My dad graduated from Power Memorial High School in Manhattan in 1963.

One thing I’ve mentioned a lot through the years is how he was on the same basketball team as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who still called himself Lew Alcindor back then.

Some of you may be thinking, “Ok, we get it… you’ve bragged about this before… who cares?!…” But I just think it’s so cool!

First of all, I discovered this piece of info when Jabbar guest starred on Diff’rent Strokes back in the day. He played Arnold and Dudley’s substitute teacher, Mr. Wilks.

Now, if my dad had gone to school with Gordon Jump and he told me about it after the “very special” bicycle shop episode where Jump played Mr. Horton, I might not have been as psyched… but this was pretty awesome.

I’d never seen anyone so tall before! And the jokes comparing him to little Arnold were HI-LARIOUS to a 6-year-old me.

What stands out now, is that I can’t imagine how incredible it was to witness a 14-year-old, 6’11” Jabbar, honing his skills right there in front of me on the basketball court!

But typical of my dad being blazé about most things, when I asked what it was like to play basketball with him, he said, “He was a nice guy.”

Oh he was a nice guy? Cool. He’s arguably the greatest basketball player of all time and you have no other tales to tell???

I wanted to post some pics with this blog so I went in search of Power Memorial’s yearbooks online. Here’s where I found another tidbit of info my father failed to share…

Not only was he on the junior and varsity basketball teams for both his junior and senior year, he was also a member of the Sports Publicity Team.

The team is described as seven students who gathered statistics and records, then wrote and mailed releases to the press, as well as performed other correspondence duties.

I never even knew he wrote, much less corresponded with the press. Technically, he was one of the first writers/promoters for the great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — and all he has to say is ‘he was a nice guy’.