King's Blog!

My earliest memory is one of me climbing out of my crib in the middle of the night to sleep in my parent's bed. It sounds innocent and meaningless, and it probably is on the surface. Yet, I can't help to give meaning to it. In a sense, it symbolizes the spirit that I have: I was told to stay in my crib. I was supposed to be afraid of the darkness that characterizes the middle of the night. I wasn't supposed to get out of my crib...it was designed to keep babies safe and secure while they sleep. Looking with hindsight, I never really lived my life according to the traditional set of rules and expectations.

I grew up poor. Now that's a line that a lot of inspirational stories begin with. There's the guy, like President Lincoln, who struggled from nothing and made something significant of himself. It's quite the grandeous accomplishment to come from a poor background to a life of significance, and in capitalistic, materialistic America, significance is usually defined by monetary gain. However, growing up poor isn't the real story. The story is...well...I wasn't supposed to grow up poor. My father had as good of a job as anyone in blue collar Southeast Michigan. He worked for General Motors.

Unfortunately, getting to work was always an issue for him. Thank God for the UAW. Without the union, my father might not have been able to work a fourth of the length of time he put in. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder back in 1976...the year I was born...the year that his father, also battling bipolar disorder and alcoholism, committed suicide by shooting himself in the stomach 5 months before I was born. I never got to meet my dad's father. Although it had nothing to do with me, I regret that!

My father has been in and out of different hospitals for most of my life. I lost track of how many times he tried his hand at the same fate of his father. Rather than use a gun, his preferred method of suicide has always been medication overdose. There have been some close calls, but none of his attempts proved fatal.

I recall one particular episode, when I was approximately 13 or 14, where I had to man up and call 9-1-1. My father was sprawled out on his bedroom floor in his underwear. He could barely move. The empty bottle of Lithium was tipped over on the nightstand. I knew what he did, and I scrambled to get an ambulance as fast as I could.

My brother, who was around 5 or 6 at the time, had no ideal what was going on. My sister came home from a friends house when it all was going down. She was the eldest by two years, but couldn't handle it. I didn't crack under pressure. I somehow kept my composure and held everyone together.
The ambulance ride was a ride I'll never forget. My dad awoke briefly, only to yell and scream at me for calling the authorities. I can still hear his voice.

"Maaaa-aaark....what the hell did you do Mark!" The paramedic began his routine.

"Paul, can you hear me? Paul, who is the President of the United States?" he asked.

My dad screamed his reply. "Bill Clinton!" He paused for a brief moment, and shouted "Turn these GOD D#$N LIGHTS OFF! Maaa-aaark, what the F$*K did YOU DOOOO Mark?" You can imagine I was thinking the same thing about him.

Shortly after, he drifted into an unconscious state. We arrived at the hospital, and I waited frantically in the waiting room. My mom eventually joined me.I knew that calling the authorities was the right thing to do, but I couldn't help but be afraid that I made the wrong decision. I didn't want them to send my dad to a crazy hospital. The issues I had with my father were long-winded, but I still loved him. I needed him in my life...I just needed a better version of him...a version he seemed to be quite unwilling to provide.

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My Grandmother Victoria Blackburn and me!

Life in Inkster, Michigan took some drastic changes in a minimal amount of time. My parents bought what was supposed to be a starter house - a three bedroom, one bath one story home on Central Ave. The neighborhood was mixed with different types of families, but tons of little kids.

Inkster is a suburb of Detroit. I remember a lower-middle class environment around age four, but things began to change. Every few months, another family was moving out and a new family was coming in. We went from being one of, maybe seven or eight white families with children on Central Ave. to the only one. Strangely enough, I never paid any mind to it initially. I never really saw color in anyone. People were people. Over time, I was forced to open my eyes to the reality of racial discrimination and conflict, but I'll deal with that issue later.

My mother was as good of a mother that I could ask for. Both of my parents grew up tough...poor and uneducated, with little optimism for themselves. Still yet, my mother always talked about us being anything we wanted to be, especially when I was a child.

The most important thing that I'm thankful for from my mom is her willingness to make me go to church as a child. I straight-up hated church. It was boring, I couldn't understand the King James Version of the Bible, and, of course, I would rather spend my Sunday mornings playing my Atari 2600 that my Uncle Tom gave me (took you back on that one, didn't I). I had no clue at the time, but God was instilling within me so many values and morals, even though I didn't want to be in church. We use to get picked up by the Faith Baptist Church bus every Sunday morning. I'd sleep sometimes on the way to church, and on the way home we'd sing kid songs. Sometimes we'd have contests, and you could win a snickers bar. As I said, we didn't have a lot of money, so winning a snickers bar was a huge bonus for me. It was more than a snickers bar to me...it was almost like a drug. It sounds crazy, but getting a piece of candy was so unlikely in those moments of my life. I would get so upset when I didn't win.

Malnutrition was the reality of my life. We had a steady diet of beef, chicken and turkey pot pies for dinner. Every once and a while, my mom would get creative and through some ketchup on some lumped together ground beef, cook it for an hour and call it meatloaf. That's not to say that my mother was a terrible cook. She was nothing special, but having little income definitely diminishes your options for meals. My favorite treat of all was when she baked peanut butter cookies, or, on rare occasion, she'd make a dessert called peanut butter candy. I like peanut butter...maybe by default, but I still love peanut butter cookies.

We received an occasional box of welfare food every month, usually from the church. On paper, we were too wealthy to receive welfare, because my father worked for General Motors. He was supposed to make $24/hour, but being in and out of hospitals all the time, and coming home early every other day because he didn't feel good kept our bank account on empty. Thank God for the church's willingness to understand our situation and help.

It was like Christmas when we received a new box of food. Anything to get away from pot pies and fake meatloaf. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but it's hard to believe the quality of some of those items. We'd get a couple of long blocks of cheese and a gallon jug of peanut butter. The cheese was nearly impossible to cut, mostly because we couldn't afford a sharp knife. The peanut butter was even worse. Trying to spread that on a piece of bread was like trying to solve a rubiks cube. The bread was sure to rip every time. Being a peanut butter lover, I figured out a solution. If you heated the peanut butter, it would spread better. Or you could toast the bread, making it tougher and less likely to rip. Eventually, someone gave us an old microwave, so I didn't have to heat it in a pan any more.

Clothing was a whole other issue. My goodness, I suffered loads of emotional distress thanks to my wardrobe. Everything I wore was second and third hand. The alarm to get a new pair of shoes was when I had holes in the bottom, and I usually still wore those for another month or so. I never had any name brand shoes. I take that back, I had some traxx, and a couple pairs of athletics. They were plastic-bottomed, fake tennis shoes made by Kmart. For a brief moment, I wore a pair that my mother picked up from a garage sale 2 houses down. I'm still recovering from the scars of wearing those. They were called Jox! Sounds great...you think of athletes, and athletes are called Jocks. At least that was my initial thinking. My friends quickly gave my shoes a new meaning. I was out playing kickball with some kids in the neighborhood, and a group of kids started cracking on my shoes. I can still hear the words that destroyed any self-worth I had at that moment.

"Man, what kinda shoes are those, dog?" one of them said. "Hey, hey, hey, check it out! Hey Mark...get of my jox! Ha ha ha ha!"

You know that feeling when you wanna cry, but you know that you can't, because it will just make the whole situation worse? Times that by ten. It's a wonder I didn't commit suicide myself.

I'll give you an average vision of what a kid like Mark King looked like as a child. I was skin-and-skin (skin and bone just doesn't do the picture justice). Some of the kids got a kick out of being able to connect their thumb to their index finger and wrap them around my wrist. No muscle, no meat on my bones...just a malnutritioned soul that looks like he could evaporate if the sun got too hot.

I had the cheapest glasses money could buy. Thick, wooden-framed glasses with thicker lenses than most. The wood made them look even thicker. I also had a bit of a lazy eye, and an ugly looking mole on the side of my left eye. My teeth were crooked (still are today). Some kids said my teeth made me look like a little rat. My hair was another negative. We could rarely afford a haircut, so it was usually too long to maintain. My mother didn't even use the kitchen bowl to cut me up. I just wore it long. Coincidentally, later in my teenage years, my best friend appropriately titled me Shaggy. No hard feelings though. He was my best man at my wedding.

Clothing-wise, I wore whatever I had. I switched through 2-3 pairs of pants and a couple of shirts, all of which belonged to someone else at some point. I remember a very cool t-shirt I wore a lot in junior high. It was a fruit market shirt. It was baby blue, and had an apple with sunglasses on the front. It read "Johnny's Produce" above the apple, and below, it read "I'm Always Fresh!" It was funny...almost like I was talking up my own confidence by wearing the shirt. I was far from fresh, but my friends always got a kick out of it when I wore it.

As you can imagine, having confidence was next to impossible for me. I wasn't athletic, I had the worst wardrobe on the planet, I couldn't see, had a crooked mouth full of teeth, and trying to hide how poor were were became more and more difficult. The one thing I had in my favor, which wasn't even cool at that time, was I was smart. I was straight honor roll through the 6th Grade. I even received the Presidential Award for Academics, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan before graduating from elementary and moving to junior high (what most people call middle school now). Years before I watched groups of graduating 6th Graders receive the award. I thought that would be the coolest thing to win, so I pushed hard for it. As fate would have it, instead of accepting the award with a group of other students in my class, I found myself walking up the accept the award all by myself that year. No one else qualified. It was a significant moment in my life. It was the first instance where I realized the power of setting a goal and working hard to achieve it. Unfortunately, those A's and B's would become quite elusive through junior high and high school.

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My first contact with basketball happened across the street from my house. Two of my closest friends growing up were Matt and Daryl. They lived in the house (one of the bigger houses in the neighborhood) directly across from mine. Matt was my age. Daryl was his older brother.

They had a garage with a basketball goal, with plenty of room to play in the large driveway. A few years back, Matt ran across an old VHS of us shooting around. I couldn’t have been much older than 7. What I wouldn’t give to have a copy of that. It’s hard to believe I was able to get the ball high enough to hit the rim, let alone score a basket. Forget form…it took everything I had to get the ball out of my hands – my legs, feet, stomach, a little groaning. Nonetheless, it was a joy to watch.

Matt and Daryl had the bigger court, but the real games took place at Art and Eric’s house down the street. Art was the older (and better ball player) of the two brothers. One of my best memories I have of my father is the day he walked down to play basketball with us at their house. My dad was terrible, but he was a tad-bit bigger than the rest of us (only because we were still kids). We played on the same team and lost, but it was one of those father and son moments that you wish you had more of. At least I did.

I believe that was the first moment where my father realized the joy that basketball brought me. It was probably a combination of playing the game, and doing something recreational with my father, but the result was evident – I was a terrible, un-athletic basketball player, but I sure had a lot of fun playing. My father bought me one of those terrible, cheap rubber basketballs a short while later. We didn’t have a garage, let alone a place to put a basketball goal, but I dribbled that ball all over the place – in the front yard, up and down the streets, on my way to visit friends a block or so away, and in the basement. Sometimes, since we had wooden floors with no carpet, my parents would let me dribble the ball in the house in the living room. Only for a short period of time, though. I think it was there way of making me happy, since they couldn’t exactly provide me with much else because of the continual financial strains we faced.

