Utah Jazz Legend Thurl Bailey on Faith, Grit, and the Power of Showing Up

But it just seems like you have this peace or calm or
perspective. All of them that Yeah. that a lot of us don’t have. Well, I
think we have it. We just choose to not. I think we all have it. And and
look, there’s none of us are perfect. And I I’ve had my moments. Uh but it’s
a culmination of all those things that has helped me become who I am today.
I’ve learned from a lot of things. Welcome to the Know Your Ship podcast
presented by EHUB. I’m your host Frank Dolce is the one and only Big T
thorough Bailey. When I was going to school at the U, that was your last
couple years for your first stint with the Jazz and it was fantastic. I mean,
those were great. Those were great Jazz teams and great years to be involved
with that. And so that’s how I I grew up a a Lakers fan. I grew up in LA. You
should have told me that before we podcast. You would never would have come.
No, I would. But I I switched allegiances for for guys like you. Thank you.
Appreciate it. You haven’t switched back yet, have you? No, no, no, no, no,
no. Uh-uh. Cuz you know, we’re going through some difficult times right now.
I know. Uh the wait, these are the times that try men souls. What is this?
This is the like iron is forged in the fire. Do you feel like that about this
jazz team, by the I really do. I’m not just saying that because they employ
me. I understand as as a former athlete, I understand sometimes what you need
to go through to be really good, right? To be collectively, you know, in in
running for a championship take, it’s a lot of work. Takes takes a while and
it’s not a perfect science. It’s trial and error. So yeah, I mean, as a
broadcaster now and a guy who has a perspective from a former athletes point
of view, yeah, I I get it. And I probably get it more than a lot of people
do. Yeah. On the peripheral, you know, you just just have to kind of go
through and trust that in this day and age, this new age of sports, new age
of basketball, there’s no perfect science to it. And there’s a lot of great
players out there, a lot of players who need to be developed at this level.
But I get it. I’m going to ask you one controversial question about
basketball. Is the NBA being managed appropriately at the highest levels
currently? Is it being managed appropriately? Well, I would think that
there’s some similar structure and standards throughout the league, but
obviously each individual team has their way of doing things. And I don’t
know from that question maybe what the premise is. Are we talking about the
development of these young men? Are we talking about salaries? Are we talking
about I think that’s a great I think that’s a great question. Are we talk Are
we talking about the personalities of players who are coming in? Yeah, I
don’t know. Maybe we’re talking about all of those things. That starts well
before the NBA. The NBA is about taking some of the best talent and bringing
it to this level and having and putting out the best product and
entertainment for the fans. Mhm. Uh the game is so global now. There is no
more US dream team, bro. Because the developmental of these foreign players,
developmental processes of these foreign players has not really deviated from
what we used to do back in the day. Start them young, you teach them
fundamentals, and as the fundamentals are created, and same thing in
football, right? I mean, as as the fundamentals are created, you make it your
own. And so there’s a big difference now. So I I think the NBA is actually
doing a great job of finding because if you can play, I don’t care where you
are, if you’re good, they’re going to find you, right? Yeah. And so I think
that’s probably the biggest difference in where we are at this level versus
back when I started because it was mostly US guys. You go through high
school. I remember when coaches used to come to high schools and recruit you
there. None of that happened. No. No. They may do it as a courtesy visit if
you can play just to come to your town, but AAOU, which is an ugly beast. I
mean, we could probably do a whole podcast. I know. So, I think in answer to
your question, I think the machine that is the NBA, the machine that won
David Stern probably gets the credit for starting as a global brand. Mhm. And
Adam Silver, I I really believe is doing an amazing job trying to one, put
his stamp on it, but two, it’s not without its issues. You know that. Sure.
It’s not without its issues. But I I think as an association, I think the NBA
is still growing. Look at the TV deals. Look at the talent. So, yeah, I I I
think if you’re going to you’re going to look for things that need to be
fixed, I think a lot of those things need to be prior to the NBA system. I
think that’s a great point. So you’re optimistic. Very very very optimistic.
Do do you remember JC Carroll? JC Carroll was was on the podcast. Absolutely.
And you know talking about developing talent overseas when he was playing
over in Italy, a little 15year-old kid named Luca started playing with them
and like you said that the game has just become global and Luca had heroes
from the United States and developed his talents. You know, one thing that
you mentioned I think is interesting and I’d like to dig into that a little
bit is working on the fundamentals and I feel so lucky to know you uh just a
little bit and the kind of person that you are and this like this foundation
of granite that you stand on and that you’ve built. And so I’m really curious
about how you developed that over your life and how that has manifested
itself today into this person who is so unique. I mean like you’re a
superstar. You’re a legend and walking around the street people might not you
might not ever know that. You just don’t act that way. You have this
unbelievable foundation. I think I would love to to talk about that. I don’t
know whether it’s granted or not. There’s some soft spots in there, right?
