By Any Means Necessary...

AG. and CP3 in DC.

Leader of the pack

Fashion forward

"Legend in two games, like I'm Pee Wee Kirkland..."

Pusha T - Grindin'

Many people are going to spend time with their families during the holiday season, so with that I'd like to share a story of family about Chris Paul and I.

He and I are very similar...but before you think that’s a stretch, you must know that we are both young, down-to-earth, friendly people who played college basketball. “CP3” is the very talented point guard while I’m the shooting guard turned journalist. What I admire the most about him is his commitment to his family, and in that, I would say the comparison is right on target.

Family Ties

In the 2002-03 season of his senior year at West Forsyth High School, Chris Paul was on top of the basketball world, playing his way to 30.8 points, 8.0 assists, 6.0 steals and 5.0 rebounds per contest. Fast forward, and was the 2005-06 NBA Rookie and is currently one of the best players in the league.

If you don’t know the correlation between his senior season in high school and where he stands today, it’s simple: He dedicates himself to his family. When his grandfather Nathaniel Fredrick Jones was murdered in 2002, Paul took out his frustration on the opposing team to the tune of 61 points, making one point for every year of his grandfather’s life. With an opportunity to score point 62 on a foul shot, he intentionally missed and took himself out of the game, and the rest is a lesson in love and respect.

For me, my family is at the top of my priority list, and as the middle child I have an opportunity to look to my left to my younger sister, and to the right at my older brother and learn from each of them. However, the one person that I learn and have learned the most from is my mother. She has taught me how to be a man and to lead by example, but while I have the utmost love for my mother, I have the same amount for the woman who raised her, Blanche Holmes. “Aunt” Blanche was born in March of 1897 to sharecropping parents in St. Matthew, SC. 

This is no history lesson, but needless to say she didn’t have any formal training to read, write and do arithmetic. In fact, she grew up during a time where segregation and Jim Crow laws were the standard way of life and African-Americans were not even recognized as human beings…and despite all of that, she gave me the best opportunity I could ever get by raising my mother, beginning in 1953, in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

I can remember Aunt Blanche, as she would later move in with us and I would wonder what she would think of our television set. Not only was it color, but it was a huge floor model, and we also had a VCR with a remote control. You see, when my mother was growing up, they had a black and white TV and the set was always on CBS because Aunt Blanche thought the TV would break if you turned the channel. She would always tell me when I was actin’ up to “behave yourself before the red car comes and gets you.” The red car was the police, even though by that time police cars in Philadelphia were blue. But she was old school and had I been old enough to realize her wisdom, I could have learned something special from her. She passed away in 1987, but she is with me now more than ever before. I often sit and think of were she came from in relation to me and where I am today.

I’m a college graduate, professional journalist and TV personality, and the only reason is because of what everyone has done before me. Whenever I write a story, there is a direct link to Blanche Holmes because she was denied education. Whenever I appear on television, I have to give thanks, because I know in my heart that it is truly a blessing. One of the shows that my mother and Aunt Blanche used to watch was the Ed Sullivan Show. I haven’t appeared on the CBS Network yet, but when that day comes, I know that my Aunt Blanche will be watching…

When I met Chris Paul, I thought of him and his grandfather, and this story just came to me, so I wrote it down, and here it is.