I won the city scoring championship as a senior.

Cooper was my road roommate, and also happened to be the first African American player drafted by a National Basketball Association team.

Russell joined the team in December, 1956, following the Olympics.

We lived in Yorkville, which is located on the East End of Manhattan. It's further east than Hell's Kitchen, and back then it was the kind of place where the roaches and cockroaches were big enough to carry away small children.

Every jock gets up and tells the world how lucky he is. But I feel that I may be the luckiest one of all in terms of timing and being at the right place at the right moment-even though, for the last 30 years, I was told I was born 20 years too soon, for obvious reasons.

We hung out on the streets, played stickball, and did all of the things that other kids did.

Kerner decided to trade my rights to the Chicago Stags, which sounded better to me than Tri-Cities, but the Stags folded up almost immediately.