Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court

“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 the part of me that was frustrated with always being the polite, well-mannered, obedient Good Boy.”

The author explains the early appeal of Western films, which was his favorite movie genre growing up. This quotation adds to the memoir’s theme of Embracing Racial Identity and Individuality as Abdul-Jabbar reveals that even as a child, he wanted to rebel against others’ expectations and create a new identity for himself. This passage also foreshadows the spiritual and personal transformation Abdul-Jabbar would experience later in life.

“The bruises healed, but I didn’t. Something deep inside me had broken. It’s an odd feeling to be among your people for the first time and be afraid of them. It made me feel completely alone. I had been abandoned by my parents and rejected by the one group that I thought would welcome me because we at least looked the same. But we weren’t the same at all. If I didn’t belong with them, where did I belong?”

In this passage, Abdul-Jabbar recounts his traumatic experience of being bullied by his fellow classmates at Holy Providence Boarding School. Compounded with his fractured relationship with his parents, this experience challenged his sense of belonging and left him lonely, since he was mistreated by Black classmates. The experience of being singled out and alone later inspires him to develop his own sense of individuality and seek out companions who share his ethics and values.

“At nine years old I had found the shot that made me feel like an athlete, that made me feel I was in control of this gangly body that so far had done nothing but isolate me from others. Now, for the first time, my body was not an enemy but an ally.”

Abdul-Jabbar discusses how basketball was a refuge to him, recalling the confidence boost he got from practicing his hook shot. As a nine-year-old who was five feet, eight inches tall, his height made him the target of bullying by his peers. However, on the basketball court, this trait became a distinct advantage.

“There seemed to be something broken in the church if this is how its followers behaved. I buried that heresy deep inside because good boys didn’t question the church, but the seed was planted, and it kept growing bigger as I did the same.”

The author explains that being bullied by racist Catholic white boys made him question the role of the church in people’s values and actions. By referring to his inner thoughts as “heresy,” Abdul-Jabbar implies that he was under great pressure to identify as Catholic and subscribe to the church’s views. This quote also foreshadows his future conversion to Islam by describing the author’s growing doubts about the Catholic Church.

“The sixty or so spectators jumped to their feet, screaming and clapping. When that ball went through the hoop, it was as if I’d followed it, like Alice in Wonderland falling down the rabbit hole into a strange new world. I felt unstoppable.”

Abdul-Jabbar describes how completing his first slam dunk in an eighth-grade basketball game garnered attention and praise, which boosted his confidence. Once again, basketball helped to raise Abdul-Jabbar’s self-esteem and motivated him to continue working hard on his ball skills. This passage shows how important these positive experiences were during the author’s trying adolescence.

“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. Not only the physical violence, but the daily harassment, humiliation, and indifference. To me, it seemed that every good Christian should be marching in the streets alongside the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. until everyone was treated equally. Isn’t that what Jesus would do?”

Abdul-Jabbar adds to his youthful reflections on religion, explaining that in high school he continued to be puzzled and disappointed by the hypocrisy of some Christians who followed the faith but were antagonistic to Black people and the civil rights movement. This quote provides insight into the author’s inner turmoil and changing sense of religious identity.

“Every game was personal to him, and he wanted it to be personal to us. Every win was an endorsement of our character, our will, our worth, and every loss revealed our faults, our weaknesses, our lack of commitment.”

Abdul-Jabbar recalls Coach Donahue’s intense coaching style while he was playing for Power Memorial Catholic High School. While he and his teammates were motivated by the coach’s demanding personality, Abdul-Jabbar felt stressed and worthless when he failed on the court. This quote shows that, despite his young age, Abdul-Jabbar already took basketball very seriously, and it also foreshadows his future conflict with Coach Donahue.

“To see racism so out in the open like that shocked me, even though I’d been reading about it for years. Now that I was actually in that world, my stomach clenched in fear.”

Abdul-Jabbar recalls his trip to the South as a teenager. Traveling alone by bus, he experienced segregated America for the first time, and he felt shocked and frightened to be confronted with such transparently racist rules. This quotation emphasizes the stress and frustration Abdul-Jabbar experienced as a Black teen in 1960s America as racism took a psychological and physical toll on him.

“The Rucker Tournament featured an energetic, flashy style of play, with spinning slam dunks, crossover dribbling, behind the back passing, and pretty much anything else that would get the crowd roaring for delight. Basketball historians have credited the Rucker Tournament with forcing the NBA to change its play to the more exciting style fans enjoyed at the tournament.”

Abdul-Jabbar explains how the Rucker Tournament, an outdoor street basketball tournament in New York City, changed basketball by fostering a basketball subculture with more exciting, alternative plays. The tournament was also significant to Abdul-Jabbar’s development as a player, as he felt he learned more as an observer at Rucker than by playing for Power Memorial.

