same.”
When Walt was twelve years old, his father lost his territory. Clyde’s grandfather had always urged his son to save his money, but Walter, Sr., was an incurable spendthrift. Abruptly, the pockets that used to be full of twenties, fifties, and hundred dollar bills had only fives in them. “The house was always crowded with people,” Frazier says, “and then suddenly, nothing. Nobody came when he no longer had cash, except some whites who came around looking for money he owed them. He started coming home only three nights a week. It was bad but I never asked him what happened. In my own mind, it was like some guy in power who lets things go to pot. Everybody played the numbers. He was just the man lucky enough to control it—for awhile. I don’t think my father had worked a day in his life until then. I don’t think he ever had a job.”
When Walt was eleven years old, he stopped going to the farm and devoted all his summers to sports and work. At the playground three blocks from his house, he spent long hours playing baseball, basketball, and football. When it rained, the instructor introduced Clyde to ping-pong, Scrabble, and Monopoly. Clyde gained a reputation as a ballplayer, and this, strangely, exempted him from the gambling that the older teen-agers went in for after playground hours. “Go home,” they would say as they rolled the dice. “You’re going to be an athlete.”
One summer, Clyde got a job cleaning up the old Atlanta Cracker baseball park during the day. Then he and his buddies returned at night, sneaked under the stands and gave hotfoots to the paying fans. Other jobs were cutting grass in the white sections of Atlanta, cleaning carpets in private homes, and working as a bus boy in a restaurant or as a curb attendant at a Zesto ice cream stand.
The Atlanta of his childhood was a world of separate and unequal societies for white and black people. The wrestling matches, the buses, and the ballparks had special black sections; even the drinking fountains were segregated. Clyde and his friends called whites “crackers.” They often played with them in pick-up games or swam with them in creeks, but, as Clyde recalls, “Once you left that field, you went your separate ways. I never had a run-in with adult white people when I was young. I was never too many places where they could call me ‘Nigger’ for long. There were places or neighborhoods you knew you shouldn’t go, but the other guys would. I would always mind my own business.”
His all-black high school did not compete against white athletic teams. When the time came for him to go to college, he wanted to choose Tennessee State or Grambling, each a black school. His grandmother and mother, however, wanted him to go to an integrated school, and he dutifully chose Southern Illinois University. He led Southern Illinois to the NIT championship of 1967. After seeing the all-around play he demonstrated in that tournament, the New York Knicks drafted him number one, and two months later he signed a contract to play professional basketball in New York.
Now, after the game in the Omni, eight members of the press crowd around the players in the steaming locker room.
“How would you describe Clyde’s game tonight?”
“Why were you hitting so well in the third quarter?”
“Do you think the Hawks will make the play-offs?”
“How would you compare Maravich and Frazier?”
Star of the game: Walt Frazier. He is promised two knitted shirts. We shower, stuff our wet clothes into our bags, and head for the bus.
Back at the hotel, the beauticians are partying. I notice that the door across from mine is open. There are people inside laughing. I drape my uniform across chairs to dry and wander across the hall. Three men and three women sit on the beds drinking and talking of sex, clothes, make-up and what they used to do in high school “up at Van Buren.” One of the men, a Georgia Congressman who spoke at the beautician’s dinner,
When Walt was twelve years old, his father lost his territory. Clyde’s grandfather had always urged his son to save his money, but Walter, Sr., was an incurable spendthrift. Abruptly, the pockets that used to be full of twenties, fifties, and hundred dollar bills had only fives in them. “The house was always crowded with people,” Frazier says, “and then suddenly, nothing. Nobody came when he no longer had cash, except some whites who came around looking for money he owed them. He started coming home only three nights a week. It was bad but I never asked him what happened. In my own mind, it was like some guy in power who lets things go to pot. Everybody played the numbers. He was just the man lucky enough to control it—for awhile. I don’t think my father had worked a day in his life until then. I don’t think he ever had a job.”
When Walt was eleven years old, he stopped going to the farm and devoted all his summers to sports and work. At the playground three blocks from his house, he spent long hours playing baseball, basketball, and football. When it rained, the instructor introduced Clyde to ping-pong, Scrabble, and Monopoly. Clyde gained a reputation as a ballplayer, and this, strangely, exempted him from the gambling that the older teen-agers went in for after playground hours. “Go home,” they would say as they rolled the dice. “You’re going to be an athlete.”
One summer, Clyde got a job cleaning up the old Atlanta Cracker baseball park during the day. Then he and his buddies returned at night, sneaked under the stands and gave hotfoots to the paying fans. Other jobs were cutting grass in the white sections of Atlanta, cleaning carpets in private homes, and working as a bus boy in a restaurant or as a curb attendant at a Zesto ice cream stand.
The Atlanta of his childhood was a world of separate and unequal societies for white and black people. The wrestling matches, the buses, and the ballparks had special black sections; even the drinking fountains were segregated. Clyde and his friends called whites “crackers.” They often played with them in pick-up games or swam with them in creeks, but, as Clyde recalls, “Once you left that field, you went your separate ways. I never had a run-in with adult white people when I was young. I was never too many places where they could call me ‘Nigger’ for long. There were places or neighborhoods you knew you shouldn’t go, but the other guys would. I would always mind my own business.”
His all-black high school did not compete against white athletic teams. When the time came for him to go to college, he wanted to choose Tennessee State or Grambling, each a black school. His grandmother and mother, however, wanted him to go to an integrated school, and he dutifully chose Southern Illinois University. He led Southern Illinois to the NIT championship of 1967. After seeing the all-around play he demonstrated in that tournament, the New York Knicks drafted him number one, and two months later he signed a contract to play professional basketball in New York.
Now, after the game in the Omni, eight members of the press crowd around the players in the steaming locker room.
“How would you describe Clyde’s game tonight?”
“Why were you hitting so well in the third quarter?”
“Do you think the Hawks will make the play-offs?”
“How would you compare Maravich and Frazier?”
Star of the game: Walt Frazier. He is promised two knitted shirts. We shower, stuff our wet clothes into our bags, and head for the bus.
Back at the hotel, the beauticians are partying. I notice that the door across from mine is open. There are people inside laughing. I drape my uniform across chairs to dry and wander across the hall. Three men and three women sit on the beds drinking and talking of sex, clothes, make-up and what they used to do in high school “up at Van Buren.” One of the men, a Georgia Congressman who spoke at the beautician’s dinner,
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