Because none of us have achieved that perfection. And in order to to be where
we are and you’re sitting down next to me and what what we’re actually
talking about is the journey, right? Everybody, everybody who sits in this
chair, they’re here to talk about a journey that they’ve been on and what has
gotten them to this point. Uh and so you don’t get to any point without being
at a lowest point. I think the best stories, the best journeys, the most
authentic ones, the most truthful ones are about the difficult times that not
just you had but your parents had and their parents had before them. Mhm. And
what have you learned from those things? And what have you become because of
them? Are you bitter? Are you thankful? I also believe that foundation should
be built, I know mine is, on a spiritual within spiritual roots. Right. I
grew up in a Baptist home. Mhm. Uh my parents made sure we went to church, at
least Sunday school. They didn’t go every Sunday for whatever reason, but
they made sure their kids went off to Sunday school, gave them some pocket
change. So when the bowl was passed around, but every now and then they’d
come and I learned about this man named Jesus Christ. Mhm. And I was really
um intrigued. I remember at a young age just being intrigued and almost
excited about learning more about him. So I think when you talk about my
foundation, whatever happens after that, I know I have that and so I know I
can always pull from that, good or bad. Um, so I think that’s really where
everything started for me, understanding from my teachers early on, who were
my parents. I was born in 1961. So And you were born where? Born in DC. My
parents were they picked tobacco in Rocky Mount for rich white farmers making
almost nothing. But it’s what they it’s all they had to to raise a family
until that family started growing. My older brother and sister were born and
my mom was pregnant with me and they just knew that they couldn’t survive on
what they were making in the hot summers, the hot summer heat picking tobacco
and tobacco farms. So they they took a risk. My mom and dad got together and
they said we can’t do this. So let’s can we go where there’s more
opportunity? And so my dad having some connections in Washington um per his
family said we got to move north. So they picked up everything maybe they I
think they left a lot of stuff behind and just found a way to get to DC. And
my mom found a job scrubbing uh floors for rich white people for 50 cents an
hour and saved her money. Uh my dad was a really good carpenter and so he
would find odd jobs. He was a great brick layer and so um that was my
foundation. I was born my uncle Thor passed away right before they moved. He
was a boxer and he would go out in bad weather with holes in his shoes and go
into these um meat lockers like you saw in Rocky. Yeah. and uh he got
pneumonia and passed away. And right as they moved um after his passing, they
named me after him. So, you know, that was my beginning. And as I got older,
I started to learn about what was going on around me. And my parents would
come home and talk to us about the civil rights movement. That was really the
when you talk about Washington DC, that’s at that time. Yeah. um it’s kind of
the mecca of right a lot of what was going on at that time. So were your
parents active in the civil rights movement? Were they participants? How
would you how would you gauge their activity? They were participants. Um they
were participants when it was convenient enough for them to be away from us
and participate. They were at Martin Luther King’s famous speech. I I know
this. I know this. It gives me chills thinking about it because that speech
is Yeah. iconic. Yes. Yeah. And so it was when I talk about them being
educators, they would come home and just gather us around and after dinner
they would talk about what was going on and why it was going on and how we
were affected by it. Yeah. So when Maryland actually complied to the desegregation
law because it took them a while. Mhm. Um, we had to know what was in store.
