Julius Erving - Dr. J: The Autobiography

In loving memory of my parents, Julius Sr. and Callie Mae; my brother, Marvin Vincent; my sister, Alexis Alfreda; my stepfather, Dan Lindsay; and my son Cory Marvin Erving

Contents

M ine is an American life, fully lived, rich with the spoils and temptations of success, and rife with the failings and shortcomings of succumbing to those same temptations. I believe that while what I achieved is only possible in the United States, my faults are my own, singular and personal. I am born with great genetic gifts of speed and strength and dexterity, and the opportunities of my country allowed me to gain wealth and fame through basketball. Yet my journey is more than that of an athlete. I am an African-American, living through tumultuous times in our country, navigating a cultural landscape that has been very much divided for much of my life; I am a husband, trying and not always succeeding to live up to vows of fidelity amid the seductions of celebrity and fame; I am a father, seeking to impart values and my belief in America to my sons and daughters, pulled too often by the demands of professional sports away from those children; I am a businessman, believing deeply in the system that rewarded me and now seeking to build another legacy.

I am, of course, an athlete, a former basketball player, and while my achievements in that arena are my best known, they are only the mythic part of my story. My other accomplishmentsof completing my college degree, of the pride I take in my children, of rising up and out of the Hempstead, Long Island, projects to become Julius Erving, founder and CEO of Dr. J Enterprises and the Erving Group, partner in the first minority-owned NASCAR team in the modern era, board member of corporations such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Meridian Bank, Williams Communications, and Sports Authority, and institutions including Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Philadelphias Fairmont Park Commissionare those I wish to be measured by.

I am an American man whose journey has been blessed by the great gifts that America offerswealth, fame, championships, awardsand also scoured by the tragedies that are a part of the human experience. I have lost too many loved ones.

I ask for no pity; I only want to relate what I have felt and seen.

I have hurt too many people.

For that I ask forgiveness.

An American life, after all, is the sum of its parts, the successes and the failings, and mine has been rich with both.

I want to be candid about my life. I want to recall with you everything that I have seen and done, and try to make sense of this ongoing journey. I am living a bountiful life, and while it has not always been easy, it has been exciting and, I believe, emblematic of our time.

Mine is an American life, fully lived.

R ise.

I jump.

I reach up both hands, my brown corduroys sagging, and I take flight, my blue Keds leaving the linoleum floor and my fingers reaching above the sill. I cant see out the window. Jump again. Higher. I can touch the glass. And every time I jump, I know, I jump higher.

But I cant see out the window.

June, what are you doing?

Nothin. I sit down on the floor. Jumpin.

I can smell what Mom is cooking: chicken, lima beans, spinach. The steam coming from the kitchen, the wet grassy smell of the greens. My mothers voice singing a hymn:

At the cross where I first saw the light

The burdens of my heart rolled away

It was there by faith that I first received my sight

And now Im happy all the day.

Freda. Marky. Mom and me. Were four of us. Im the man of the house, Mom told me. Im older than Marky, my younger brother, Marvin. Hes a baby, in his crib, wheezing. Still in a diaper. If I stand on tiptoes, if I jump, I can see through the slats to where hes sleeping.

And Fredamy older sister, Alexis Alfredashes three years older than I am and shes faster and stronger than I am and thinks she can tell me what to do but Im the man of the house, I want to tell her. Cant tell me to stop jumping, or take off my shoes or get up off the carpet or help Mom in the kitchen. Or she can, and she does, but Im still the man of the house.

Jumpin! I tell Mom.

We live on the third floor of 50 Beech Street, a brick public housing building called Parkside Gardens. Freda, Marky, and I all share one bedroom, a corner, with windows facing Beech and Laurel and I want to look out them, to see the kids playing in the sandlot across Laurel or roller-skating and riding bikes in the street. Because if Freda wont take me out to play, I cant go by myself, Mom said, cause Im too smallbut I want to see out that window so I jump.

And every time I jump, I jump higher.

I rise.

Callie Mae Abney is Mom. She comes from Batesburg, South Carolina, third youngest of fourteen siblings, received her teaching degree from Bettis Academy, married a Batesburg boy: Julius Winfield Erving Sr., my dad, and then they left Batesburg, moved to Chicago, and then Hempstead, Long Island. They had me at Meadowlark Hospital, just two miles from here. My parents divorced when I was three. Ive seen my dad about a half-dozen times since. But we live surrounded by family. Theres another family of Abneys, my moms people, right down the hall. There are kids in every apartment, and plenty of them dont have fathers.

Mom doesnt have a teaching credential for New York State, so she cooks and cleans for a family that I never see. She comes home in the afternoon, and then cooks and cleans for us.

Freda and I are in charge when shes gone. Marky stays in his crib. We cant go play until Mom comes back and so we watch TV, The Little Rascals , and then finally Mom is back and cooking and she brings out the plates and we say grace and eat, chicken and spinach and beans. I used to be chubby, but now Im getting longer. My arms and my hands are stretching, my fingers long like Popsicle sticks, and Mom and Freda are talking about school, and Im going to start school soon, Prospect Elementary, just a mile away, but right now, after we eat and drink our milk, I hear Joe Farmer in the hall. Hes two years older than I am and can go outside without anyone, without Freda, and I ask Mom if I can go play after supper because its still light and she says, Go on, but stay with Freda and Joe, and were gone, out the door, down the zigzagging steps. Joe and Freda can jump them but I can only take two at a time, leaping, and then were down on the ground floor, the concrete entryway with the benches and Joe and Freda are jumping over them onto the lawn and I have to slow down and climb them but soon, I know, I cant wait, soon Ill be jumping them, too.

I will jump everything.

There are at least twenty kids out in front of the building, in the play area with the strange basketball hoop, a metal rim mounted on a pole with three hoops in an inverted pyramid beneath it. The hoop on top is high up, and little kids can only throw a tennis ball through the bottom. Occasionally, I can throw a tennis ball through the top and then it falls and I have to chase it. The bigger kids play basketball on this rim, without a backboard, dribbling in the bald patch of dirt. No out of bounds.

This community is mixed. Theres Ray, Richard, and John: theyre white kids. And then Joe, Juanita, Sonny Boy, Levi, Cleveland, and the rest of us black kids. We all play together, every game is both black and white and nobody picks teams by white or black or even boy or girl but by whos good and who isnt. Freda is good. Shes the fastest kid in the whole project, boy or girl, so shes picked for everything first. Im fast, I tell the captains. Im a good jumper. But they say Im still too small and I never get picked for the real basketball games.