One of the most impacting, life-changing moments of my life was the day my parents were able to negotiate a refinance for our house and purchase a garage. When I learned that we’d have a garage, the first thing I asked my father was if he would put a basketball rim up for me in the backyard. Knowing how much I enjoyed playing, he didn’t hesitate with an answer. “Of course we can put up a rim for you, son!” he replied.

We couldn’t afford a real backboard, so my father bought a large piece of wood and crafted me an un-scaled, odd looking backboard, attached a regulation rim, and bolted it to the front of our newly constructed wooden garage at about 7 feet high. From that moment on, all I wanted to do was play in the backyard.

The newly-paved driveway and short rim height attracted others in the neighborhood, too. Most people could dunk on my new rim. I couldn’t. In just a few weeks, my father realized that he was going to have to raise the rim height. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a grand priority for him, until it was too late. One day, while returning home from a family errand, we found a large group of kids playing basketball in our backyard. Startled by our return, the group scattered like roaches when the lights come on, hopping fences to avoid a confrontation with my father. As we pulled up the driveway, my heart sunk to the floor. My basketball rim was bent at an unmanageable angle, most likely from several intense dunks that had taken place while we were gone. Knowing our financial struggles, I knew it would be a long time before my father could purchase me a new one.

I tried everything to fix it. I got out a ladder and bent it upwards. It would stay for a couple of shots, but the weight of the ball brought the rim, and my expectations, right back to reality. I was, once again, going to have to resort to playing on other courts for a long time.

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My transition from an honor roll student to an “enough to get by guy” was quite shadowy – so much that at the time, I never even realized what was happening. The causing factors were many, but reflecting with hindsight, my love and desire for basketball certainly played a major impact. My home life was undesirable, but escaping to the four lines of a basketball court took me to another planet. Isaiah Thomas said it best in a brief interview:

“When I walk between those four lines of a basketball court…nothing comes into my mind but basketball!”

I remember the moment I heard those words while watching one of my favorite NBA Highlight films – NBA Showmen: Spectacular Guards of the NBA. My immediate thought was, “YES! Someone who knows how I feel! It was like an epiphany for me. Isaiah Thomas had become my favorite player…my athletic hero. I, along with many others (especially after 1989 when the Pistons won their first NBA Championship) considered him a very special, unique, gifted basketball player.

The music during Isaiah's highlight reel has been permanently implanted into my brain. I can still hear the horns blaring like they did during a clip of Isaiah dunking with two hands, following with another horn burst after throwing a "Salley-Oop" pass to John Salley a second later. Mesmerized by the skill level and talent represented by guys like Isaiah, Pistol Pete Maravich, Magic Johnson, and, of course, Michael Jordan, I quickly became a student of the game.

Somehow, I drew the conclusion that since Isaiah was deemed such a special talent, and he and I shared the same sentiment about this game called basketball, I must be special. I kind of forgot one small detail…I wasn’t exactly athletic.

Isaiah, considered small in his own right by NBA standards, was still 6’0” with athletic prowess. The closest I came to athletic was spelling the word in a 5^th grade spelling bee (of which, I should note, I won). No matter how much I loved and appreciated the game of basketball, there were certain requirements to be met in order to play the game. Being athletic was one of them.

I’ll go to my grave searching for the explanation, but none of those requirements seemed to matter to me. I wasn't athletic, I wasn't quick, strong, or very tall. In fact, I was a living example of what it meant to be short. It didn't matter. Like a teenager blinded by a first love, my mind was set on choosing basketball as a career path.

I think I was 11 when I first started sharing my dream to become a professional basketball player. It was like I was imprisoned for the first 11 years of my life, but basketball came along, got me a retrial and set me free. The game became the single most important part of my life. I could be playing with others or shooting or dribbling around by myself. Nothing gave me more joy than having a basketball in my hands.

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Seeing how important playing basketball was to me, my mother and father made it a point to fix the basketball rim in the backyard. My dad raised the rim as high as it could go without needing any braces. He put it at 9'10". Originally at around 6' or so, this new height kept most people from dunking. I didn't have to worry as much about coming home to a backyard of people mimicing the NBA slam dunk contests that were so much more popular back in the mid-80's.

Basketball was my new passion, but it would come at a cost. Instead of coming home and jumping on my homework from school, I was quick to head to the backyard to start playing basketball. I can still hear the sound of that old back door being slammed shut. If we had anything of value, anyone could have kicked that door in to get into our house. BUT....we didn't. It was held together by an obscure piece of cheap wood at the top, where the old glass window use to be. You had to pull toward the hinges and slam it hard so it would close. I got it down to a science, of course, because I was regularly in and out of the back to get to the court all day long.

The slamming of that door was symbolic, and really describes my attitude at that point in my life. With my father in and out of hospitals, my mother working 40-55 hours a week at McDonalds and Burger King to keep a regular paycheck coming in, and my sister in la-la land mingling with all the things a teenager should stay away from (drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.), I felt like I was in my own world. Slamming the door was my way of shutting myself out from all of that and escaping to those four lines of a basketball court.

On the court I could express myself. I dabbled with drawing, model cars, poetry and other methods of artistic expression, but nothing captured me like basketball. I was one of those flashy players, or...hot-dogs, as they liked to label flamboyant players like Pistol Pete back in the day. I was the kid dribbling between the legs when it wasn't cool. I tried behind the back passes before people expected to catch them, which often made me look silly. To be truthful, I wasn't even very good at being flashy either. I tried so hard to be fancy that it looked like a dork. I can still hear the complaints. "Stop with all that fancy junk!" people would yell. I'd minimize it, but it often left me shaken and lacking in confidence, trying to play the game the way someone else wanted me to play and not how I wanted.

It didn't take long before the whole neighborhood started coming out to play. My backyard turned into a regular hot-spot for some 3-on-3 action. The driveway was newly paved, the rim was close to regulation, and, aside from the telephone wires on the right side of the court, there was sufficient enough space to have an inside/outside game plan. Throw in the two flood lights on the corner of the garage, and you had some late-night basketball action. Sometimes we'd play until 10 or 11 o'clock at night.

My neighbors, on the other hand, weren't too thrilled. They would oftentimes complain to my parents the morning after while I was in school. I guess they weren't too found of hearing a backyard full of kids and a couple of bouncing basketballs late into the night. Or maybe it was the fact that the ball would regularly find it's way into their backyard. I guess that explains why they added a couple of dogs to their backyard scenery. It wouldn't stop us though. We all became highly skilled fence jumpers early on in life. When those dogs saw one of us in the backyard, they were kick it into overdrive to try and latch onto a leg or two before getting back over. I think they trained their dogs to attack us.

Having so much company throughout the day eventually wore on my parents, too. There was an occasional fight that would break out here and there, loads of curse words flying around, and a beat-up stereo blaring what many folks my parents age would consider the most God-awful, poor excuse for music on the planet. We called it rap music. My parents hated it. I loved it.

Despite the inconvenience it caused, having a basketball rim in my own backyard still kept me out of a lot of trouble. As we grew older, trouble became easier to get in to. What once was hailed a decent starter neighborhood for new families quickly emerged as one of the fastest declining suburbs of the Metro Detroit area. In fact, there is a section of Inkster, Michigan still known as Little Saigon today. Guns, drugs, gang violence and other violent criminal activities engulfed the area at a heart-skipping pace.

My attention was first snatched back to this reality when my mother, who would regularly peak out the backyard door from time to time, sent everyone home. I was furious, and stormed into the house demanding an explanation. I barged in just in time to hear my mom telling my dad about the baggies with weed, crack and cocaine sitting on the porch. I was, of course, oblivious. As I said before, when I stepped on a basketball court, the only thing on my mind was basketball.

It's funny. I can remember convincing my mom to "chill out" as I downplayed the event as something that had nothing to do with me. She never got up the nerve to police the backyard like a prison guard. I think her and my dad figured that it was better to have me in the backyard than out running the streets with the others looking for a place to play. I'm convinced it was the correct choice, too. Although I was exposed to a lifestyle that I hope my own kids are never confronted with, I was still sheltered from serious trouble simply because I was focussed on basketball.

Players came and went throughout the day. there were the regulars - Sam, TJ, Tyson and his younger brother Desmond, Jermaine, Cory and sometimes his younger twin brothers Jason and James, Matt, Noah, and, just for relevant purposes, a few younger kids on the sideline watching, like my brother Chris, and current TCOB Player Chuck Reed (playing for the Buffalo Stampede of the PBL), and others. Sometimes there were a few girls that would come through and watch at the gate to the backyard, like Dominique, whose older brother Cornelius would play from time to time, too. We had the occasional walk-byes as well. Gangs of kids roaming the street that would stop by and ask if they could play. My answer was always yes. That's where, of course, a good portion of the rift-raft came in. I didn't care. I just wanted to play basketball.

I loved growing up with a neighborhood filled with kids. As I grew older, I realized how lucky we were. Everyone grows up with a few close friends, but we had an exceptional amount of people our age. We could always get a game going. All it took was me getting to the backyard to dribble the ball a few times to alert the kids down the street. Then the phone calls started, and eventually, the backyard was filled with kids. On rare occasion, I'd get a knock on the front door before I could get to the back. It was the place to play.

Madonna has a song called "This Use to Be My Playground." It has nothing to do with basketball, but it has everything to do with basketball to me. My childhood dream evolved from that old backyard. It was where I ran to...where I escaped the real tragedies of my family life. Most of my childhood memories come from that old backyard. All of the time spent back there made me more than a basketball player. Those long, hard battles made me the man I am today. Those that know me well will tell you that what I lack in skills and athleticism I make up for in heart and determination. That old backyard at 720 Central Ave is where all of that comes from.

Posted by Mark King at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

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If I've left the early impression that I was a clean-cut, wannabe basketball player that never got into any trouble, I've left you the wrong impression. In a place like Inkster, Michigan, trouble finds you - in all shapes and sizes. I was no gang-banger, but I knew a lot of people that were oftentimes assumed as such...mostly because I played basketball.

The truth is, I was terribly frightened to fight anyone, and rightfully so. I was easily the smallest kid my age. I was scrawny, malnutritioned, poorly dressed most of the time, and, to be quite frank...a scaredy cat. Of course, that part quickly changed. According to my dad, it had to. One of the fondest memories of things that my father taught me was that I had to stop allowing people to push me around because I was small, even if it meant taking a beating. I was quick to run home from a possible altercation. I let one kid push me from behind all the way home from school one day.

It must have really bothered my father to watch his son get pushed around and bullied. He was quite stocky, although he was short. He spent most of his early childhood life in juvenile detention centers and eventually prison. He would tell me stories upon stories about how rough it was to spend extensive time in lock-down. Being short, he had to take the same road he was telling me to take. He said sometimes people just want to test you to see how far they can push you. If you push back, more times than not, they'll leave you alone. He was actually right.

I took his advice, and I found myself doing a lot of fighting, but not near as much as I would have if I remained a pacifist. A few fights took place in my front yard, with my family cheering me on. It's actually one of the memories that bring the most laughter when I reminisce with neighborhood friends. I lost most of the fights.

The funniest memory was a fight where I went in the house, put on a Karate suit and got down to business (I can't believe I'm really sharing this). I guess I thought it would make me tougher and quicker or something. I don't know. It was against Cory Blanks, who, coincidentally was my best man at my wedding. I don't think a single punch was landed. People say I won though, simply because I had the audacity to come outside for a fight in a karate suit on and Cory couldn't find a way to win. Cory and I often share some funny arguments about who won that fight. It is, however, funny how someone that you've had the toughest trouble with can become your closest friend.

