Bob Brannum was my body guard on the court. He was 6'-6 and built like a bulldog.

Sports create a bond between comtemporaries that lasts a lifetime. It also gives your life structure, discipline and a genuine, sincere, pure fulfillment that few other areas of endeavor provide.

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.

There were riots in just about every game we played with Syracuse.

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 was the original socially depraved shy ghetto kid.

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.