A Waste Of Talent

On his tenth birthday Jim Walker was introduced to the game of basketball by receiving a basketball from his uncle Mark Walker. Jim acted as if he loved the gift to please his uncle but really expected more from him. Jim never really played basketball at this age because he would rather spend his time doing things most other ten year olds did like riding bicycles and playing with G.I. Joes. On the same birthday Jim’s mother, Althea gave him ankle weights. She gave him this because she realized her son had a talent, which was jumping high, hoping this talent would payoff for both of them in the future. Jim and his family were not very wealthy living in the Harlem projects were drugs and constant violence plagued the neighborhood so he didn’t really receive many other gifts.

With these two gifts in hand he started playing basketball at the local parks developing his game. He would play and practice with the ankle weights on, realizing he like playing and was pretty good at the game. At the age of thirteen he was playing a full court pick up game at a local park with a group of older guys. While coming down the basketball court at the height of five feet four inches Jim dunked on one of the older kids he was playing with. Word got around neighborhood that there was a thirteen year old who could dunk on the standard ten foot basketball rim in the park. People started to respect Jim because of his basketball skills. He also started getting girls because of his skills and off the court began hanging out with a bad crowd doing drugs and not doing his schools work. Sometimes as a bet and to show off exactly how high he could jump he would snatch money that was placed on the top of backboard rims.

Jim was then recruited by a very good New York City preparatory school. Jim and the other members of the basketball team were giving preferential treatment because of their good record. They were allowed to get away with murder. The coach of the basketball team made sure Jim’s work was done and showed him ways to cheat on tests. One day the track coach approached Jim and asked him to join the track team to high and long jump for him.