Some of the fights were the least bit funny. One day, on the way home from a friend's house, a group of guys circled me. They said they heard I was talking about them (the typical "I wanna fight" line), jumped on me, threw me down and started kicking me. One of them apparently felt bad, asked the others to stop, and they ran off. I jumped on my bike filled with tears and scurried home as fast as I could. My father was pissed, but there was nothing they could do. This type of stuff was turning out to be a regular happening.

I wasn't the only kid fighting in the neighborhood. Fights broke out all the time...on the way home from school, on school buses, in school, on basketball courts...everywhere. People were just mad. Perhaps it was because we all were growing up in such an underprivileged manner. I had it rough, but there were others that had it much worse. At least I had both of my parents. It wasn't uncommon to here of a friend living with a grandma or an Auntie, or, in one of my friends circumstance...Patrick Johnson...homeless without a stable place to lay his head.

Patrick is currently serving a life sentence for attempted robbery and murder. Not that he was a cold-blooded killer. He and his gang got into a shoot-out with police, and one of the officers killed an innocent bystander by accident. By law, that charge goes on those responsible for the felony in progress. Lucky Patrick...the guy never had a chance in life. Not that I condone his actions...I absolutely do not. I'll just say that I understand his struggle. No one should have to endure the type of life he had to endure at such a youthful age. My friend Matt and I visited him on Christmas Eve. one year. Talk about a difficult visit. He was still full of hope, talking about a clothing line he wanted to develop when he got out, a record label he wanted to start (he was an incredible singer and rapper - even at such an early age), etc. I wouldn't dare tell him what the odds were of him getting out anytime soon, let alone being able to do some of the things he was talking about. I think of him often. I hope he looks me up if he ever does get out.

So...yeah, I was a fighter. I had to be. I was the only white kid in a neighborhood of black kids, and a lot of them were raised by parents who taught them that white people were evil, or the devil. Thanks to my father's advice, I had a big mouth, too. I was quick to stand up for myself, at any cost. It was a known fact that if someone picked on me, we were going to fight, and my goal, no matter who I was fighting or whether I could win or lose, was to make sure that whoever I was fighting was going to feel some sort of pain in the morning. Even when I was jumped, I would pick out one guy and make sure he woke up the next morning second-guessing whether or not he wanted to jump anyone else.

I remember my first year of junior high school, we were eating ate lunch, and people thought it would be funny to put all of their trays in front of me to throw away. I pushed them away from me towards James Crews, pointed at him, and said "Why don't you tell him to throw them away?" Now, I didn't know James. He grew up in another part of town. When he stood up, I knew I might be in for trouble. He slowly walked all the way around the long lunch table while I proceeded to laugh the incident off. He came up behind me and slammed my head into the lunch table. My glasses went flying, I went flying backwards, and an instant knot developed on my head. I was so embarrassed, and in so much pain, that all I could do was laugh. There was NO WAY I was going to cry...not in the first month of junior high. It actually worked in my favor reputation-wise. Everyone saw me laughing after enduring what looked to be excruciatingly painful, and people realized how tough I must be. Even James apologized later, and an instant respect was developed.

People still tried to test me, but not as much as before. There was the other time where I was punched in the mouth after walking off the school bus to go home. To this day, I'm not even sure why that happened. I'm even more curious to find out why the guy hit me with a master lock in his fist. I think he was bleeding as much as I was, because my tooth cut his finger really bad. The bus driver yanked me back on the bus and drove me to my front door, out of fear that I would get jumped by the others. The guy who hit me that day is currently serving a life sentence for murder. He shot his ex-girlfriend in her private parts and killed the guy she was apparently sleeping with. The guy was killed...she is paralyzed. At least I only got a master lock to the mouth.

Most people are shocked to learn that I've lived such a violent, crazy life. I wasn't always the Christian that I am today. In fact, it has taken some incredible events to get me to where I am today. My parents made me go to church as a kid, but over time, it became too much of a hassle for my parents to force me to go to church. My teenage years were full of rebellion and anger. My teenage memories are some of the worst memories that I have. While I'm somewhat ashamed of the way I lived back then, another part of me is convinced that there was really no other way. The strength and determination I have to compete and succeed stems from those moments. I'm just thankful that God kept me from going to far, and made it a point to pull me back to Him at the perfect time. One of my favorite hyms of all time is Amazing Grace. I tear up every time I here it. Keep reading, and you will understand why.

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I made a decision to pursue a basketball career when I was just a kid. Most of us had our own childhood dreams. Basketball was mine. The difference between me and most people was my dream wasn't a fly-by-night fantasy. I was willing to work hard to see it come to pass...and believe me, I worked! Which was why so much frustration built up inside of me.

Benjamin Franklin Junior High is where my dream really started. I tried out for the basketball team in 7th and 9th grade. I skipped the 8th grade tryout. I'll go deeper into that later. I can't say that I knew what to expect in 7th grade. Basketball tryouts came, and I signed up to attend. I was already telling people I wanted to be a basketball player when I grew up, so I had already started receiving the criticisms that come from being an undersized hopeful hoopster. "You're dreaming, Mark!" or "You do know you're short and white, right?"

The truth is, I knew those things, but for some strange reason I didn't think it really mattered. I believed that if I worked hard enough I could prove my worth. The ideal of athletic stereotypes doesn't exist to a kid my age...at least not to me. What a rude awakening!

So 7th grade tryouts were a wash. I was dismissed the first round of cuts. I was okay with it. I endured a few laughs, but I figured I just needed to work harder and come back better than ever the following year. From here, my life really began to change. Those good grades I was holding in elementary quickly began to slip. I started spending every moment of my free time in my backyard playing basketball. People started noticing, too. Friends living down the street started noticing that after everyone else went home, I remained in the backyard shooting around late into the night. When asked, I told them I was working hard to get better to make the 8th grade team.

Not knowing how to train, and, of course, not growing at all, hindered my productivity toward my goal. While others were growing taller, stronger, and developing into superb athletes, I was stuck being a short jump-shooting fancy dribbler that had a tough time competing against bigger players. My friends began warning me against the failure they felt I would endure in the 8th grade tryout.

Being one of the smallest kids in the school did bare some benefits. Because I was cut from the basketball team, I was recruited to join the wrestling team. There was no one else to wrestle the 75lb. weight class, so I joined the team. I guess the guys (and coach) felt it was better to have a guy try to gain some points than to not have a wrestler at that weight class at all. Of course, they were wrong. I was a terrible wrestler...lost every match. In didn't help that my first match was against a 9th grade All-State pro. Surprisingly, I lasted the full 3 rounds, but it was more a survival effort - not technique. It went downhill from there.

When 8th grade rolled around, my wrestler teammates pleaded for me to join the team again. Junior high sports went through a tough year in 89-90. A "pay-to-play" was enforced, which meant that anyone who wanted to participate in sports had to pay $140.00. This situation weighed heavily on my mind when basketball try-outs rolled around. That kind of money didn't come easy in our household. Knowing how badly I wanted to play basketball, my parents somehow conjured up the money for me to do it. The problem was...I was starting to fear failure. Everyone warned that if I tried out, I would be cut again, and there was no certainty that the money would be returned. It probably was, but at that time, I had no ideal. The whole pay-to-play thing was unique. No one really understood how the process was going to work. With all of my wrestler teammates pressuring me, I decided to avoid the failure and make good use of the money and wrestle instead.

I'm not one to dwell on the what-ifs, but this decision is one that I wonder about often. It was a decision that I probably would take back if I could return. Once again, I had a horrible wrestling year. I may have won a couple of matches by default (no wrestler in my weight class from the opposing team), but I would get mopped up every time I competed. Our basketball team continued to succeed while the wrestling team floundered, and I missed a good opportunity to rub elbows with Coach Schaum and the rest of the basketball staff and teammates, which probably would have increased my chances to make the team in 9th grade.

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My athletic career resembled the tragic home life I was enduring - a big flop! My father remained in and out of the hospital. Occasionally, he would make a futile attempt to end his life by taking a pill overdose. Other times, he would leave work early and come home drunk. My mother, frustrated with being broke, started putting pressure on my father to work. Perhaps it was the day our water and electricity were disconnected at the same time. We had lost electricity before, resorting to candlelit nights and early bed times. There was nothing else to do when there's no electricity. I don't know how people lived before electricity.

When our water and electricity was turned off, my parents asked us to find friends to stay with for a few days...at least until the water was turned on. I know it must have been embarrassing for them, especially for my mom. She always talked about us creating a better life for ourselves...much better than the life they had given us.

Fortunately, I had a good network of friends. Instead of going to Inkster High School, the kids on our side of Inkster were being integrated into the Wayne-Westland School district. That's how I ended up at Benjamin Franklin Junior High (now Franklin Middle School). It was for the best. Growing up white in a predominantly black neighborhood left me to be a minority in my neighborhood. Needless to say, I totally relate to the struggles endured by the African-American community. I know first hand what it's like to be on the outside looking in. Integrating us into a school system across town gave me a chance to meet other white kids. One of my best friends, Mike Austin, was where I headed when my water was turned off.

Mike and his family lived a completely different lifestyle than what I was accustomed to. I lived in a 3 bedroom, one story starter house. He lived in a 2 story home with a pool in the backyard. He also had a barn in the back with a basketball rim. We spent a lot of time playing one-on-one back there. When dinner time rolled around, there were no pot pies being served. There was actually a full-course meal. One of my new favorite dishes (that I just can't seem to replicate) was the green bean, sauerkraut and sausage dish that Mike's mother use to make. I never even heard of sauerkraut. It was very tasty.

All throughout junior high, I spent a lot of time at Mike's house. It was nice to get away from Inkster. I definitely visited Mike's house more than he visited mine. I wouldn't be surprised if his mom didn't want her son spending too much time in a place like Inkster. It was quickly becoming the worst suburb in the area. When he did some over, though, he followed the regular Mark King activities. We spent most of our time in the back playing basketball. We had some ruthless battles in the garage. you see, since neither of us could dunk (we were both short white kids), we purchased an excellent miniature basketball rim and hung it in the garage on some rafters. We took turns dunking on each other, mimicking the Michael Jordan-esque dunks that everyone became accustom to seeing in the 1980's NBA.

Spending so much time with Mike and his family showed me that there was a different life available out there. When you are growing up, you find yourself boxed into thinking that the entire world operates the same way your family operates. I realized that wasn't the case by spending more time in Wayne instead of Inkster. People actually sat down for home-cooked meals with the family. Having a pool in the backyard was not necessarily a fairy tale. I didn't realize it then, but I know, now, that those experiences expanded my own horizons. There was more to be gotten out of life...it was achievable.

What wasn't achievable was landing a spot on the 9th grade basketball team. I knew I needed to make the team so I could have a chance at competing with the high school basketball team after junior high. Those who weren't already playing for their respective junior high teams wouldn't even be considered. Wayne Memorial High School would take the graduates from Adams Junior High (now Adams Middle School) and Franklin. Shrinking both of those teams into one high school team would be a task in itself. There wasn't enough room for both of those teams on one roster, let alone a new guy that hadn't even played before.

So I knew I had to lay it all on the line at the 9th grade tryout. Word spread all over the school about my high expectations. In regular Mark King fashion, I drew laughter and criticism from people who thought I was crazy. I had gained a whopping 10 lbs since 7th grade, and I still barely measured 5"1 on the stick. I did think the height factor would be less of an issue. There were a few people shorter than me this time around. One guy, Randy, was about 4'7" on stilts. I felt like I had a good shot...I was a much better player.