“Basketball was no longer fun, but more like a tedious job scrubbing toilets that I had no choice but to keep doing. I realized that elation and completion wouldn’t be found on the basketball court, no matter how much I won. They would be found by discovering who I was as a black American. And I still hadn’t found a coach to teach me that.”

Abdul-Jabbar realized at an early age that while basketball could bring material success, he wanted to experience personal fulfillment as well. This passage adds to the author’s theme of Embracing Racial Identity and Individuality, emphasizing how understanding and appreciating his racial and cultural identity was crucial for his self-development.

“Meanwhile, my religion teacher, Brother D’Adamo, announced in class that ‘black people want too much too soon.’ Other students dutifully wrote his words down, but I openly disagreed. […] Brother D’Adamo stiffened. ‘What I meant was that Negroes must work for their equality.’

‘How much harder do we have to work than we already are to deserve it?’ I said, my heart thumping with a combination of anger and fear. ‘Why do you, an immigrant from Ireland, deserve it more than blacks who were dragged here two hundred years ago?’”

Abdul-Jabbar recalls a heated interaction with his religion teacher when he was in high school, showing that many teachers and students at his high school were openly hostile to the ongoing civil rights movement. The author felt insulted and frustrated by these hurtful comments, and he also resented the school’s staff and curriculum, which ignored Black history and accomplishments. This passage adds to the author’s theme of Embracing Racial Identity and Individuality and ties in with his reflections on his own identity and place in society.

“We were like coworkers at a boring job. Every day was routine, with predictable basketball drills and lackluster games that weren’t very challenging or interesting. The difference between the street basketball I’d been playing all over New York City and Friendship Farm Basketball was the difference between jazz and elevator music.”

The author reminisces about his two very different basketball influences: Coach Donahue’s basketball summer camp and street basketball. This excerpt shows that Abdul-Jabbar wanted to push himself to excel in a more challenging and spontaneous environment, while Coach Donahue was a strict traditionalist who kept the author from trying out new styles of play. This is why a teenage Abdul-Jabbar would grow to resent playing for Power Memorial and seek athletic and personal mentors elsewhere.

“My attitude carried over into my basketball game. I played much more aggressively, showing everyone that this was one black person who would not be pushed around. I especially liked battling for rebounds, using my body to clear space while snatching the ball off the backboard. Each point I scored was a point for the team, but each ball I grabbed away from the others, pushing and elbowing for it, felt like another point scored for my people.”

The author recalls how he channeled his anger at racism into his game, feeling determined to excel for himself and as a representative of the Black community. This passage demonstrates how Abdul-Jabbar began to evolve as an athlete, as he went from being passive to assertive on the court. This change was also indicative of an inner transformation.

“And I couldn’t wait to learn more about my African American heritage. In 1964, very little was written, broadcast, or openly discussed about black history or culture. Hardly any black characters appeared in movies or on TV, and the few who did were generally background figures who silently served meals or chauffeured for rich white people. For comic relief, they’d occasionally throw in a boisterous black character who dressed outrageously and spoke loudly and with poor grammar. My teachers at school were no help in dispelling these stereotypes.”

The author reveals how little Black representation there was in 1960s media, and how this cultural void left him hungering for knowledge and mentorship that connected him to the Black community. He found both in the Harlem Action Youth Project, where he learned about the accomplishments of Black intellectuals and artists in American history. This passage supports Abdul-Jabbar’s theme of Embracing Racial Identity and Individuality on his journey to self-discovery.

“It was weird how many people I was running across who had changed their names: the jazz drummer Art Blakey to Abdullah Ibn Buhaina; Malcolm Little to Malcolm X; a few months earlier, in March, the world heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay had changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Now Dr. Clarke. It seemed as if people were all reinventing themselves to be who they wanted rather than what others said they had to be.”

Abdul-Jabbar remembers being intrigued by how many of his Black role models had decided to change or alter their names to reflect their values or create new identities. This passage ties in with the author’s theme about embracing racial identity and individuality, and it shows how these men set a precedent that the author himself would follow in a few years. This quote also shows that Abdul-Jabbar related to the impulse to assert his own identity in the face of conformist pressure from family, school, or society.

“It touched me that despite all he had accomplished, he still was bothered by how he’d hurt a seventeen year old kid almost forty years earlier. I told him that I forgave him and that I knew he hadn’t been a racist, just unknowingly insensitive. I thanked him for all he had done for me, which he looked grateful to hear. […] I was also grateful to Coach Wooden, not just for bringing me and Coach Donahue together, but for helping me become the kind of man who could let go of animosity and past hurts.”