And what was in store was the scenes from Remember the Titans, right? Like
buses will pull up, parents, white parents are out there with, you know,
their niggs go home signs. Um, police all around. And so we had to figure out
how to navigate through that because now we’re not in the confines, the
comforts of our own community. And so we’re busted to white schools. And
there were fights every day. There were parents getting arrested, black
parents getting arrested. And so we had to navigate through that and and
eventually figure out how we as young people were going to survive in that
world. Uh so yeah, that was that was part of my upbringing. That was part of
that foundation. And I was I was growing uh onto So So what were the things
that your your parents would talk to you about? Like what were the what were
the lessons that you generated from those discussions because it it could
have gone a couple different ways. I mean it could have been like we have to
we’re going to fight and we’re going to and maybe that was the message and
we’re going to stand up and we’re or we’re going to comply and we’re going to
be like what what what were you learning during that period? Well, I think
regardless of what the lesson was, it was about the delivery of it. My
parents never delivered an angry message, even though they probably were
angry. And the reason I call them great educators is because of how they
taught, right? I I don’t think I had any idea of some of the things they were
going through until I learned later as I got older. Um, and my dad got
arrested on occasion. Uh, my dad lost his temper on occasion. My dad got
German Shepherd sicked on him on occasion. But we didn’t know any of that
like early on. That wasn’t something that was told to us through this
process. The way they handled it was basically telling us how we needed to
act, how we needed to treat people, how we needed to not start fights but
finish them. I mean um protect ourselves if we believe in something stand up
for it. And so those that was the the delivery system from my parents. My mom
did a lot of it because my dad was a lot of times out there trying to help us
make ends meet. But uh my mom didn’t play, man. My mom was a tough southern
woman. And you know that era, man, you got your butt whooped. Mhm. Right. It
really took a village cuz my neighbors had permission to whoop my butt,
right? If I acted up. Absolutely. We we we had the same thing. And I I’m
really curious about your your mom and this she must have had this
unbelievable perspective about your path and and probably your siblings paths
and how to provide the best opportunity for her family that maybe she didn’t
enjoy when she was she was growing up. So I that seems like where where did
that come from? Where did she where did she acquire that perspective? And I
know that I’m guessing that your parents didn’t have an opportunity to have
formal education, at least not for a long time. Uh, but education was
supremely important to your mother. Yeah. Yeah, it was. You know, they they
made it through high school. Mhm. Same with my grandparents. Made it through
high school. Yeah. They both went to Nash County High School in North
Carolina. Nash County, North Carolina. But I think the the real education
came from just the process of living and surviving. But my mom was um I think
the best way to describe her was that she she was a force. She really was a
force. She was a she had to be all things to all to us cuz my dad my dad got
hurt when we moved to DC. He was on a construction job helping tear down a
building and they would allow him to take some of the bricks home and the
brick wall fell on him. He was in a coma for quite a while. And my mom at
that time was trying to save up enough money to to uh to be a nurse. So at
the same time, she was taking care of us as kids. She was trying to take care
of my dad who had come out of the coma, but he had to learn how to write all
over again. So she would help him with that kind of therapy. And and so she
was a strong woman. And it was it was it was a difficult thing for our
family. But she being the kind of woman she was, she didn’t ask for a lot of
help. And then when my dad got better, he was uh deemed to be disabled. So he
was on disability. Although he had everything working again, he would find
odd jobs to continue to help his family grow and survive and thrive. So my
mom would lay down a law about our education and the law was you’re not
allowed to bring home C’s or below in this house. And you know as a young kid
like you’re making a C. It’s like that’s passing. That’s like I’m moving on.
Well, don’t say that out loud to mama. She made it clear that C is average.
Mhm. C is average. And and look, I don’t raise average kids in this house.
And the only way that you kids are going to be successful in my eyes is
you’re going to have a great education. You’re going to get the best
education. You’re going to take advantage of it. You’re not going to sit in
the back of the class. You’re going to raise your hand. You’re going to ask
questions. And you’re not bringing home any C’s. And and her thing was, I bet
not see a C on your report card or below. And so the law was pretty much laid
down. And my of course my dad endorsed it, but my mom was the she was boss.
Yeah. And so, um, that’s the criteria you start from because, you know, if
you go below that, it’s problems. So, did that just set your expectation? Did
you fight against that at all or was you were just a line? You You don’t
fight against mom and what she says. You kidding me? In that era, uh, strong
black woman who’s out fighting for you. No. So, yeah. And, and part of that,
too, is how you receive it, right? Because I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I have
a brother had a brother that fought it. Um, but I I never fought it. He was
an older You had an older brother. Yeah. He’s he was two years older. And And
um, you know, he was kind of the rebellious one. Mhm. And so I I think in my
eyes, I just that was the standard and I was going to I was going to be
better than that that standard. Yeah. and and and show that after everything
I’ve learned from my parents and now I’m in this new environment, I want to
stand out. I don’t want to be average. And so that was really the standard I
set for myself going forward, not just with that. Your mom set the
expectation and you jumped in line with the standard. Did you did you learn
anything from your rebellious older brother during that during that time?
Yeah. I mean, I look back, I I had a rebellious sibling and my whole thing
was I didn’t want any of the controversy that went along with being the
rebellious sibling. And so I Yeah. I think I mean there were some things I
learned from my brother, my rebellious brother. Mhm. But I think ultimately I
learned that you’re not going to win this, bro. You just you’re not going to
win this phase of it in this house. Not that way. There’s another way to win.
