Credit Where Credits Is Due?

I use to be a big basketball fan. Then it became thug ball and I left.

I've watched a few games over the last few years, but just couldn't generate any team spirit or enthusiasm with most of the players shooting 38% from the free throw line.

Having gotten by the Shaq/Kobe years, the Laker's are back in the play offs, so I watched a few of the games and have kinda enjoyed B-ball again.

(As usual the above isn't the reason for my post.)

At half time, they did a "up close and personal" story of Leon Powe of the Celtics.

The man has a lot to speak for his character. He was the oldest of seven children growing up in the hellhole of Oakland, Ca. He talked about his mother giving up food so that her children could have something to eat and that he gave up food so that his mother and siblings could eat. He got good grades and according to his teachers, chased them down to find out how to do better. He had a natural ability to play basketball, but worked as hard as that as he did at academics.

His Mom died at (I think they said 42, just as he graduated HS)and his dad left when he was two. The house they lived in burned down when he was seven and they were homeless.

His Mom got arrested for shoplifting, which I can understand her motivation, not condoning it, but...if I'd needed to feed my kids. All the kids ended up in foster care.

Powe worked to keep the family together. This is a man.

The thing that was not mentioned in the story is where is his dad? There was one kid, and I guess probably another on the way, so did he just decided to cut out?

Now Mom had one, maybe two, kids by daddy one, where the hell did the other five come from? I know a few people from many ethnic groups, but I can't think of another that has SEVEN fucking children with no father around.

I'll say Powe is 100 times the man his father was...but what is it in our society that overlooks the lack of a father in the life of children and celebrates the fact that in this one case there was a gifted child that was able to pull his family out of that death spiral of welfare?

If dad had still been there, Powe would have had his innate talent and would have gone to great things anyway. I'm just sorry he had to fight his way up to the elite of American sports.

Only in America!