I remember the try-out events so very clearly. I wasn't sticking out, but  I wasn't looking terrible. I made good use of every opportunity. I still didn't understand the 3-man-weave thing, but I caught on and figured it out by the end. One shot sticks out even today. I was open for a three pointer. One guy (I think Jameel Wooden was his name) fouled me as I shot, and Coach Schaum knew it. I made the shot anyway, and it was the first piece of praise I had ever received from a coach.

Instead of posting a list, try-outs ended differently this year. Everyone was called in to talk with Coach Schaum in his office. I words reply perfectly...almost audibly in my ear even today. "Mark...you didn't make the team, Mark. Have you thought about being the team manager?"

I was destroyed. Me? A manager of a basketball team? Is that what my hard work earned me? How could Coach Schaum not see my heart and determination...my willingness to improve? Out of all the guys trying out, I clearly wanted it more than any of them. Didn't that mean anything?

After the try-out ended, and the team was set, I walked outside and sat on the curb waiting for my parents to pick me up. That curb is depicted in the picture above. As usual, my parents were late. I cried uncontrollably as people walked out of the gym and into their cars. I tried so hard to hold back the tears, but I just couldn't hold it in. Some of the guys who made the team shared their thoughts while walking by. Instead of embarrassing me, I heard, "Damn...that's a damn shame, Markie! Man Coach shoulda let Markie be on the team this year."

It was nice to hear, but didn't change my fate. I had been cut again, and my hopes to play organizaed basketball seemed to be slipping away. I cried in the car all the way home. We pulled in the driveway, and I headed straight in the house, grabbed my basketball, and went to thebackyard. Tears of anger and pain filled my sobbing eyes, but all attention was diverted to my tight-lipped mouth. I went from sad to angry...determined to be the best basketball player I could possibly be by the next year. A couple of friends stopped by to play, but I told them I just wanted to be alone. They figured that I had been cut, and left me alone. That's how it was for most of my teenage life - me...alone on the basketball court.

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On the outside, I wasn't alone at all. I wasn't the coolest guy in town, but I wasn't necessarily a loner. I had friends. I knew people. People knew me...or at least people knew of me. I had quite the interesting junior high and high school reputation. I was the guy cut every year, but still the guy people spent time talking about. I recall several instances where people spent most of a class period discussing ways to shut me down.

One particular hot topic of discussion was how to stop my crossover dribble. I might not have ever been the greatest shooter, defensive player, or athletic stud, but I have always been able to handle the basketball with the best of them. That would be one of the two talent blessings that I feel God gifted me with - an ability to handle the basketball, and the ability to see the floor and make the unssuspected pass, most of the time in a fancy manner.

Yep, I became quite the topic, but it wasn't exactly a good thing. It was mostly negative. In addition to finding ways to stop me, there was loads of discussion about how crazy I was to have dreams of playing professional basketball. I brought it on myself. I've never been able to understand it, but I just had no qualms about verbalizing my hoop dreams in an extremely public manner, regardless of what others thought. I wouldn't change it...being so public about it created a necessity for me to succeed. I just had to prove people wrong. I'd look too foolish not to. That was a huge part of what drove my playing ambitions.

The negativity and discouragement I faced on the basketball court transcended into my personal life as well. Like any teenage boy, I longed to find that perfect girl to share my frustrations with. Too bad I wasn't considered a keeper back then. I had several crushes, but just like basketball, very few of those hopes turned into a reality.

My first crush at Franklin that I can remember was Kelly Goers. She had this red hair that always looked so sheik and conditioned. She was a very nice girl, too. She didn't stay at Franklin long. I believe she transfered to a different school in 8th grade. Then it was her good friend Liz Gates, and then a brief infatuation with Stacey Dorado. In fact, a rumor quickly spread that I sang to Stacey in Science class, which I thought was hilarious. Stevie B - Because I Love You. I was, indeed, singing in science class, but it wasn't exactly directed towards Stacey. Of course, if it had worked, I would be saying otherwise. The truth was...I wasn't really a guy that girls were dying to go out with. One of the smallest kid in school? A wardrobe from Value Village and K-Mart? Failure on the basketball court? Nah...I wasn't a hot pick-up for the gals at all.

The one crush that lingered longer than any was with Monica Gains. Monica was also in science class. Something was different about her. While most of the other girls were quite public regarding their opinion of me, Monica was always considerate. Even after sending her a couple of "love notes" declaring my feelings for her, she never treated me different. Monica received the first Valentines Day gift I had ever purchased for a girl - a sterling silver necklace with a heart charm (I think it was a heart). She loved it, and wore it often. I remember her writing a message in a yearbook years later in high school saying that she still wears the necklace. Monica was awesome...out of my league, but still a very special part of my transition from kid to adolescent teenager longing for love.

So I dealt with a lot at Franklin. I went from being one of the most intelligent kids in elementary to a kid barely squeaking by. What was worse was I really began hating school. There was so much discouragment...so much failure and disappointment...that I preferred staying at home. My friend Matt coined me "Mr. snow day in May!" For those who might not know, when a bad snow storm hits, school was oftentimes cancelled for the day. Obviously, there's rarely a snow storm in May (well, you still never know in Michigan). I'd find ways to stay home from school, and claim to my friends the next day that I took a snow day. It's a good thing I had some natural brain power. I missed a lot of school in junior high and high school. It's a wonder I kept myself passing.

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So let's start getting to the heart of the matter...the heart of this book...the heart of why I think it is at all significant to write this stuff down. Do you know how compelled I am to write this? It's quite humorous. I write....then I ask myself, "Why do you think any of this matters, Mark? You must be a real conceited, arrogant, self-serving, lime-light hogging, basking in the sun son-and-gunner!" Still yet, I am compelled.

Perhaps...yes, perhaps I'm selfish and arrogant. You know what they say. There's a little truth in every word spoken. So what shall be said of the fact that I just wrote those words in the first paragraph of this entry? Well, there's some truth to those feelings. On the outside, that's what this all looks like. On the inside, however, there's a passion within me that longs to share a story of earth-shattering wisdom. I want to share a story that compels others to live their life...to be who they really want to be...to be the person they were destined to be. And for those who aren't there yet, to be re-energized to search within themselves for that person that has been burried...for that person burdened by those fears of failure that are far too difficult to lift alone. My hope is that my story might be a shovel for your mind that helps you uncover that failure-stricken soul that screams from under the dirt that there's more to life than the life you are living. I've convinced myself that my story can do that for others. I hope it is true.

There's a saying that hoop fanatics worldwide have proclaimed for generations: Basketball is more than just a game. I've come to find that everything is much more than what it is on the surface. Even my own personal story. Even a simple night drive in a car. Don't believe me? Think of your favorite song. Why is it your favorite song? It bares more meaning than a bunch of words thrown together and aligned with some beautiful harmony and a catchy drum beat. You hear words that communicate your own story, or your own feelings. I believe that God is constantly communicating with us on a continuous basis, but we have trained ourselves to hear only what we want. Some of us have succumbed to not hearing God communicate with us at all. Yet He still screams to us.

Well, basketball has been far much more than a game to me. I've learned some life lessons through basketball that I'm sure I would not have learned any other way. I've learned how to react to failure. I've learned that you need tough, thick skin to develop true, genuine relationships with other people. I've learned that people don't always say what they mean, and that most of what people say stems from their own individual perceptions and not my own. I've learned a lot, but there are two things that I've learned on my basketball journey that are of most importance. I've learned how strong I really am as a person, and, by far, the single most important thing that I've learned, is that...well, it's more than one other thing, but it's about one individual person - it's what I've learned about God. I could unravel all of that right now, and save you from mousing through the rest of these #14 Entries, but lip service (or should I say eye service?) just doesn't do justice to what I've learned about God. I want to take you there, and my hope is that God will bless my hands and my mind, and help me paint a picture to put you in the moment. For like the beautiful, misunderstood work of Van Gough, my life has been a beautiful disaster of paint brush strokes that didn't make sense in the moment. Most people thought I was crazy......that wasn't the case. Let me take you further into the journey...

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The irony of my life up to this point was that I didn't even realize how different things were for me growing up. I had friends whose parents were divorced, and friends whose family had money issues, but when it came to having electricity cut or water cut due to a lack of payment, that was pretty much unheard of. Obviously, I wasn't trying to talk about it either. It was embarrassing.

Having a father who continually attempted suicide was on the abnormal side as well. The thing is, I couldn't understand why my father didn't want to live. He frustrated me, and I was emotionally distraught trying to handle the suicide attempts and the trips to the hospital every few weeks, but I still wanted to make him proud. I wanted both my mother and my father to be proud. Yet, I would ask myself why I even bothered when my father would pull suicide stunts. Fortunately, I found answers to that question. As time went on, I discovered that my ambition was for myself, and not so much for anyone else. Having this perspective helped me handle those questions, but it also made me somewhat of a black sheep in the family. At least that's how I felt.

The food situation got better over time. When my mother started working to help make ends met, we all got to look forward to those leftover McDonald's sandwiches. She was a closer. She wouldn't get home until late, but she often brought home a couple of Big Macs and, of course, several apple pies (I can't stand those pies anymore - I guess I ate too many when I was a teenager). My best friend at the time, Mike Austin, and I use to stay up late playing video games or playing nerf basketball during the weekends waiting for my mom to come home. It's crazy how exciting an old McDonald's sandwich can be to some young adolescent boys.

I think that might have been the only benefit of staying at my house instead of Mike's on the weekends. I lived in what I'm sure Mike or anyone outside of Inkster would classify as a ghetto-ish neighborhood. Cars with blaring, bass-thumping stereos drove by on a regular basis. Gangs of people paced the streets, clearly with no where in particular to be. It wasn't strange to see a fight break out, especially after school at the bus stop (sometimes even on the bus). And to be quite honest, it was a predominantly black neighborhood, which is usually quite intimidating for white people with limited or no exposure to the African-American culture.

It was probably the trips to Wayne, Michigan, where Mike lived, that opened my eyes to the "different" world that I called home. Mike had a pool in his back yard. Typically, swimming in a pool wasn't a viable option, unless you had money to go to the Garden City Pool or the Inkster Recreation Center. If you wanted to get wet in my neighborhood, you turned on the hose, or hooked up the sprinkler and ran through it a few times. There was one pool that I knew of, and it was an empty pool located in the backyard of the house behind me. It was never used. In fact, it looked hideous - green, mossy water and everything.

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My life got interesting...well, complicated is probably the better word. I virtually grew up as a white kid engulfed in an African-American culture. I had my share of fights in my neighborhood, but it wasn't until I started attending junior high that I realized that I didn't fit in with my own race. I was taunted as a wigger, or a wannabe (want to be black), by many of the white kids at Franklin. Some of that carried on to high school, too. There was also this "black pride" thing going on. After the whole Nelson Mandela thing went down, black people started wearing African medallions. It was almost as if it wasn't as cool for a black person to befriend a white person too closely.

Most of my friends were black, but I started to notice how differently they would treat me around other black people that didn't necessarily know me very well. I felt like an outcast, unaccepted by my own race, and kept at bay by the black friends I grew up with. It was strange, but certainly an unforeseen blessing. I'll never be able to completely relate to what it feels like to suffer the racial discrimination endured by black people, but I got as close of a glimpse as any other white kid. I was white, but I grew up a minority in the predominantly black Inkster. Then, as we were migrated to the Wayne-Westland school district, I was persecuted again by my own race. Like I said - nothing close to the plight of African-Americans, but worse enough to develop a passion and ambition to correct the racial issues and become sentimental for the Civil Rights Movement of the United States of America.

My diverse upbringing did, however, do wonders for me on the basketball court. I'm not one to speak ion stereotypes, but the reality is that white people, in general, have a tendency to be intimidated by black people on the basketball court. The media didn't do this stereotype any favors, either. You had movies like "White Man Can't Jump" that portrayed white basketball players as less than equal to blacks stereotypically speaking. The fact is...I witnessed it on several occasions, too. I've seen a lot of white players get pretty tight when competing against other black players.

Fortunately, for me, I didn't have that problem. I had been playing around black people all of my life. In fact, it was often said that I played a ghetto style of ball...another reason I didn't fit in with the white crowd. I dribbled a lot, I could shoot ok (less than average for your "stereotypical" white player, and I was all about the fancy moves and passes. I played from the heart. My goal was to capture people's attention when I played basketball. My style was instinctive, whereas most white people were fundamentally sound.

Whatever style I played with was irrelevant. It was never deemed good enough to represent the basketball team. That's why I spent most of my days on the playgrounds in the neighborhood. As I grew older, I started leaving the backyard and going to other courts around the neighborhood to play full court. We'd still have games at my house from time to time. However, it wasn't uncommon for a few of us to shoot around at my place before congregating and heading up to a nearby park.

That's where my game...and my confidence...really began to surge. Playing full court gave me more freedom and room to really show off. It was like a horse running free in the wild west. I didn't have any structure at all, but I sure did enjoy what I was doing. I use to frustrate people so much by making the game difficult. It was a long road, but I started to learn when to o certain moves and how to instinctively read what other teammates were doing. I especially learned how to react to what a defensive player was going to do, oftentimes, before they were able to act. I was such a good basketball handler that I started toying with people. My hands were quick enough to set up defensive players to reach for he ball so I could pull it back nd go around them. I'd usually miss the lay-up, because I was weak and nimble. However, it was a valuable skill to have, and I developed it over time.

For all the confidence I was gaining as a player, the girl issues stripped it right away. I think I may have had two girlfriends while at Franklin, and neither of them lasted close to a month. My first girlfriend, whom I was just thrilled t date, was Michelle Sadley. She was a year behind me, so it may have been a popularity ploy sine I was a year older. She was my first real girlfriend. After about two weeks, she gave me the break-up note. All I can remember was her being so manin the note, and I didn't understand what I did. Apparently, some of the other girls felt like she was making a mistake by dating me, because even though I was in eighth grade and she was in seventh, I wasn't cool enough.

I got my moment of retribution though. She had an older sister, Crystal, who was in ninth grade. At one of the school dances, I ended up dancing with her a good portion of the night. Michelle had came up to me and apologized...I was like, "It's cool!" Then I went and danced with her sister some more. It was probably nothing, but in my mind, at the time, I wanted to think that Michelle was jealous. I really liked Michelle, though. I'll always remember her as my first girlfriend.

I had other crushes, too. As I said earlier, I was crazy about Monica Gains, and we were very good friends. I just took it upon myself to understand that she was out of my league. Then there was Lisa handler, who I thought was eccentrically unique, but very California-ish. She was quite the quirky, attractive girl you could probably play video game with. The there was Joleen Furman, whom I almost convinced to go out with me. There was Deanna Joliet, who moved away before I could ever really make my move. Liz Gates, who probably still, to this day, has no ideal I had a thing for her.

There was also the short, spunky Dawn Koliba, who I also dated for, I think, four days. That was interesting, too. Crazy story about her - one day, while walking home from the bus stop, A couple of kids in the neighborhood thought it would be cool to get up on her and act like they were getting it on - MUCH to her dismay. One guy, Larry Simmons, was holding her by the hips, yelling out, "I got one!" Well, her father popped up and went ballistic. This, of course, was much after her and I broke up. Good thing, too, because I would have looked like a chump. Even if I stood up for her, I probably would've gotten jumped for intervening. Anyway, needless to say, shortly after that, Dawn moved away, and I never saw here again.

It's fun talking about old crushes, but it affected me more than I realized at the time. It was pretty much impossible to feel good about myself during those times. Failure on the basketball court...a leper to the girls...poverty-stricken home life...I remember crying myself to sleep at night. I rarely went to church in my early teenage years, but I still prayed every night.

Prayer became a huge part of my life the day I asked God for a sign to prove to me He was real. It sounds silly, but I did it. I had to. I wanted to know what this whole God thing was about. I couldn't understand talking to someone that I couldn't physically see. It felt silly..and dumb...like I was crazy or something. One night, while lying in bed, I asked God to show me He was real. Immediately, a second later, I saw this flash of light n my room. It wasn't raining...no thunderstorm or lightening...there was no car to be heard outside my window...yet a light flicker...just one bright flicker.

Sure, there was probably some physical explanation for that moment. However, for me, at that moment and time, that was all I needed to know that this God thing was for real, and I made prayer a regular item on my agenda before going to sleep. I can recall the memorized prayer that I'd say...

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake.I pray the Lord my soul to take. Lord, forgive me for the sins that I've done today...especially the worst ones, whatever they might be. Help the poor people, the unsaved loved ones, the missionaries. Help the people with cancer, aids and other viruses and diseases. Lord, give me the strength to get to the NBA..."

Every night I would pray this exact prayer. There was more after the NBA part, which I can't, for the lif of me, remember. All I know is I prayed for the strength to get to the NBA every night...LITERALLY...every night. As I approached high school, that prayer became more vehement. I just needed to do it...I was so driven. Playing basketball had become such a huge part of who I was. I've never really been able to explain it, but I've always had this feeling...this feeling like, in my veins, there were little tiny basketballs bouncing all within me. I've given up on helping people understand this concept. All I know is that the game of basketball captured my heart as a young boy, and I just knew it had something to do with my purpose here on earth. Despite the failures, I had to continue to improve as a basketball player. I honestly believed that if I worked hard enough, I'd earn me a spot playing somewhere.

It took a very long time before I would start to reap the rewards of those mustard seeds of faith prayers that I planted as a young boy, but my time would come. I can't say that I knew for sure, but there was something deep within me that encouraged me to keep on keeping on.

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Prayer definitely became a huge part of my life. However, going to church didn't...not in Junior High school anyway. My life was about as unpredictable as Michigan weather. Where I grew up, you had to be tough, or at least act like you were tough. I remember watching Eddie Murphy Raw. He did this montage where he talked about not being able to fight, but being able to act like he could fight really well. That was my style, more often than not. I'm not saying I didn't know how to fight. I was pretty much forced to learn how to fight pretty early as a kid. It's just that sometimes I would act a whole lot tougher than I was. The funny thing was that my acting tough got me out of a lot of fights, but it probably got me into some fights I might have avoided, too. I wasn't going to be pushed around by anyone.

I recall having a very foul mouth as an early teenager. Part of it was the Eddie Murphy shows, and some of it was that dog-gone rap music I listened to (I do like rap music, but it didn't help my language). The rest was simply the fact that everyone else had a foul mouth, too. Especially my sister. When her and I fought (and we fought often), you would think the curse word championship was taking place.

To this day, my sister and I don't really get along. I guess we live to different types of lives. In fact, I live a totally different life than all of my family. I've always been a lone rebel. I did what I wanted to do. It was easy. My father was in and out of hospitals, my mother was working the late shift at Burger King, closing almost every night, and I had to fend for myself at home. Most nights, I was stuck watching my little brother Chris. With both parents gone most of the time, or even when my father was home but stapled to his bed sleeping, I was the only one willing to be responsible for Chris. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Having a little brother made a huge impact on my life. It made me grow up, and it even gave me some parenting skills. I'll go into that later.

So as time went on, my focus and passion for basketball grew stronger and deeper. My grades dropped immensely. I would fake sick or purposefully miss the bus just to stay home from school. I can remember feeling like the world was against me. I'd walk in fear getting on and off the school bus. I felt inferior on the basketball court. More than that, I started to realize how poor we really were as a family. I understood that it was abnormal to have your electricty cut off. I was embarrassed when people asked me for a phone number and I'd have to tell them we didn't have a phone. To this day, I can't think of any type of excuse to tell people when they asked. Playing basketball was my escape. I could immerse myself in the game and forget all of these thoughts. That's part of what drove me...I wanted to forget how hopeless life could feel...for as long as possible.

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 As far as I could tell, everyone else around me seemed to be having a wonderful life. Some of them may have felt the same about me. I became quite the actor early on. It was too embarrassing to be the kid with nothing. Kids could be so cruel back then.

I recall one night, sitting with the family in my parents room, crying because I wanted to get a job and contribute to the family financial struggles. I thought if I could just get a job and add a little money to the bank account, we would be ok. I know this tore my father up inside. Deep down, I don't think he ever really intended on being so sick from bipolar disorder. He didn't want to be the depressed, anxiety-filled husband and father that he was in reality. He just couldn't seem to shake it, and quite frankly, he was such a guinnea pig for drugs for the doctors and therapists, he never even had a chance. I just wished we were able to show our love and appreciation for him enough to keep him from crossing the line and taking a successful pill overdose.

I got my chance to contribute financially when I learned about a program called Michigan Elite Teens. My sister started working there before me. It was technically a "Drug Awareness Program" whose mission was to keep kids off the streets and off of drugs and alcohol. In reality, it was simply a job to make a few bucks on the side. It made some adults pretty rich, too.

A group of young teenagers would get in a van and go to different places in the area (most of the time to what could be classified as White Suburbia) to sell $4.00 boxes of candy. We earned anywhere from .90 to $1.10/box sold, plus a bonus for being the top seller for the day. I faced a lot of failure in my life at that point. This was my first taste of pure, willed success! I was good!

It's funny how I can look back an see my business sense develop as early as 14 years of age. I started making deals with people, offering one box for $4, two for $7 or 3 for $10. I figured I needed to hand in $3 for every box missing by the end of the night. I could gladly sacrifice a couple of dollars here and there to snatch up the top seller bonus at the end of the night, which could be anywhere from $10 - $25 (very much worth the sacrifice if I came out on top).

One day, I sold 82 boxes in one day. I like to think that I was a great salesperson, and a splendid communicator. It may have had more to do with me being such a small, under-sized kid pleading for money at the doors of people's homes at dinner time. I was, no doubt, hard to turn down. I credit that job for shedding off the shyness that was plaguing me as an early teen. Working that job gave me the ability to strike up a conversation with a stranger with no second thoughts.

I learned a lot about goal-setting, too. I wasn't bashful about my goals and aspirations anyway, but I got a taste of what it feels like to set a goal and achieve it. I would set goals every day before heading out on the block to knock on doors. It was rare if I didn't achieve it, or at least come extremely close. On more than one occasion, I was known to run to the houses with my big light blue crate of candy, fumble through my speech while out of breath, and compell people to buy from me solely because I was so focused on winning a sales competition. Sometimes, there wassn't a competition at all...just with myself.

