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.

People have been killing because of racial differences since the time of Adam and Eve, but in this country racism has been primarily aimed at African Americans.

Back then every small town had a gym, and if itseated more than 2,000 then we'd be interested in playing in it.

We lived in Yorkville until 1940, at which point we moved into the St. Albans neighborhood of Queens.

Race wasn't an issue. My family was French, but Yorkville was a melting pot of races and cultures.

The NBA wasn't a big deal at that time, so it wasn't really in my career plans.

These days I smile benignly at the fights that I see in NBA games. There aren't any broken noses or black eyes, which happened quite often when I played.