Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Good intentions don’t always have good results.

couldn’t help but wonder how they could worship at a Catholic church and receive the same Christian lessons on loving your neighbor that I got, yet be filled with such rage and hatred when they saw me. What was the point of attending church if you weren’t going to follow the teachings? Wasn’t Jesus the main coach for all of us? There seemed to be something broken in the church if this was how its followers behaved.

I would want to pass on to him or her is that records are merely steps on a ladder to help the next person move higher.

One question that bothered me was how so many people could claim to be devout Christians, yet still justify the brutality they committed against black people.

I was eight years old at the time of his murder but didn’t read about it until I was ten. It profoundly affected my sense of security in the world. Once I realized that a person, even a child, could be tortured and murdered just for being black, I no longer felt safe in my skin. Being black meant being a target. And the fact that two white men got away with it, and could brag about that in a national magazine, meant that the country didn’t value our lives the way they valued the lives of white torturers and murderers of children. No one—not my parents, teachers, or friends—could explain how such a thing could happen in America. And now I was Emmett’s age.

Weren’t the teachers being “team players” by following the tradition of not teaching us about black accomplishments? Didn’t the mob beating the Freedom Riders see themselves as team players for Southern tradition? I needed to do some thinking about where team identity ended and individual expression began.

“You have an obstacle, Lewis. What you do about that obstacle defines who you are.”

Advice from Coach Wooden:

“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.”

Bruce Lee's motto: