I was literally fabricated over in France and born about six months after the boat landed at Ellis Island. This was the heart of the Depression. For the first 12 years of my life we lived in a terrible ghetto on the East River.

I had endured six years of frustration so I think winning it all meant more to me than most of the others on the team.

That seemed to be the case with most of the teams based in the smaller towns - the fans were more rabid, and they wanted to literally kill the opposition.

I once heard that Paul Seymour said as much as winning an NBA Championship, he'd like to see the Celtics lose a game after Auerbach brought out the cigar so he could go up to Arnold and stuff the cigar in his face.

I won the city scoring championship as a senior.

The MVP award was very satisfying in terms of personal accomplishments, but the championship was the most important thing of all.

It also didn't take me long to decide that Tri-Cities wasn't for me, and that I wasn't going to go there to play basketball.