RR: So when you played with them, they put it on you pretty good.
WT: Yes, they wouldn’t give me any slack, they just beat me. And so I just stayed away. I started playing a game and I’d just quit in the middle of a game. And they’d say, “Well, we’re not going to pick you anymore.”
RR: Was there a time when all of a sudden you decided, yeah,maybe I want to try a little bit of basketball?
WT: Yes, my fifth grade year. I started trying to learn how to play and I had somewhat of a desire to play because, you know, everybody else was playing basketball. I said, “Maybe I should be.” I was taller than most of the 8th graders and I was only in the 5th grade. So I said, “I’d better start doing something.”
RR: Well now, when did you know or when did you even get a sense that basketball was going to be some, was going to be really a major part in your life? Was it in junior high school or was it when you got into high school?
WT: I think it was mainly when I got–the 9th grade year. I went to a camp in Georgia, BC camp, all-state camp, and I did pretty well up there. I was, I had just gotten off a bus coming from New Orleans and my high school coach, Mike Mims, picked me up right after I got off that bus and we rode in his van to Milledgeville, Georgia. And we played another week of basketball there. And, you know, is against top-notch competition in the nation. And I did pretty well, and that’s when I kind of felt that I would be able to use my body as a basketball player.