Mike Austin and I both worked at Michigan Elite Teens. I stayed on for much longer than him. He had some pretty decent sales numbers from time to time. I think I became more of a socialite than he was. The irony of it all was that although I wanted to contribute to my family's tragic financial woes, I ended up blowing a lot of that money with Mike Austin at the malls and sport stores buying junk I didn't need - like basketball cards. We bought boxes of Skybox and Hoops Cards hoping for a David Robinson rookie card. Michael Jordan's rookie card was going for thousands of dollars. Somehow we convinced ourselves that getting the rookie card of a top NBA prospect would solidify our fortunes. We were so naive.

 My love for basketball remained, but my opportunities to play dwindled quite a bit. I was still quick to tell people my goals of getting to the NBA some day. As usual, everyone thought I was hilarious (I hovered around 5 feet in height for a very, very long time). I played whenever I could, though. It wasn't uncommon for me to spend the hour or so before getting picked up to go to work in the backyard shooting around, and spend an hour or so after work shooting around in the dark. My legs certainly started getting stronger, as I was walking non-stop for 3 hours or so a day selling that candy door-to-door. I think the best part of all about earning my own money was being able to afford my own basketball shoes. It felt so good to be able to put on a fresh, brand new pair of Nike's for the first time. I still wasn't making enough to buy Jordan's, but I had namebrand shoes for the first time of my life.

With earning money and playing basketball taking all of my focus, my grades in school slipped to dangerous levels. No one was at home to really pay any attention, though. My mom was working 50 hours a week, and my father was in his own world. Don't get me wrong, they would eventually see my report card and ask the questions that any parent would ask of a child bringing home C's and D's instead of the usual A's and B's. However, there was no follow-up. They were too busy trying to make ends meet and, in my dad's case, find that miracle combination of drugs. I didn't like school anyway. It was more of a gossip-centered, fashion show than a place to obtain a solid education. I knew what I needed to get by, and I walked the tightrope all the way.

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Like so many other times in my life, as I started levitating away from basketball, something started to draw me back. There I was, in the midst of teenage life in 1990's America, making a little bit of money and squeaking by in school. I was no longer the "Second hand clothes...second hand shoes with holes" kid I was just a couple of years before. I embraced mediocre. For years, I fought hard to be the guy who people would gently walk by without noticing. Now it wasn't such a bad thing to have a name. I liked the attention.

I was the guy who was small but unafraid to fight back. The guy with bigger basketball dreams than my body could handle. I was the unique white kid who could fit in with any group of people. Sure, I still got into my share of fights. I was the brundt of some jokes. Nevertheless, I'm glad. those things developed a thick skin that I'd need to cling to as I grew older. In fact, I developed quite the chip on my shoulder. I wasn't afraid to cause my own little bit of trouble. I figured I had earned the right to mis it up a little bit, just to maintain the aura that I'm not the guy to back down from any situation.

I recall one day, after coming off of the school bus, everyone was running towards one of the other bus stops because there was going to be a big fight. When I asked another kid, Donald Mills, who was fighting, he commented back, "Maybe we should stay here and watch Medric beat you up again, hahahaha!" Medric was the guy who hit me with a lock as I walked off the school bus a year or so back. I didn't think that was funny.

In any event, I responded with, "How about we stay here and I woop your (EDIT - use your imagination)." It was as if I took all of my frustration out on him. Somehow, I got myself on top of him and wailed on him for about 2 minutes. It became quite comical to Matt Canty, one of my closest friends at that time (he lived across the street from me) and me. Donald submitted with, "Alright...I've had enough!" I guess I spazzed out. My response was, "I haven't. I'm just getting started!" Eventually, I was pulled off of him. I walked home feeling much more relieved. We never did get to the other bus stop to watch the other fight.

That should provide a little insight about my attitude toward life at that point. I felt unproven. I was tired of being laughed at. I wanted approval. I couldn't bare being the useless, unpopular, poor little boy with nothing. They say that someone being "on top" implies someone has got to be on the bottom. I didn't want to be on the bottom. I was content to be 2nd or 3rd from the bottom, because I didn't have the self-esteem to fathom I could ever be much more. I just didn't want to be on the bottom any more. It was too lonely!

As I drifted into the world of getting money and being respected, I found myself creating a name for myself on the basketball court. I wasn't a good shooter, I couldn't play defense, and I definitely had issues rebounding (I was barely 5 feet tall). There was, however, something unique. I could handle the ball better than most, and I really started to stick out on the court. As I began to stick out more and draw more attention to myself, I started to gravitate back to the game. Although most of the conversations were about how to stop my fancy dribbling clinics, or a debate on whether or not it made any sense for me to do the dribbling moves because I still couldn't score, the fact remained - I started to garner a tiny bit of respect on the court. I was no longer a laughing stock, and I wasn't even the last pick for teams.

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I loved being mentioned in basketball conversations in school and throughout the neighborhood. Sure, I still wasn't making the basketball team when I tried out, but I felt like I was moving in the right direction. The attention was almost like a drug. I had become quite use to being an underdog. Getting laughed at and teased for having such a hefty dream to play professional basketball made me such a strong, thick-skinned person. Fortunately, for me, I learned early on in life that it doesn't really matter what people say or think about you and what you can accomplish. What matters is whether or not you have the sincere passion and desire to work hard enough to achieve your goals. The harder the goal, the harder the work required.

Having a little bit of money brought with it some nice benefits to my basketball world. I finally had some decent clothes to wear, some good basketball shoes, and a little bit of spending money to actually enjoy life. I also bought a lot of highlight basketball videos. I'd spend hours watching them over and over again.

The Championship videos of the 88-90 Detroit Pistons reign were on regular rotation before I went to play. Of course, there was the famous Michael Jordan videos (Playground, Airtime, etc.). My initial favorite was NBA Showmen: Spectacular Guards of the NBA. this video featured the best guards in the history of the NBA: Bob Cousy, Pistol Pete Maravich, Nate Archibald, and of course Isaiah Thomas, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. A few years later, Below The Rim came out, which included players like Kenny Anderson, John Stockton, and Tim Hardaway.

It was at this point where I started to become a true student of the game. I was captivated by the creativity expressed by these NBA legends, and I moved quickly to utilize some of the moves from these tapes and make them a part of my every day skill level. I would rewind the moves over and over, breaking down every movement to the second: the angles, the body position...everything. While my style of play and creativity stemmed mostly from Isaiah Thomas, one particular dribbling move, the crossover dribble, became a staple of my ability.

I spent hours in the backyard doing crossover after crossover. It try to see how low to the ground I could get. I'd work hard to impliment a head fake, and even twist my body to fake going in a different direction then I intended. The simple ideal of fooling somebody was so tantalizing, and very much a symbolic metaphor of myself as a player even today. I've never really looked like a stellar basketball player. I certainly didn't look like a guy who plays with such soul and passion. Most guys my height, weight and...ummm...color...are straight shooters. Not me. In fact, I was probably one of the worst shooters around until after high school. I loved to dribble and pass. I loved to create.

After Tim Hardaway, the crossover dribble became an extremely popular move. many would say Allen Iverson perfected the move. It's not hard to find a highlight clip of him crossing over Michael Jordan and hitting a jump shot during Iverson's rookie season. The fact that I could do this move helped me grab a lot of attention. I thrived off of it. It was my first taste of working hard and reaping the benefits. I wasn't an All-Star overnight, but I saw the improvement that hard work and dedication could bring.

My mentality was one in which I started to believe that if I wanted to go to the NBA, all I had to do was work extremely hard - harder than anyone else that I knew. Thus, I lived in my backyard. I started shooting hundreds of jumpshots a day. I remember the first time I shot 500 shots in a day. My friend Matt came over afterwards to play one-on-one. We usually had quite the competitive battle. That day, he was no match. I hit just about everything I threw up. He was astonished...and furious. No matter what he did, he couldn't keep me from scoring. I annhialated him in every game. We spoke afterwards, and after I told him I had spent a couple of hours shooting 500 shots, he told me, "well you need to keep doing whatever you're doing, 'cause it clearly worked for you today!"

So that was the secret: 500 jumpshots from various spots on the court each day, and regular repititions of doing crossover dribble moves for hours at a time. It's a pretty simple recipe that any young kid can follow. I didn't have the teaching. I never had the coaching some of these great players had. All I had was my own sheer will and determination to be the best basketball player that I could be. There's no doubt - I got better! It still wasn't enough. It took me a while to figure out, bit I needed something else. We'll get more into that later, because I still had a lot of growing up to do.

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There are moments in our life where we see a severe transformation taking place. Sometimes that transformation isn't good. Such was the case in my life at this stage - 15 years old.

I had 2 people in my life that I felt were as close to believing in what I was trying to accomplish with basketball as anyone. Did I think they sincerely believed I could do it? No...of course not. Not fully. I did, however, appreciate the lip service.

Matt Canty lived accross the street from me my whole life. We had several ups and downs. I guess that comes with the territory when your lives are so intwined in friendship that you become more like squabbling brothers. We bot we competitive. He and I would play one-on-one all the time. He was always taller than me. Plus, he was more athletic. My skill level continued to increase, and eventually, I learned how to get the best of him. Like when I would shoot a few hundred shots before inviting him over for a game. He didn't stand a chance on those days.

Despite our competitive battles, and our inevitable fighting, Matt always knew how to make me feel like I was doing the right thing with the pursuit of my dream to play professional basketball. Maybe it was his eagerness to see the end of the story. He, more than anyone, knew my will-power and determination. He knew tha family I came from. He could see a difference in me as opposed to my other two siblings. He was hardly a coach, but knew enough about basketball to convince himself that he could share advice and help me along the way. And he did help. When I began beating him on a consistent basis, I understood just how beneficial hard work was. He was always taller than me, yet I found ways to beat him. He hated it, and he would oftentimes let it show, but somehow, I felt, deep down, that he grew to appreciate my commitment to be the best basketball player I could be.

Buddy Clifton was different. I met Buddy while working at Michigan Elite Teens, selling $4.00 boxes of candy door-to-door. He and I were both talkers. We could sell peanut brittle to people with no teeth. Eventually, we started staying the night at eachother's house on the weekend. More times than not, we would end up somewhere playing basketball.

Buddy was the first person to show sincere appreciation for my ball handling skills. We both were fanatic Pistons fans...captivated by the play of Isaiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, and Bill Laimbeer. Buddy was tall, too. Probably 6'1" or so. He got labeled Bill Laimbeer a lot, mostly because he was a taller player that knew how to rebound, but had a great outside shot (plus a Bill Laimbeer nose - sorry Buddy).

We both verbalized the same professional basketball dream. In fact, a lot of people declared that a dream at that age. None would do so as fervant as I would, although Buddy and I would practice like we both had the same dream. We found ourselves the only two white kids with the audacity to head over to the other side of Inkster to play in what was labeled Little Saigon. We surprised most. In fact, we were quickly labeled the Bobby Hurley and Christian Laetner duo. I don't even think most of the guys knew our real names. It was so prominent that I started answering to Hurley.

Buddy and I started playing all over he place. Garden City at the Maplewood Community Center, Westland at the Bailey Center, anywhere in Inkster...anywhere we could get a game, we would go. I can recall becoming quite confident in my abilities as a streetball player. I might not have been playing on the high school team, but best believe I felt like I should be. The arrogance helped my game, too. I was less hesitant. I still dribbled a lot, but I knew I could rock someone to sleep with my moves and find a lane to drive to score or pass. I really started believing in myself at this stage of my life.