Abdul-Jabbar explains how he and Coach Donahue reconciled after Abdul-Jabbar was an adult and Coach Donahue was nearing the end of his life. This brings closure to a major event in Abdul-Jabbar’s adolescence, and it shows how Coach Wooden was a positive influence on his personal development, even into adulthood. By interrupting the chronological timeline of the memoir to include this event, the author shows how important it was to him personally, and it highlights the theme of Focusing on Ethics and Values.

“No two cards were alike just as no two players were alike. He even realized that a player was not the same one day as he was the next. Each time one player progressed or faltered, the whole team’s ability was affected. […] I had never met anyone with such an eye for detail and such commitment to his players as names rather than numbers.”

The author recalls his amazement at Coach Wooden’s coaching style, which was gentler and more positive than what he had experienced in the past. Abdul-Jabbar was intrigued by how Coach Wooden valued his players as individuals, and how this translated into success on the court. This passage foreshadows how Abdul-Jabbar and Coach Wooden would develop a close friendship over the course of working together.

“Practices were usually scheduled from two thirty to four thirty. After practice I was so exhausted that I would go back to my room, collapse onto the bed, and take a nap until nine. Then I’d wake up, do my homework until midnight, and go back to sleep. Not exactly the glamorous lifestyle fans imagined.”

This passage reveals Abdul-Jabbar’s intense schedule as a college athlete. He provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the work that went into his many victories and championships as a UCLA player, showing The Importance of Practice and Hard Work to his success.

“I was riveted by Malcolm’s intimate story of how he came to realize he’d been the victim of institutional racism, which had imprisoned him long before he’d landed in an actual prison. That’s how I felt: imprisoned by an image of who I was supposed to be.”

Abdul-Jabbar’s reflection on reading Malcolm X’s autobiography shows why he was so personally, politically, and religiously influenced by Malcolm X’s work. Abdul-Jabbar particularly connected with Malcolm X’s experience of feeling pressured to conform, and he admired the way that Malcolm X had resisted these influences to become his own person. In this passage, the author develops his theme of  Embracing Racial Identity and Individuality as he foreshadows his own transition to a new name and religion.

“We did our best at the Cleveland Summit to support Ali’s legal fight and to publicize the injustice of the draft, but we knew how powerless we were against those promoting the war. Nevertheless, I was thrilled that I was finally doing something important rather than just complaining.”

The author remembers feeling purposeful as he participated in the Cleveland Summit, in which he and other prominent Black athletes publicly supported Muhammad Ali’s decision to refuse to be drafted into the Vietnam War. This quotation demonstrates Abdul-Jabbar’s development from being politically aware to actively and publicly supporting civil rights.

“It seemed that anyone who spoke publicly in favor of civil rights was a target for assassination. What is difficult for many white people to understand is the extent to which black people go through every day fearing for their lives. In the 1960s, white people could get away with discriminating against black citizens in jobs, housing, and education without much fear of government intervention.”

The author explains the ongoing violence against political figures in the United States during the 1960s, as many civil rights activists and politicians, including Dr. King, President Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, and Malcolm X, were assassinated during that decade. This passage underscores the stress and fear that Black Americans, including the author, experienced. It also explains Abdul-Jabbar’s determination to contribute to the civil rights movement and highlights his bravery in doing so.

“‘Don’t ever say that this isn’t your country,’ he instructed me very firmly. ‘Your ancestors lived and died in this country and this is your country. You have to get all your rights as a citizen. Don’t reject it, affirm it.’ […] That summer, Hamaas’s teachings about Islam brought me closer to being an American.”

After Abdul-Jabbar’s conversion to Islam, his religious teacher, Hamaas Abdul-Khaalis, encouraged him to embrace his nationality and his place in American society. While anti-Black racism left the author feeling alienated and resentful toward America in general, his teacher coached him to fully identify as American, saying that it was his duty as a Muslim to do good deeds for his community. This passage reveals the connection between the author’s new faith and his commitment to peaceful activism.

“Coach Wooden made his way back and joined in the conversation, but only to ask the occasional question, not to moderate or direct it. I glanced over at him a few times to see if I could gauge any reaction to my announcement, but all I saw was a wide smile of joy, not at me but at the team. His boys weren’t just basketball players, they were the mature, respectful gentlemen he wanted us to be. For him, that was more important than any championship.”

Coach Wooden always emphasized personal success, happiness, and good behavior above basketball achievements. Abdul-Jabbar felt that Coach Wooden was a positive influence on himself and the rest of the UCLA team, which was evident during an open and respectful conversation they had about their religious differences. This passage reveals Coach Wooden’s positive reaction to Abdul-Jabbar’s announcement that he had converted to Islam, showing that Wooden was a supportive and open-minded authority figure during a transformative period in Abdul-Jabbar’s life.