You Will Anyway

Legendary basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday as a U.S. global cultural ambassador.

Clinton expressed the hope that Abdul-Jabbar will engage with young people in particular “as a means to create opportunities for greater understanding.”

  Raw Story

Let me tell you a little story about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar engaging with young people.

When he was still playing for the Lakers, and my son was about seven years old, we went to a basketball game between the Lakers and the Warriors in San Francisco. After the game, my son and one other little boy waited well after all the cars were gone from the parking lot, all the other players had gone home, and there was only one left to emerge – Kareem Abdul Jabbar. There were only these two little boys and two parents standing late out in the darkened lot of the arena, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The two little boys, with lights in their eyes that led their way ran to KAJ with their playbooks and pens, and without so much as stopping and stooping to look them in the eyes, with his head aloft, he told them, “I don’t give autographs,” as he walked on. Two little boys dropped their own heads and turned slowly back to their parents. My son returned to my side crestfallen, but even worse, ashamed of himself because he felt that he’d done something wrong.

Maybe KAJ has changed since then. He’ll always be an asshole to me. You don’t have to give autographs if they’re too valuable to give away, or your time is too valuable to get caught up in throngs of adoring fans. But you don’t have to dismiss little children with such arrogance and finality.

If she wanted a cultural ambassador to engage with children who was once a basketball star, she should have chosen Clifford Ray.  That would have been real.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.