That arrogance, however, got me in all sorts of trouble in other ways. I started talking trash a lot. I shocked so many people with my abilities despite my size, and I found it to be quite beneficial to let them know how wrong they were about me before the game started. I could frustrate the best of them. Sometimes I stirred up a sleeping giant, and paid for it in the game. However, more times than not, my opponents couldn't get over the fact that they literally couldn't do anything to keep me from penetrating. They felt like they should be able to...but couldn't, and I thrived off of that feeling.

With me finally free from being forced to attend church on Sundays, my arrogance as a player increasing, and the chip on my shoulder that came out in my attitude consuming me, I began getting myself into some alteracations that...well...weren't the proudest moments of my life. Fighting on the basketball court became a regular occurance. What had I become? A bitter, foul-mouthed, little midget not afraid to spit in someone's face if they got to close. I felt like I was all alone on my journey, and no one cared to help. I felt like everyone was my enemy...my competitor. I felt like I had to earn everything that I got, so I made sure people knew that I had earned my stripes, and I didn't care what they thought about me, even if I lost. I made excuses when I lost, I talked junk as I walked away from a bad day at the courts (sometimes that resorted in even more fighting). I was a mess...but I was becoming a better basketball player, and that's all that mattered to me at the time!  

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I'm labeling this section of the book a MUST READ. While I've titled this entry required reading, I sincerely request that as you read, you commit yourself to suspend your judgment, for I am not at all proud about what I'm about to spill. Nevertheless, it is necessary. On other levels, it will make for a very entertaining read, but it will shock you. I am certain.

This entry had a very significant impact on my life. Who we were shapes who we become. This event certainly molded me, and gave me all the reason in the world to re-evaluate my life, but I'm grateful that I am so far away from the clay that was rearranged so long ago. Ok...here it goes.

As I've articulated, I became quite the arrogant guy...quite a bitter kid feeling like the world owed me something. Not because I wanted it. Simply because I believed I was working harder and had more heart than any other player. I longed for the day I was 6'5" with just one athletic bone in my body. That never happened.

Fighting on the court was a regular thing. Don't get me wrong. Most days it never erupted into fist fights. Only sometimes. What I found was I was more times than not at odds with other white players. It was as if we were fighting for respectability amongst ourselves...amongst a neighborhood where white people were the majority. Most of those battles took place in neighboring Garden City - NOT in Inkster.

I started playing a lot in Garden City because I could intimidate people. Playing in Inkster all of my life brought me a great reward. I wasn't afraid of any player: black, white, big, tall, fat, fast, skinny, dirty...players were players, and all I knew was I had to find a way to use what I had to compete. Still yet, Garden City, while having some decent players around, was easier for me to stick out...be a big fish in a smaller pond.

So there was this one instance where I really had to evaluate who I was becoming. There was a kid on the Garden City basketball team - we'll call him Paul. He never really liked me. We often found each other on opposite teams. Perhaps it was because he was on a high school basketball team at Garden City, and I was a streetball player getting the best of him more times than he would like to see. Tensions built over time, and one day we stopped the game and almost started throwing fists at each other.

I crossed him over one day and scored an easy lay-up on him. He was embarrassed, and pushed me in the back. I turned back from running down the court to play defense, got right in his face, and pushed him right back. Quickly, others stepped in and broke us apart.

The next day, I received a call from Buddy, saying that Paul wanted to meet me at Memorial Park to fight. I guess he was thoroughly embarrassed in school all day. I guess he was a big shot in Garden City High. Me? Nobody, and that probably hurt his ego. I was never one to back down from a fight (I think I've made that clear by now), so I went. I grabbed two of my friends and my little brother, who I was watching, headed to the park ready to get down. He was late, as I figured. I don't think he thought I would show up. I was right on time. The crowd (and there were many) surrounded us, and the party began.

Initially, I danced around him like Mohammad Ali. Quick on my toes, jabbing at his face, connecting on probably half of my punches. A fair fight was simple for me. I was use to fighting one person while watching the others, fearing they would jump in and beat me silly. No one jumped in, and I laughed while tagging him with right jabs. In fact, it got to the point where he was out of breath and asked to hold on a second. Being the cocky guy that I was, I laughed, said take as much time as you like, and then we continued.

After his breath, something happened. I got tripped up on my own feet. I probably took to too much dancing. Nevertheless, I fell on the ground, and he got on top of me. He pounded my head repeatedly, and even rammed my head on the concrete once or twice. He asked if I give (quite funny to me for a fight), and I said yes. I got up, only to listen to him and his friends mock me, telling us to go back to Inkster where we belonged. Well...that didn't go over very well.

We left, stopped at a gas station to clean me up. I was beaten pretty badly. My head and shirt was bloodied, and I was in pain. Our egos were bruised, for we had much pride in where we were from. Besides, it was labeled one of the toughest neighborhoods around. It was certainly tougher than Garden City. We joked about getting more people together, heading back, and settling the score. Well, that joked quickly turned into a reality. After stopping at a friends house - Cory - we grabbed a gun, jumped into the car and headed right back to the park. Silly Paul - he and his friends were still there bragging about their victory.

We jumped out of the car. We were about 5 deep (6 including my little 7 year old brother). Cory walked swiftly towards Paul. He was a bit short, but very stocky. Paul was immediately intimidated. The argument began. I can remember almost word for word.

Cory:"What did I hear you said about Inkster?"

Paul: "Ah, come on man, this doesn't concern you."

Cory: If Inkster comes out of your mouth, then it involves me mother _____."

Cory scolded Paul for about 5 minutes.

Cory: If you're so tough, why don't you fight me?

Paul: I don't have a problem with you.

Cory: Oh, so you've gotta problem with Mark? Then why did you tell him to go back to Inkster? If you've gotta problem with Mark, you've gotta problem with me!"

Paul: Man, it's all over, it doesn't concern you. Just go home. It's finished, right Mark?

I remained silent.

Cory: So you need me to make a problem with you? Then you'll fight me?

Paul: Come on man, chill out.

Cory's voice escalated to a high pitch. Paul was obviously fearful.

Paul: Man, please...I don't gotta problem. It's over.

Immediately, Cory punched him in the mouth with an intense left hook (he was a lefty). Cory assumed a boxers stance.

Cory: What's up now, BI^#&@! Say that S#@T you were saying about Inkster now!

Paul: Man, I'm sorry. Why did you just hit me.

Cory: Because I felt like it, whatchya gonna do about it (I'm going to refrain from using all of the foul language...you surely get the picture).

Paul wanted nothing to do with Cory. We all could see the fear in his eyes, but Cory was determined to make a statement, for if there was anything at all we could be proud of, it was coming from the toughest neighborhood around. Questioning that, or challenging that, was simply unacceptable.

Cory: Gimme the gun Matt!

The crowd screamed. many ran for their lives. Paul and his friends were paralyzed in fear. Tears started to fall.

Cory: Get on your knees, ____! Say that _____ you were saying an hour ago!

Paul: God, please stop! Don't shoot me....please don't shoot me!

Cory: Say sorry! mark, come here. Kick him in the face, Mark!

Sadly, I gave him a kick to think about.

Cory: Tell Mark your Sorry!

Paul: I'm sorry Mark.

Cory: Naw...say I'm sorry sir Master Mark King

Paul: I'm sorry Sir Master Mark King. I'm so sorry please don't shoot me!

Cory pistol whipped him, we ran into the car, and drove home!

............................We raced home. We were all pretty silent. I think we were all shocked at what had just occurred. It was probably the dumbest thing any of us have ever been involved in. We could have all found ourselves behind bars for a long time. Such was the reality that we all lived in. Many of our friends found there way to the slammer. It was a plagued that none of us knew even existed. It was so easy to find your way into ignorance in Inkster.

I found out later that the gun was actually a BB Gun. While that was a bit of a relief, it didn't change what occurred. the reaction was still frightening. I heard, later, that Paul told his brother, and a group of guys circled Inkster with a loaded 12-Gage shot gun looking for us. If that was true, praise God that they never found us. That silly instance of blissful ignorance could have cost us our lives!

I have much to say about this, but I will save it for the next entry. I will end with this - moments like this, from my life, are why I know that writing this book - #14 - is important. I know there is value in this. There's a lot more where this comes from. A lot of good, but still some misfortunes along the way.

I've said it before: I'm a transparent guy, different than most Christians for sure. I don't sugar coat things. I have no issues with letting people know who I am, who I was, and who I want to be. I'm ambitious, and most of those motives were birthed out of the many experiences I've endured throughout my life. I embrace who I was because that is truth, and the truth sets you free. However....I am blessed to have found my way to the Mark Anthony King that I have become. God has been so very good to me!

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I left that park feeling tough...invincible! My initial thought was, "I showed them!" Five minutes from the scene, as we maneuvered to find the fastest way home, that feeling quickly became remorseful....and empty! I was too tough to show it to the others, but all I kept thinking was, "What have I just done?" To top it all off, I had to deal with the pain of that fight for nearly a week. It hurt - emotionally and physically. It was, by far, the worst, most painful fight I was ever involved in.

After that incident, I really started to re-evaluate things in my life. I mean, I felt like I was different from my entire immediate family...like I was our only hope to change the course of reality that engulfed the King name. Wow - I really could have blew it all away. It makes me wonder how many people are locked up behind bars that could have taken an extra minute to make an alternative decision that ended up costing some (if not all) of their life! 

So there I was, wondering what was becoming of my life. My parents quit forcing me to go to church. My grades were as low as they had ever been, which was an embarrassing decline from receiving an award signed by Ronald Reagan for academic excellence in 6th grade. My family life was a mess.

Still yet, all I could really think about consistently was basketball. It was the single most important thing in my life. I was consumed. I was obsessed. Although I began to come into my own as a player, it didn't change the end result in high school. I was still not getting picked to play for the school team. I can't tell you how baffling it was. I mean, the coach had to see how important it was...how badly I wanted to be a part of the team. For some reason, it never clicked in his mind. I was stuck playing on the courts around town. I was stuck as the laughing stock of the school, which was, of course, my own fault. Despite my circumstances, I was always optimistic about my chances to eventually make the team. I never hesitated to express my desire to play professionally. Back then, I must have looked like the biggest idiot on the planet. It's a wonder no one ever had me committed to an insance asylum. It couldn't have looked like a realistic goal. Everyone thought I was crazy - EVERYONE! Most of them weren't afraid to tell me, either.

Fortunately, after the park incident, my life began to change. I had this empty feeling in my soul. I couldn't figure out what it was, but I knew it was there. I was plagued with this feeling of hopelessness within. I can recall feeling like there was no possible way I could ever grow up and be a responsible adult that pays for rent, food, electricity, gas, and all the other things that adulthood brings by way of invoices due every month. I barely had enough responsibility to cover my auto insurance for my beat-up 1982 doo-doo brown Chevy Cavalier. It was as if I were living a lie in public. I talked confidently about my options as a basketball player, but deep within, I had no clue how it would happen. I had my doubts as well, which increased each time someone came along to tell me how nieve I was, but I did have this tiny, microscopic mustard seed of faith that it could happen.

Although church was out of the picture for me, my parents and my brother remained active members. In fact, my brother was actually setting a much better example than my sister and I did as kids. Perhaps it was the park incident that impacted him, too. One day, with a holiday approaching (maybe Easter...or Christmas, I can't remember which), my brother had asked if I would go to church with the family. He had a speaking part in some kid program that was going to be held during the evening service at church. Initially, I said no. However, after seeing the look on his face, I quickly thought otherwise.

