Unguarded

by Lenny Wilkens

  Maybe he didn’t yell, but it seemed like it to me. He had a gravel voice. He was a hulking six-foot-four. You had a feeling that if he ever smiled, his face would crack. And the last thing I expected was for him to call my name. I stood up, and I tried to keep my heart from pounding its way through my chest. I felt like my knees were shaking. My throat was dry. I looked around and saw all these white faces staring at me.

  I was the only black in the class.

  Then Father Heath called out another name: “Mr. Whalen!”

  Dick Whalen stood up, no more happy about it than I.

  “Now listen to me,” he said. “Mr. Wilkens and Mr. Whalen, you are basketball players. I do not like athletes in general, and basketball players in particular. I just want you to understand that. So don’t you cut my class. Don’t even dare to think about cutting my class. Do you gentlemen understand that?”

  We both nodded.

  “Good. You may sit down,” he said.

  You can tell these were the old days, before athletic departments were manned by an army of tutors who helped the athletes with their schedules and steered them away from teachers such as Father Heath who may have had a problem with athletes. And Father Heath was aware of who the athletes were in class because Providence was a relatively small school, and it was no secret who the new basketball recruits were, because basketball was the most popular sport on campus.

  As it turned out, Father Heath had no problem with me. I made it simple. I went to class, I handed in my work. I got a B.

  Dick Whalen cut a couple of classes. He flunked and had to take the course again in summer school.

  But it really came down to a matter of choices. I could have decided that Father Heath was picking on me because I was a black athlete, or at least because I was an athlete—since Dick Whalen also was singled out, and he was white. I could have decided, “This guy will never give me a break, he’s gunning for me.”

  Instead, I was going to show him that I could do the work, that I wasn’t in school just to play basketball. That’s something else missing with a lot of athletes today. Instead of viewing the scholarship as a ticket to a free education, it’s supposed to be a free ride to the NBA. Classes are just something they have to do in order to stay eligible, not to earn a degree and plan a career. When I enrolled at Providence, I had no hoop dreams. I had never even seen an NBA game. Honest! Not one! There were few NBA games on TV in the 1950s and I never went to a Knicks game. I loved basketball, but I never imagined that it would become my life. The NBA wasn’t something my teammates talked about. It may seem outrageous in today’s culture, but we were all there to get an education. You hear people say, “I never got a chance,” and in some cases, it’s true. But often, they don’t recognize their chance when it comes along. I could have rejected Father Mannion’s guidance. I wasn’t the only kid he advised, and not all of them listened to him. I could have said, “He’s just a priest, what does he know?” We can always find a reason not to do something that’s good for us. If we continually battle authority, we often don’t see the doors that open for us—because we don’t take the time to listen to those who want to lead us in the right direction. I made it a habit to listen to what most adults had to say, and then at least think about it.

  Another temptation would have been to approach college with the idea of just doing enough to walk away with some sort of degree, not really challenging myself in the classroom because it would take away from my basketball. Instead, I decided to major in economics.

  That was fine with my mother, because it sounded like a course of study that would lead to a good job in business. But my mother really wanted me to be a priest. Even though I admired Father Mannion, I didn’t want to spend my life working in a parish. I loved the church, but thought I could serve it in another way. Eventually, I wanted to get married and have a family.

  I thought about being a doctor, which my mother also would have loved, but I wasn’t passionate about it. And, I admit, this is where I ran into a conflict with basketball. In the premed courses, there were a lot of laboratories in the afternoon, which would conflict with basketball practice. More and more I leaned to economics. I had worked most of my life, and I knew what it was like not to have any money. I wanted to make a decent living, and I wanted to know how to handle money. Economics seemed like the perfect major. In my first economics class, I had a priest named Father Quirk as a teacher. He would call on most of the kids, but kept skipping a few of us. He never called on a kid named Ray Weber or myself, and we were both basketball players. He didn’t call on Ray Labie, a hockey player. I began to see the pattern: Because we were athletes, he didn’t think we knew the answer. That really upset me, so I raised my hand.

  “Yes, Mr. Wilkens,” he said.

  “How come you skipped me?” I demanded. “I know the answer.”

  He laughed. Then the class laughed. Then I started to laugh.

  “OK,” he said. “What’s the answer?”

  I gave him the answer.

  After that, he treated me like any other student, and I really wanted to be a part of that class because economics was my major. I didn’t want to just sit in the back, vegetate, and get a passing grade.

  The next year, I was on the varsity basketball team. We had a road game, and when I got back, I had a theology test. The teacher wanted to give me an extra day to study.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll take the test with everyone else. I prepared for it. I took my books and I studied on the road. I’m ready.”

  The teacher couldn’t believe it, but I didn’t want any special attention. I didn’t want to be treated like an athlete. I wanted to show I could compete with every kid in that college; all I needed was a fair opportunity. I was going to be the first member of my family to earn a degree, and I wanted a degree that would lead to a good job so I could take care of my family. I was driven by that. Never again would there be a day when I opened the icebox, and it was empty—as was the case more than once in my youth.