That’s why he was kicked out early. M 16 years old, 17 years old. Now you’re
on your own. You can come back if you decide to play by the rules, but yeah,
you know, you want to defy things. And so and and he’s the he really is the
one that struggled. But for me, I I it’s like any muscle, right? You practice
it enough, it becomes maybe a little sore at first, maybe a lot sore, but if
you push forward, you know, you’re you’re stronger than before. And you
you’ve got these new ideas. You’ve got these new things. You’ve got these
fundamentals you’re working from, these standards you’re working from. Yes.
Well, and the standards were set high. That’s a great place to start. High
standards and parents who were aligned with making sure that you achieved and
and you you de developed that. So that’s the start like of this foundation
that we we talk about is your parents and your family and your upbringing.
Tell us about the first time you sat down watching a basketball game with
your with your dad and what you witnessed because you’re not at this point
you’re not I mean you’re probably athletic, you just don’t know it. You’re
not into athletics. You’re not playing basketball and and stuff. you’re going
to school and you haven’t tried out for a a team at this point, but you have
this opportunity to first of all, you know, if you’re athletic, there’s no
not knowing. That’s the only cocky thing I’ you I’ve ever heard you say. That
might have been your case, but you know, you know, whether you can walk and
chew gum. Yes. And I could not. Is that right? Oh, yeah. You kidding me?
Look, I I heard my mom. I knew I was going to be different than other kids in
my own family and the kids I came across in my sphere. Uh I used to hear my
mom talk about my birth child. You know what? When I had that boy, they had
to open the doors behind the doctor cuz he just kept coming out. He it just
kept pulling him. So I was a long baby, Frank. I mean, I was So, you know,
when when you hear that stuff, you’re like, “Oh, that’s
interesting.” I know she’s kind of joking, but it’s true. I I was
different. I was heck at 12 years old, I was like 6’4. So that’s different.
That’s different. And when you’re focused on your top priority being your
education you I decide what my outlet was going to be because it couldn’t be
all work and no outlet all focused on grades. So I chose music. I chose the
fantastic instruments of the tuba and the trombone. Yeah, I can see you
holding back your laughter because those those were cool instruments back
then. Wait, when were they cool? They were never cool. Those were like if you
would have said I chose the saxophone then. Yeah, we’re like oh well yeah the
saxophone. Yeah, everybody knows that. No, it’s tuba and trombone. That’s
what the band needed. And I said, you know, that’s different. Yep. I want to
I want to try the trombone first cuz, you know, it’s available. Nobody’s
doing it. And then uh tuba came after that. But was was your family musical
at all? They loved music. I used I used to my my alarm was music. Not I
didn’t have an alarm clock. I would wake up in the morning pretty much every
morning to the sounds of Nat King Cole, Sam Cook, Frank Sinatra, and I would
walk into my I I knew what I was going to see, but my parents were dancing in
the living room. It was like a routine of theirs, put music on in the
morning, and um I don’t know where my dad found this old Victrola, but he had
some vinyl. And that’s where my real love of music came because I associated
music with love. Yeah. My parents dancing. Now they didn’t get along all the
time. That was that was uh knockown dragouts between my parents, but they
never failed to have that music playing in the morning. And I went off to
school with this attitude of like, you know, it was it was it was good. I
wasn’t grumpy when I left the house. I was ready for the day. Uh, and then
when I got old enough to kind of understand what I wanted for Christmas, I
wanted wanted a little record player and I had kids don’t understand what a
45 record is, but um I had two of them. I started out with one cuz that’s all
you got one for Christmas and you know one side one song on each side Frank
put the needle on it and you play it. You had if you didn’t find that little
red thing that went in between you were in trouble. Yeah. So, but it was ABC
that was uh Jackson 5 played all the time. And then uh was that the Aside?
What was the Bside? Do you remember? I cannot remember what the Bside was. I
wish I knew. Yeah, that’s good. But uh I eventually got a second one because
there was a battle of the bands back then. You either wanted to be Michael
Jackson or Donnie Osman. So, one bad apple, the Osman brothers was my other
one. I would play one and play the other. learn the lyrics and pretend I was
Michael Jackson, pretend I was Donnie Osman. So that was where my love of
music started. And I wasn’t I wasn’t an athlete, wasn’t playing sports until
one particular evening when my dad was watching a basketball game on a Ven
Zenith TV set. Mhm. I think everybody had one of those with the knob broken
off. He had to turn eventually turn it with pliers. And so I sat down and
just because I loved hanging out with my pops, didn’t know what was going on.
