When he became a father, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar found himself modeling his parenting skills on that of his college coach, John Wooden.
“I’d think of some of the wiseguy things we’d do [at UCLA] and how Coach would show us the right way to do things,” Abdul-Jabbar told The Post.
The man born Lew Alcindor, son of an NYC transit worker, celebrates that bond in his book, “Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court.”
His take on the struggling Knicks?
“They always seem a player or two away from the right combination. Maybe Spike Lee jinxed them!” Here’s what’s in his library.
Bill Russell may be the basketball player who most influenced me as a player and as a man: how he moved and interacted with the rest of the team and conducted himself with class and dignity off the court. This memoir of his friendship with Celtics coach “Red” Auerbach celebrates the bond that lasted a lifetime.
This crime drama features the Easy Rawlins author’s lesser-known characters. When Paris Minton’s bookstore burns to the ground, he enlists felon Fearless Jones’ help. Though it’s a noirish mystery, Paris often ruminates with wit and charm on what it means to be black in America.
This book is especially moving to me because of my friendship with Muhammad Ali and because “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” helped mold my political activism. It details Malcolm’s influence in shaping boxer Cassius Clay into an international symbol of black pride and [describes] the falling out with Islam that led to Malcolm’s assassination.
After seeing the documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” I was moved to reread the book that so motivated me when I was younger. Baldwin’s observations on race relations, written in 1963, are just as true now, in 2017.
