They were just ordinary folks with ordinary jobs and ordinary lives, a family trying to survive in a brutal world. Yet neither of them ever dreamed their not-so-ordinary son would grow up to become one of the NBA's most-colorful stars.
His rise to fame, like that for most of us mortals, wasn't easy. His father, you see, had a tendency to live up to his first name, and soon it became more than his mother could take. A woman of strength, a woman of conviction, she packed up her things and made a daring move -- she took this young, scrawny kid and his two sisters to the mean projects of Dallas to forge a new life.
It was a hard life, but it was a life they accepted. Did Shirley's young son have any ambitions? "None whatsoever," he has said. But he did have one thing going for him that few others had in this world of street hoods, despair and never-ending emergency sirens -- hope.
"There was a lot of pain and suffering in my childhood, but when I lay down in bed at night in that Oak Cliff project, I always had the same thought: There's something big waiting out there for (me) ... This wasn't logical thinking. I was a goofy kid who was so shy, I sometimes hid behind my mom in the grocery store."
ONE OF THE SAD FACTS of minimum-wage life and welfare in the projects is that the whole family must work to get by -- not to learn any lessons of life or the value of a dollar. You work to survive. And so he did. There was no time -- and he frankly admits he had no interest any way -- to play basketball.
In fact, he graduated from high school without ever having played on the team. That naturally meant no scholarships, so he continued a series of jobs that began when he was a 15-year-old busboy at Baby Doe's Restaurant and ended in disaster at age 20. He was working the night shift as a janitor at the Dallas airport. He lost that job when he was arrested on charges of stealing watches from a gift shop that had been locked up for the night. His mother could take no more. She kicked him out.
"I've been homeless," he now says. "I've worked at 7-Eleven. I'm a real person, with real experiences, not some image that somebody in the NBA office created."
Suddenly at age 20, fate, you might say, stepped in. Like the beanstalk in the famous children's story, this kid grew. And grew. And grew. Some say he added 11 inches in just the one year. He says it was nine inches; others claim it was eight. But whatever it was, the bottom line was this kid of average height now stood an imposing 6-8.
"I WENT FROM FIVE-foot-eleven to six-foot-eight, and the more ball I played, the more I caught on to the game. I never had such confidence in anything before in my life -- not schoolwork, not girls, not any other sport. All of a sudden I could do things on the basketball court that I'd never dreamed of doing," he would later say in his biography.
And instead of packing it in because of a slip-up early in life, he decided that maybe, just maybe, he was smart enough for this college routine and good enough to play the game of basketball on the college level. He enrolled at Cooke County JC in Texas and the following year was given an athletic scholarship to Southeastern Oklahoma State. From 1983-86, he averaged 25.7 points per game and 15.7 rebounds. He led the NAIA two times in rebounding. One memory still stands out.
"Fifty-two points, 32 rebounds in college. It was 1985, my senior year, against Bethane Nazareth. An early memory," he has said.
Who is this kid who grew and grew? If you don't know, here's the rest of this story.
Hiya, Irishme. I need some help. A friend of mine says that Michael Jordan or Pete Maravich had the best single-season average of all-time. I say it was Wilt Chamberlain. Who is right?
-- From a Ted B. at an infi kind of net.
You are Ted. Wilt averaged 50.4 points per game during the 1961-62 season when he was with the Philadelphia Warriors. Jordan will never match that one.
Mr. Irishman: I think I got you here. What player has played the most different positions during a single game in major-league history?
-- From a Carol-like lady at an AOL line.
They don't call me the master of minutia for nothing, Carol. There were two players who played all nine positions during a game. Cesar Tovar of the Twins on Sept. 22, 1968, and Bert Campaneris of Kansas City on Sept. 8, 1965.
Can you tell me who has the most consecutive hits in a World Series? Thank you.
-- From Al, also on the AOL channel.
No problem, Al. It was Billy Hatcher of the Cincinnati Reds in the 1990 World Series with seven.
Hey, what did you think of that Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Hector Camacho fight?
-- From a Don Kingly kind of man at a hair-raising net.
Good to hear from you, Don. Are you the real King or a pretender to the throne? At any rate, this fight would have been something to pay for about seven years ago. But this bout was a sham, as most everyone knows by now. It was just an event to line the pockets of the promoters and the participants.
1) What team did the Bulls beat when Dennis Rodman grabbed the 10,000th rebound of his career? Give up?
2) How many times has Rodman been an NBA All-Star? Give up?
3) What players were involved in the trade when Rodman went from the Pistons to the San Antonio Spurs? Give up?
4) True or false -- Rodman's favorite brand of music is heavy metal? Give up?
5) What is Rodman's single-game mark for the most rebounds? Give up?
Mike Emmett has been kicking around sports departments in newspapers and online operations around the U.S. for years. Got something to say to the Irishman? Email him with a click here.
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