Chapter 4

SPORTS AND DELINQUENCY

Memphis – 1952

I’m basically a Chihuahua, a scrawny kid who thinks he’s tough. I want to hang out with the pit bulls. So that means playing sandlot football games with some very tough kids in my neighborhood.

One day, I’m settling under a punt booted by one of the high school kids. Mind you, I’m all of eight. As it settles into my arms, I feel my left wrist snap. As soon as no one is watching, I duck behind the bushes and start crying my eyes out. No one can see me acting my age.

I start playing baseball in church leagues as soon as I’m old enough to compete. It keeps me out of trouble. Until it doesn’t. Fortunately, this is a city with plenty of church leagues. I’m being raised Baptist in a city with more churches than service stations.

1958

Size doesn’t matter, I’ve decided. Even six years later, I haven’t learned yet.

I’m running back a kickoff in an eighth grade B-team game when Ceylon Blackwell flattens me. Just lays me out. This is a particularly unfortunate thing, since Ceylon outweighs me by a hundred pounds. The same arm that broke in 1952 breaks again, this time near the bicep. Coach Keith said it feels like buckshot.

This injury sends me to Campbell’s Clinic and forces me to sleep siting up for weeks.

At this point in my athletic life, I’m something of a tackling dummy. But I don’t care. I understand that sports are the ticket to girls and glory, in that order. And at Snowden Junior High, I excel in a way that guys of my stature and weight rarely do. I make up in scrappy what I lack in bulk.

Regrettably, football and basketball aren’t quite enough to keep me from causing trouble. Call it overexuberance. I know the right crowd, but I love the wrong crowd. That leads me one day to the junkyard, where a buddy and I go and steal rearview mirrors from the cars. At least a couple of dozen.

This is one of the few times when Milt behaves like an actual father. He makes me return the mirrors to the junkyard and apologize to the owner.

I’m conflicted. I want to hang out with the athletesand with the guys stealing hubcaps. It’s tough to make the time for both.

1959

Ninth grade turns out to be the pinnacle of my athletic life as well as a key year for coming into my own, as I am starting to overcome my shyness. I also earn my first felony charge.

I make Honorable Mention All-City in basketball at Snowden, which is quite the big deal. There is also the basketball game against our arch-rival Longview. I’m at the free throw line to shoot two shots in double overtime with the game on the line and no time left.

Swish! Swish! I sink them both and emerge a hero.

The father of my pal Charles Burson – a kid who would grow up to