Category: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court, by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

1/9/2018

You don’t have to like or even follow basketball to want to keep reading this love story between two compassionate people: a white, devout Christian, brought up in the Midwest and a black, devout Muslin raised in New York City: Wooden the basketball coach of UCLA and Lew Alcindor (who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) his 7’2” center.
Through the words of Kareem we follow their friendship from their first meeting on the court in 1965 until Wooden death at age 99 in 2010. These two men, learning from each other, keep each other accountable through respect, honesty, and trust. Oh, to have such a friendship.

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    Compassionate Reading may sound strange, but that’s my purpose in joining the Goodreads 2017 Reading Challenge. A book a week seems like a reasonable goal. Maybe I’ll read 52, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll read 32, but probably not 520.
     Number goals appeal to me, especially ones connected with the calendar. As a teacher, I loved the definitive school year. There is nothing like a Monday morning every seven days to give me another jump start. The first of every month I take delight in turning the page of my wall calendar. I like numbers.
     However, this reading goal isn’t about adding books to a list. My goal is understand lives different from mine. Up until now I have read through the lens of my own life, one of ease, privilege, freedom and advantage; they never promised a rose garden, but I was given one. Now I want to wear the lens of the authors and their characters. I want to step into their feelings and experiences without comparing them to mine. I want to observe without judging. I want to appreciate the nuances rather than put everything into categories. I want to I want to read with my heart more than my head.
     My plan is to post how each book opened my heart to compassion.

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Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court, by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

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