"The Recruit": article draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald

THE RECRU™
By
Roosevelt Fitzgerald
Leroy Jackson was one of the best basketball players to ever set foot on a court. Everybody knew that. Orom the time he had played on the team at Washington Junior High School, in the heart of the inner city of one of the larger cities on the east coast, coaches from far and near had come to watchJnim play.
In spite of the fact that every student, a> of the teachers, the principal, staff members, custodial workers, cafeteria helpers and residents as far as the eyes could see were black, on game nights the small crackerbox of a gym would be packed’ with fans and many of those had white faces. There were faces there from Tennessee, Auburn, S. Florida, UCLA, Arizona, Seton Hall, Syracuse, Boston College, Pittsburg, UNLV, Notre Dame, Duke and and array of other basketball powerhouses from around the country.
Ironically, nothing ever happened to any of these visitors. By that ft* mean none of them were ever beaten up, robbed or killed. What is fascinating about this is the commonly held belief that if you're white and you go into black neighborhoods deep in the heart of the inner cities of the ghettoes of America, you'll never be heard of again. Perhaps no one ever told the recruiters of the danger they placed themselves in by going to such places. Perhaps no one ever told the people who live in those places that they were and are expected to devour any white person who enters their domain--!nduding recruiters for athletic teams.
By the time Jackson was finishing up his junior year of high school, it had become a foregone conclusion that he would be recruited heavily by the colleges of America. He was in a position to choose just about any college he desired. Midway through his senior year there was hardly a single day
that the phone wouldn't ring with yet another offer by someone representing,
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offi ci ally or unofficially, some school--some team—somewhere who promised him the moon.
He had been born in 1973. His parents had been nurtured during the era of the civil rights movement. At the age of twelve, his mother had been brought to the March on Washington in August of 1963 where she had heard Dr. Martin Luther King deliver his "I Have A Dream" speech. She had known what Igt meant even at that tender age because of her own involvement in the cause back home in Birmingham as she had faced the wrath of "Bull Connors" and his dogs and hoses and cattle prods. She had known what it meant from the after school classes on black history which had been taught by the "freedom workers" there in her hometown. She had known what it meant by the conversations she had heard and participated in on the front steps of her shotgun house down in the quarters where she grew up in the 1950s. Those conversations had been on the subject of family, aspirations and the future.
His father had been born in the city. His family had migrated there from the south during the war years. His dad was a janitor at one of the big factories and his mother had been a maid. Neither of them had had much in the way of formal education and they both stressed it with their children. The children all went to high school and graduated. Jackson's father had a high school diploma and had been in Viet Nam when Dr. King was assassinated. Always he had thought that he would not get back to the world alive. Daily he saw other black "bloods of nam" being sent out on the point never to return. He had seen the carnage of young, black, male America offered up for sacrifice by those in charge without so much as a second thought. From the rice paddies, to the bordellos to the fiKe fights and through the nightly refrain "INCOMING," his thought had been on the subject of how he wished he had been in college so that he would not have had to answer this call. He was lucky, he came back
ali ve.
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Jacksdn's parents"didn11 have much but from the beginning they placed a high value on the education of their children; they would eventually have £ixt Two of their children were deceased; one at childbirth and one caught in the crossfire of a streetgang shootout. From their meager earnings they bought at least one book per month on various subjects. They took turns reading stories to the children at bedtime and made it a weekly family activity to visit some of the cultural institutions of the city. They made sure that their children were, exposed to more than what was in the neighborhood. They were strict parents. Ehe children had to go to school, ■hey had to get good grades. Every "A" was rewarded. Anything!ess than a' "B" was punished. Homework had to be done each day and at 1 east two'hours had to be devoted to after school study each day. ■hose rules:were put into place from early childhood and by the time the children were twelve or so such behavior had become habit.
Jackson spent three to four hours per day playing basketball with the guys or with team mates at school during the season. His mother had told him a' story about Greek civilization in which Kring Phillip of Macedonia had unified the city states of Sparta and Athens. The Spartans were noted warriors and the Athenians had been great thinkers. When they were unified the formed one of the greatest civilizations the world had ever known. The lesson taught was that in order to achieve greatness, it required strength of both mind and body. Jackson understood that and pursued greatness. He was a terror to other teams and a' favorite:of all his teachers. They could always rely on him to be justa1 as prepared in the classroom as he was on the basketball court. Some of his friends had a nickname for him. No. It wasn't "LJ"Bt was "RENAISSANCE."
And the recruiters came. They represented top ten teams and all were possible contenders forfla national championship and they were certain that
they could attain that goal with the help of Leroy Jackson—basketball player.
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Jackson was much more than a basketball player. He was a scholar. He was offered academic scholarships as frequently as he was athletic scholarships. Thanks to his lesson in Greek history he knew that he could haveBit alH He visited those top ten schools, talked with the coaches and the players, looked the over the campuses and narrowed his selections down to three schools; UNLV, Georgetown and LSU. He really liked all three basketballs programs. His decision, however, would be based on something other than basketball. He asked each coach at each school the following question; "How many black faculty members does your institution have and are they to be found in several departments?" Each coach's response was similar. In effect they asked: "Why do you want to know that?" Jackson's answer was: ■'I'm going to attend college and play basketball at whichever of'the three schools has black faculty to the tune of at least If neither has. I'll restart the process and attend the first school on a list of thirty that has orBis closest to it."
Our warriors must put pressure on theBnstitutions of higher learning to recruit black faculty with the same zeal in which they recruit black athletes.
Blackmail? Why - not?-- -