But as a coach I wanted to keep things from being too complicated.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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