He was telling me about these two teams and I love their shorts cuz they
were, you know, they were short. They were authentic short shorts, you know.
And uh then I just my eyes just gravitated towards one guy with a huge afro
and asked my dad who he was and he told me he was one of the greatest
athletes in the world. And literally I said he asked me I I asked him who it
was. He said Dr. Jay and I asked him, I didn’t know doctors. I said,
“Dad, doctors can play this sport cuz that’s how much I knew about the
game.” And he said, “No, son. If if you’re great in sports, they
they give you a nickname. That’s his name. His real name is Julius
Irving.” That’s when I learned about Dr. J. And that’s and that actually
that moment sitting next to my dad would change my trajectory watching that
man do what he did. It was like poetry in motion. I didn’t know all the
rules, but I knew you were inspired by that. Oh my gosh. I I was like, I
didn’t know humans could do that. And you know about inspiration, right? I
mean, it it’s I call it the call. Something calls you into something, right?
And that was it for me. It didn’t go away cuz you know, sometimes those
feelings can be flash in the pan. Life takes over, your homework, all these
things take over and you kind of forget about it. But man, that feeling, I
wanted to be Dr. J, bro. I wanted to be him. I didn’t want to be like him. I
had I was determined to be that man. How did your mom feel about that? Did
she know about your desire? None of Neither one of them knew I wanted to be
Dr. J. But eventually they knew I wanted to learn how to play basketball.
Mhm. I kept the Dr. J thing inside. That was my own thing. That was your own
goal. It was. And so, uh, the other thing my my parents will always say was
ask the right questions to the right people. M if you want to know something,
there’s something that you don’t know. Find the right person. Now, you might
not like the answer, but don’t stop until you know that you’ve asked that
question to the right person who can answer it for you. And I’m just
thinking, how am I going to learn how to play hoops? Mhm. There’s a park down
the street, Cedar Heights, but there’s no there’s never any basketball down
there. There’s always people down there gathered around doing something.
Don’t know what they’re doing. found out what they were doing. But we weren’t
we were forbidden to go down there getting on the drug trade at drug deals.
But uh I asked my dad that was right person for me. Mhm. He knew basketball.
Said, “Dad, can you teach me how to play?” He about jumped out of
his shoes. But he was excited. He never came to me and said, “Don’t you
want to play sports? Don’t you want to do this?” Well, my parents
allowed us to make those kind of choices. my music choice. My parents were
thrilled my wanting to play basketball. My dad was thrilled and he woke me up
early one morning on a weekend told me to come out and help him do some work.
Didn’t tell me what it was about. So, I want you to help me pull these weeds
up. So, we started pulling a bunch of weeds up in an area near the house and
he had found some sand somewhere. Uh I think he used it when he was mixing
his mortar. I don’t know what it was, but he found some sand and laid some
sand down and we raked it and leveled it out and patted it down and uh he had
a garbage can cuz he had all the tools. He took a saw and he cut it across I
don’t know about 3 or 4 inches deep and nailed it. He had one of those long
nails and he nailed it to the side of the house. I have my first basketball.
Was it Was it standard height? Was it 10 feet? It was It was 10 feet. He
measured it. He used it. Yeah. And um he found some old basketball. We didn’t
have a needle, so it didn’t have a lot of air in it. It was used. Mhm. And uh
that was the beginning of my basketball lessons. Can you remember the first
time you touched the basketball? The first time you took a shot in that
backyard with your with your trash can hoop and Yeah. What What were you
thinking about, Dr. J? Did you immediately try and go up and do a windmill
dunk? No. No. My dad wouldn’t wouldn’t allow that. And I couldn’t dunk then.
Anyway, so the first time he brought me out to teach me something, the ball
wasn’t even part of the the deal. This is this is sounding like hooers. Like,
yeah, you’re going to work on the fundamentals. Well, he he brought me out
and he made me stand in a defensive basketball defensive position with my
arms out and he made me stand in that position for probably a minute and a
half just doing nothing but standing there. And I stood up after the lactic
acid kicked in and my legs were shaking a little bit. I stood up and he said,
“Son, that right there is preparation.” He said, “I’m going to
teach you how to shoot and do a bunch of things, but that position right
there is the most important position you can ever be. I want you to know it’s
the most important position you can ever be in in this game.” And he
started to explain it to me, and sometimes he’d go on his little side
tangents about what preparation really meant in life. Yeah. He’s taking an
opportunity. Yeah. And he did. I mean, I’m not even sure I even grasped it
then, that part. But I understood when he started talking about, you know, if
you’re guarding the other team’s best player and you’re not in that position
and they’re any good, they’re going to get right by you. They’re going to
read you that you’re not prepared. If you’re trying to rebound, if you’re
trying to take a shot and you’re standing straight up waiting for the ball.