  Once when I was still in high school, Father Mannion took me to dinner at a place called the St. George Hotel. I had been sick and lost some weight, and Father Mannion wanted me to have a really good meal at a place where I’d never been. This was a special restaurant, white linen tablecloths, silverware all polished and glittering in the lights from the elaborate glass chandeliers. There were hard rolls, which I had never tasted before; salad forks, which I had never seen before. Because we were poor, we never went to a restaurant, at least not like this. I felt like I was in a Cary Grant movie. Father Mannion wanted me to see the place, to see how other people lived. I was a little intimidated, but I also liked it. I wanted a life where I could afford to eat at places like the St. George Hotel, and I knew college could get me there. Not basketball—college. A degree.

  At Providence, they posted everyone’s grades by the Dean’s Office. Good or bad, your name and your grade point average were up there. My goal was to stay in the top third of my class, because that was the Dean’s List. I wanted everyone to see my name up there high, and I usually made it.

  As I mentioned, Providence was a very white school.

  In the freshman class of about three hundred young men, the only blacks were a kid named John Woods and myself. We were roommates, and John has gone on to become an executive with a major corporation.

  John and I went to a dance with two other white guys. There was a black girl there. John danced with her, then I danced with her. Soon, I was dancing with other girls—white girls. I didn’t think twice about it because it wasn’t uncommon for me to dance with white girls in high school. Anyway, some of the other white guys at the party started giving me looks and whispering things. This had never happened to me before. I was so naive, I had no idea what was going on.

  One of the white guys with us, Jack Bagshaw, confronted some of the bigots. I still didn’t have a clue what was happening, until he shoved one of them. I walked over, and everything just stopped. I mean, it died. No one said a
word until later, and that upset me—although I really appreciated Jack Bagshaw standing up for me, and we’re still close friends today.

  A lot of the students went home on weekends, but I didn’t have any money, so I stayed. It could be pretty lonely. I rarely called anyone because I didn’t have the money for that, either. I was a minority within a minority: Not only was I black, I was poor in a school where the vast majority of the students were at least middle class, if not wealthier. I worked in the cafeteria, which was really a dining hall with the meals served family style. I waited tables. Some people would have gotten hung up on that, feeling like a servant at their own college; to me, it was just another job, a way to pay my college expenses.

  I made friends with a priest named Father St. George, who taught French and was head of the Glee Club. When no one was around, he’d shoot baskets with me. He also loved to eat out, and Father St. George took me to some really nice restaurants. From him, I figured out some of the things I liked to eat and how to conduct myself in that kind of setting. He also had a taste for opera: He loved Maria Callas, and to this day, when I hear her voice, I think of Father St. George.

  At Providence College, I had very few racial problems. I was accepted, even voted senior class treasurer. Once I got used to being in such a small minority, I didn’t think about the racial composition of the school very often. The teachers and students also were very accepting of me, because I did my work and I didn’t complain. I wasn’t trying to prove any point about race; I was just doing what I was taught. I knew that if I produced, race wouldn’t be the kind of roadblock that could stop me.

  But I remember little things, like once going off campus to church with a teammate. We were in a small Massachusetts town. During the Mass, the guy passing around the collection plate skipped right over me. Was it because I was black, and he figured I didn’t have any money? Or wasn’t my money good enough? Was my money black? A lot of things like that ran through my head. But I tried not to dwell on it, or it would eat me up.

  I dated this Italian girl. Her father was a huge Providence basketball fan, and he really liked how I played the game. Then he found out that his daughter was dating me. Instead of coming to me, he went to one of the Dominican fathers. The priest called me in, and the conversation is something that bothers me to this day.

  The priest started telling me about this man being a friend of his, and how he had a daughter… and how he heard I was dating the daughter… and how, maybe, I should… you know, kind of think about it, about her being Italian and me being…you know, what I was.

  I was stunned.

  This was a priest, a man of God. He was supposed to know better, to judge all men as Jesus would judge them, that all men are equal before the eyes of God.

  “Father,” I said.” How can you say that? Does God see the color of a person’s skin? You teach God’s word, right?”

  The priest retreated. He said I didn’t quite understand. But of course I understood. I was black. The girl was Italian. Her father was the priest’s friend. This was the late 1950s, and blacks weren’t supposed to date Italians—not even if I was a good student and a star basketball player. On a spiritual level, it was hard for me to accept this. That’s why what the priest said hurt. Of all people, a priest should know better. But a priest is also a human being, and human beings sometimes don’t see the world as they should, even if they are priests. That’s not a reflection on God; it’s just that they are people who are flawed in some areas.

  Eventually, I broke off the relationship with the girl. I liked her, but I knew that we didn’t have the kind of love that would lead to marriage. Her father tried to make her stop dating me, and I’m sure she received pressure from other people, but she was willing to hang in there. I decided it was best for us to stop going out. Why put her through all that? I didn’t look at it as giving in to her father, but rather sparing her from problems—and doing that out of respect for her.

