model of what the teacher
s wanted the other boys to be. My reading skills were so advanced that even though I was in fourth grade, the teachers asked me to read to the seventh graders. I had a large vocabulary, spoke without slang, pronounced words properly, paid attention in class, volunteered answers, and was impeccably polite. Everything I did made the teachers love me—and the rest of the students hate me.

  I never knew why my parents decided to send me there. Was it cheaper than St. Jude School? Were they having marital problems? Did they want to expose me to more kids of my color? I didn’t know, and they never felt it necessary to explain to a shy and bookish nine-year-old boy why he was being ripped from his comfortable home, friends, and school and shipped away to live with a bunch of menacing strangers.

  My mother had once told me never to let myself be intimidated by others. Great lesson, except she forgot to teach me exactly how to do that. What specific steps do I take? My father was never intimidated—he was the one who intimidated others—but he taught me how to defend myself. He taught me the physical notions, but I didn’t have the fire and aggressive demeanor that made those techniques actually work. I was nine years old but already five foot eight. In nature, animals always try to make themselves look bigger to scare away predators, but my height was no defense against kids who could recognize weakness when they saw it. And when they did, they instinctively knew to pounce and devour. The Catholic teachers may have taught us that the meek shall inherit the earth, but at Holy Providence the meek were force-fed the earth.