So, he he associated that with just being prepared all the time in my mind
for anything that could happen in basketball. and and so preparation was
first and foremost. Uh and then when he did bring the ball out, I remember
him talking about my hand position on the ball, my my guide hand, my shooting
hand, my follow through. He went off on tangents about that follow through,
how important followthrough was in your life. Uh and maybe I caught a little
bit of it, but I was I’m anxious to get get on what Dr. Jay was doing, right?
Uh, and then I remember one time he’d come out and take his foot and draw a
line in the sand and say, “Son, I’m going to teach you how to shoot free
throws.” And he talked about follow through. He even talked about some
visualization. He said, “One day you might be, you never know, one of
these days you might be shooting a game-winning free throw.” Uh, he
first he started talking about how nothing comes for free, so you’ve earned
the right to be on the line. M and so uh my dad was just a just an amazing
teacher. But yeah, I remember my first shot being very close to the rim,
right? Very close to the basket, a layup. Mhm. Taught me how to make a layup,
how to go off one foot and uh on the wooden backboard. He had painted a
square back there and talked about the target and and everything. So yeah, it
was a process that for me as a person learning, it wasn’t going fast enough.
Because my, you know, my my image was Dr. J. Yeah. But I understood based on
what I read about Dr. J, what the clippings my dad would say, he knew Dr. J
was my favorite. things I would read about him is this is the process that
every athlete went through and I have to go through this process just to
learn just to absorb all this information. I mean we we’ll get to this at some
point but I bet you use that you you you do some um motivational speaking
speaking on leadership and I bet you use that I mean I bet you can just rely
on all of those all of those lessons. I mean, everybody sees Tiger Woods go
out and hit the golf ball and they want to go out and do that. Yeah. How many
of us, well, like me, go out there and try to do that without taking the
steps required to get to that point. A lot of athletes do nowadays, you know.
Um, but yeah, I mean, it’s um it was our technology that was the
fundamentals. That was that was the process. That’s all we had, right? Mhm.
And if we were dedicated enough to stick to it and learn those fundamentals
and get used to them, what do they say? It takes 10,000 reps for something to
be a habit. Mhm. I don’t know if that’s true, but probably at least it feel
it feels like that. Yeah. So, I just love these stories about the foundation
that your mom set and the standard that she set and then you go aligned with
that and then your dad said, “Look, you’re you’re not going to shoot
baskets today. We’re going to work our way up to that point.” At what
point did you decide now, okay, I’ve have I have enough. I’m going to go play
organized basketball. It’s still your passion. You It’s still something you
want to do. And I’m guessing that you haven’t brought home a C yet or you
would Never. No, I was a straight A student. Straight A. That’s amazing. So,
you know, establishing that, not wanting to be average thing, you know, it
wasn’t just about the academic part. It was kind of my whole being a young
black kid in an integrated environment. Mhm. knowing that a lot of these
white kids came in with their perception of being better than me or better
than any other black kid because that’s probably what they learned at home
whether by their parents or just naturally through being educated from other
places. But yeah, I I think for me because there’s you don’t get better
unless you put the time in. There’s no way around it. You can’t circumvent
the work. And so my dad wasn’t always there. Mhm. I had my hoop. I had
daylight cuz when the sun went down, I couldn’t see the hoop. And so I would
be out there on my own working on the things that my dad had instilled and
taught me. But when the time came for me to kind of progress, went to junior
high school, my seventh grade year, I saw the poster on the gym door,
basketball triyouts, bladensburg, junior high school, and I had learned some
things. My dad was just a really great fundamental teacher, and we just kind
of hit on these things every single time. I feel like we all I always had a
plan when I went to work out. I didn’t just go out and just mess around. I
did take some days to have some fun. Sure. You know, five seconds on the
clock. I’ve got the ball. My team’s down by a point, right? And you know who
I am. Mhm. Dr. J. Dr. J. So, I I had those days, but I had a plan. I knew I
was going to work on this this day, my layups, my free throws, my follow
through, my rebound, and throw it against the board and grab it with two
hands and come down. So, um, I had that regiment going, but now I t