  I found that the vast majority of people at Providence were very accepting and wanted to help me reach my goals, in the classroom and on the court. I played well on the freshman basketball team, averaging about 20 points. So did the other guard, and I remember that this kid was a lot more interested in basketball than school. His English professor told me, “Tell your All-American buddy that if he doesn’t start showing up for class, he’ll be bounced right out of here.”

  The kid still cut classes, and he left school in the middle of his sophomore year—so they did take academics seriously at Providence, because that kid was a good player.

  After my freshman year, I worked for the Domino Sugar Company on the docks in Brooklyn. My job was to load sixty-pound and hundred-pound bags of sugar onto railroad cars and trucks. It was grueling, and I weighed only 160 pounds myself at the time. One summer of that was enough. The rest of the time I was at Providence, my summer job was at a knitting mill loading boxes of sweaters, which also wasn’t easy—unless you compared it to bags of sugar.

  I realize now how different my college experience was from that of the kids who now play major college basketball. Granted, some of them are after an education, and some of them work very hard—but those kids have become the exception, while I was the norm for those of us who went to school in the 1950s and early 1960s. We spent our college years preparing for a whole life, not for a game that, if we were incredibly lucky, we’d only get to play for a little while.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BY THE END OF MY PLAYING DAYS at Providence, I thought that I was going to be an economics professor. Don’t misunderstand: I was a good player and I knew it. I loved basketball, especially when my team won. I loved having the ball in my hands during a big game when the crowd was screaming, the score was close, and the clock was ticking down. I took just as much satisfaction from setting up one of my teammates for a winning basket as I did from scoring it myself.

  I wasn’t obsessed with being a pro basketball player, but the game was important to me, especially when the game was played right. I played four years of basketball at Providence, and I never dunked. Not even once. Not even in practice. You just didn’t dunk at Providence in the late 1950s. Our coach, Joe Mullaney, considered it a hot-dog play. So did most other coaches.

  Even though I was only five-foot-eleven when I enrolled at Providence, I could dunk a basketball. I had done it in high school: not in a game—that was considered showing up the other team—but I did it before practice, when some of us were messing around in the gym. I didn’t think my hands were big enough to cup the basketball and jam it through the rim, but after a couple of tries, it happened. I jumped as high as I could, my hands soaring above the rim, and suddenly, I just threw the ball down.

  Just like that, a dunk. It was fun. Some guys whistled and shouted and we all had a great time. But I never considered dunking an important part of the game. In the late 1950s, the accent was on outside shooting, on passing, on moving without the ball, catching the defense napping, then breaking to the rim just in time to catch a pass and gently lay the ball off the backboard and into the net.

  Two beautiful points.

  I fell in love with basketball as if it were ballet. I loved the smooth movements of all the players, and I was fascinated by how it all came together. The passing. The ball moving from one player’s hands to the next. The player moving from one spot on the court to another, setting a pick to free a teammate for an open shot.

  Then the pass.

  That was my favorite part of basketball, throwing the perfect pass that led to two points for someone else. Sure, there were games where they needed me to score, especially in important games against good teams; on those nights, I went for 20 or 25 points, especially against a guy who was considered better or had a bigger reputation. I had to relish that. Part of what drove me to excel on the court at Providence is that I really came to that school with no reputation and few expectations, yet I started every game.

  When I was at Providence, freshmen were not allowed to play varsity
basketball. It was a good rule then, and it would be a good rule now. It enabled an eighteen-year-old to concentrate on his studies, to adjust to campus life and actually spend some time in the library, without being under the pressure to produce immediately on the court at the varsity level. Today such a rule would eliminate a lot of traveling (and missed classes) that come with playing big-time college basketball, where holiday tournaments are held everywhere from Alaska to Hawaii to New York. Making freshmen ineligible for varsity basketball wouldn’t hurt their development as players: They’d still be practicing, and they could even practice against the varsity. We did that at Providence, until our freshman team began to beat them in a scrimmage. Suddenly, the coach thought that wasn’t good for the varsity’s confidence, and the scrimmages stopped.

  But a freshman basketball player can practice, lift weights, condition, play in games against freshmen teams from other schools. He just doesn’t have to do it at the varsity level. He can learn from his mistakes without those blunders being seen on national TV. He can learn a little humility from having to sit and watch the varsity play. He can learn that the earth and sun and planets don’t revolve around him.

  Most of our gifted young athletes know very little about patience. They’re constantly made to feel as if they’re a member of a privileged class, royalty in Nikes. Adults want to give them things, to curry their favor. And the kids want what they want when they want it—and they want it yesterday. Immediate gratification isn’t fast enough. I’m speaking in generalities of course; a number of young men have solid values and don’t fall into this trap, but it’s a snare that grabs many kids—and their parents. When I was fourteen years old I was dribbling around those chairs in the Holy Rosary gym, and I was coaching the girls team. Today, fourteen-year-old basketball players are already being recruited. Some are receiving letters from colleges. Think about that, about being a freshman in high school and finding a letter from a school such as UCLA, Ohio State, or St. John’s in your mailbox. What would that do to your head? Imagine being the high-school coach trying to discipline this young man.