My brother looked up to me. We had a special bond. With mom always working nights at McDonalds (and eventually Burger King), and my father sleeping his mid-life crisis away in bed, I was the one who took care of him. I took him to the basketball courts, he always watched us play in the backyard, he went just about everywhere I went throughout the day. As I mentioned earlier, he was even at the park when I had the infamous, shameful fight.

I never forced him to like basketball, yet he sincerely enjoyed watching me play, I was proud of him, too. I remember Matt and I use to teach him the Spanish words we were learning from Ms. Elssesser in class. He was smart - picked them up swiftly. Tocan se la cabesa! He would touch his head immediately, with a big grin.

His look of disappointment when I said I wasn't coming to church pierced my soul. As they all headed towards the car to leave, I quickly stopped them and asked them to wait so I could change and come along. Deep down, I knew it seemed important for Chris, so I grabbed some clothes and jumped in the car.

What I didn't know was that it would end up a divine appointment. I can't remember much of the service, not even what my brother contributed to the program. I do recall an announcement board I glanced at as we headed for the exit door. There was a posting announcing the Fall Church Basketball League that was coming up soon. Playing organized basketball had eluded me all of my life. I thought playing for a school team was the only way to play in a game. Little did I know, the churches in the area, about 12 or 14 of them, met on Saturdays for a league at Gilead Baptist Church in Taylor, Michigan. The best thing about it? I could actually get a chance to play organized basketball for the first time in my life.

It was free (financially), but there were some requirements. I had to attend two services per week to be eligible to play. Sunday school and morning service counted as two. It was a no-brainer. I would gladly endure 3 hours of church to get a shot to play in a basketball league with referees, whistles, coaches and a real scoreboard. It was...it was simply amazing. To me, it was a chance of a lifetime.

The Monday after was even better. After my 10th grade year, I learned about a class that was offered for first hour - Basketball Tech. It was basically a class for the high school basketball team, with a few spaces for some more advanced players whom the coach felt were worthy to compete. In order to get in, the coach had to sign off and approve. I tried to get Coach Henry's approval after being cut my 10th grade year, but he quickly shot me down.

"Son," Coach Henry said. "I'm sorry, but the class is really for the basketball players only." I knew otherwise, but I could read between the lines. I wasn't deemed worthy enough to compete.

I assumed my fate, but I tried out in 11th gradeanyway, only to be cut again.

After my Sunday evening church experience, my fortune as a player seemed to be looking up. I was amped up and excited in gym class that Monday. It was open gym, so obviously, I choose basketball. As fate would have it, Coach Henry was walking by, returning to work from lunch as we played. I noticed he stopped to watch me play for the final 5 minutes of class. When the warning bell rang, I headed towards the locker room to change, and Coach Henry was right in my path. Feeling lucky, I decided to ask him one more time if he would allow me into basketball tech for my final year. Out of no where, he answered with a resounding, "Sure, Mark!" He knew my name...wow! Better than that, it was as if the answer was simple for him...like he never knew I had asked him before.

With these two events, my life was changed. I go to church for the first time in ages, I grab a spot on the church basketball team, and then get a chance to have a semester-long tryout by participating in basketball tech every morning for my senior year. It was the strangest thing. I knew, deep within, that this was no coincidence. I might not have been going to church, and I might have been living a non-Christian lifestyle, but I still believed in God. I just never knew He cared about me as an indiidual. I never experienced anything in my life that made me feel like He was directing my steps. I guess you could say...I had never experienced God until then. On the heels of one of the most shameful moments in my life, God showed up in a big way. It was as if that teenie, tiny mustard seed of faith that I had got its first speck of water.

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Knowing you need to make a change is one thing. Actually making the change, especially when the change needed is vast, is another beast. It was clear that the path I was on in life was a path leading towards disaster. I'm so thankful God woke my spirit up. With so many dead and gone, and many others on their way to get locked up, my own future was definitely in jeopordy.

Fortunately, my parents found a wonderful church for us to attend as a family. As a kid, I hopped on the church bus to Faith Baptist Church with the rest of my family every Sunday morning at 9:30. The only thing I was excited about was the opportunity to win a snickers bar by answering a question correctly, or turning to the right chapter of the Bible during a Bible drill faster than anyone else on the bus that took me home. Perhaps that is why I'm such a competitive person today. A snickers bar can do strange things to a kid at that age, especially for a kid who didn't grow up with much. That was as exciting as it got. Church, in general, was very boring to me as a kid. I prefered to sleep in.

That is why my early teenage years were, for the most part, church free. I hassled my mother so much that she lost all ambition to make me go. When she started working 50 hours a week at Burger King as a closer, she lost some of the ambition to get herslf to church on a regular basis, too. She had to do what was necessary to pay the bills. It's tough getting up at 8AM to attend church at 10AM when you don't get home from a hard, blue-collar day of work until 4:00 in the morning. She tried to keep the family in church, and we received regular friendly visits from Pete and Nola Turner, David Conn, and sometimes even Pastor Gregory himself (the Senior Pastor). I think they knew we meant well, but life was really kicking us in the butt - ALL of us!

The good news is, when it came time to get my own butt back in the pew, I didn't have to go searching. Faith was the place to go. Besides, I attended regularly during the church basketball season. Of course, that was because I had to. The only problem was...when the season ended, I had no motivation to attend. Still yet, that mustard seed of worship was all I needed to get my Spirit stirring towards becoming who God wanted me to become. I found myself attending when the season was over on an occasion or two, but not consistently. It was such a growing process. I knew where I needed to be, but...like most adolescent kids, my mind was all over the place. Church remained an afterthought for a short time, but God was moving...for sure.

I did start cleaning up my life. I had a foul mouth during those years, so that was the first thing I attempted to change. I also tried to have a better attitude. Life was tough, and we had no money, but I stil had reason to be cheerful. I had a roof over my head, I had a decent job working at Arby's, and I had some pretty good friends. Strangely, about a week into my attempt to change my life to be a "good person", someone at Arby's took notice...Laure G. (can't remember her last name). One day, as we were closing the store, she mentioned, "Something's different about you, lately, Mark. You aren't the same bitter guy anymore. I'm not sure what it is, but I like it. You're a fun guy to be around!"

I was flabbergasted. I couldn't believe I had changed enough to cause someone to notice so swiftly. I told her I was trying to be a better person...trying to go to church more and be happy. She was impressed, and in turn, that really impressed me. It felt good. It prompted me to continue the transformation. If I could draw that type of response, and be a joy of a person to be around, I wanted that for my life. Who doesn't? Everyone wants to be noticed. Like I said...those little things! It's the little things that really impact our lives...not the big things. In fact, I practice the same thing even today. I call it "Lifestyle Evangelism!" Rather than preach to people all over the place, I try to live a life that prompts others to inquire. I want them to ask why I am who I am...why I can be happy in the face of adversity...why I can chase dreams that seem impossible with such passion and confidence!

So I continued the transformation. I liked who I was starting to become. I was not perfect by any means, but I was trying, and little by little, I started to realize that God was pleased with the effort. I could feel Him by my side...hear Him a little clearer. I would pray, and have a sense that someone was, in fact, really listening with compassion and care. I was saved at 12, but never started to experience God until then. I was 16!

Posted by Mark King at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Coach Chuck Henry, former Wayne Memorial Head Basketball Coach

All too often, there is a misconception that becoming a Christian and drawing closer to God solves all problems. I'm hear to proclaim the opposite...life gets much worse before it gets better. At least it did for me.

I liked who I was becoming. I loved when people took notice of the efforts I was putting in to my own life. I ws sincerely trying to be a better person. I wanted to be a better son...a better Christian...a better basketball player. For some strange reason, being a better student didn't exactly factor into that equation. I was simply too preoccupied with basketball.

I loved being in Basketball Tech every morning for first hour. I had to ride the bus to school every day, so I got extra time to work out, becasue the bus was oftentimes early. I'd bring my own basketball to school, and get some extra ball handling drills in. Part of me thought Coach Chuck Henry would take notice of my passion. He actually did, but it was far too late. Despite my efforts, and the hard work, he still wound up cutting me from the team, making me a perfect 0-5 for basketball try-outs during my formative years in junior high and high school.

How I graduated with a high school diploma boggles me even today. I consistenly skipped out on school for most of my teenage years. I would miss 20-25 days per semester. My senior year was better than most (maybe 12 days missed for the year), thanks to having basketball tech and my literature teacher - Ms. Newton. She took a special interest in me, encouraged me and explained the importance of attending class. I wrote a poem about my desire to play basketball in college, and she was probably the only one who didn't find that funny. I think, overall, she saw the passion I had within me, and wanted to utilize that for other purposes. She knew how to reach me, and wanted to make sure that she utilized what made me tick to get my education. It was a brilliant strategy that ultimately worked. I've tried to locate her, but I've been unsuccessful so far. I think she would be tickled to death to know what she meant to me, and to see me writing a book.

My attendance was good, but my performance was still lacking. Missing all of those classes severely hindered me in the classroom...especially in math class. I could devote a whole chapter to the fun times I had in Alegebra III. For one test, I had no clue how to "do the math" so I put the #11 for every answer (my favorite number at the time, because of Isaiah Thomas). Another time, I fell asleep with a sucker in my mouth, and when a classmate, Elveria, tapped me to wake me up, I jumped out of my seat with green sucker  juice overflowing out of my mouth. Of course I played it off like I meant to do it (for pride's sake), but it was definitely an accident. Quite a funny day in class, though. Mr. Knopsnider, I'm sure, didn't think so.

Nevertheless, I progressed through 12th grade. The highlight of my senior year came on senior skip day, which, strangely enough, I didn't participate in (a lot of people didn't). That day was the first day I ever received some acknowledgement for my ability and passion for basketball. I was always placed on the JV squads in basketball tech., but because a couple of seniors were out, Coach Henry put me on the senior team...and I WAS ON FIRE!!! I hit all kinds of shots. Roderick and Courtney kept feeding me the ball, and I kept delivering. It was undoubtedly a shock to many, but it was a day that I'll never forget. It was, as I said, the first time I had experienced any happy times as a player.

After that day, Coach Henry pulled me into his office and admitted that he "probably" made a mistake about me. He said he probably should have squeezed a spot for me, simply because of my devotion to the game adn my committment to get better. It was an emotional moment for me. At one end, I was humbled, and in a sense relieved. The first thing I thought was, "I knew I wasn't crazy!" Still yet, moments later, I remembered walking out of his office, filled with bitterness and anger. How could he have missed my devotion? Why would he tell me this now, when it is far too late to take back? Splendid...he admitted he should have given me more opportunity. It didn't rectify the issue. I had no organized basketball experience outside of playing church league basketball.

Overall, it was a building moment. I've had several moments in my life that have impacted me in a way that kept me motivated regarding my pursuit towards a career in basketball. This was one of them. All the doubts and questions that I had in my own mind subsided. If only for a moment, I was given a glimmering light of hope at the end of the tunnel after that meeting with Coach Henry.

Another significant positive that came out of that meeting involved Coach Henry contacting Mr. Bogataj, a teacher at Wayne Memorial by day, and head basketball coach for Schoolcraft Community College. Typically, colleges recruit players, and they didn't look much further than high school basketball teams in the area. I hadn't played a second of high school basketball, but Coach Henry made a call and urged Mr. Bogataj to give me a try-out. I ended up going to that try-out, but...that is for another chapter.

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