Transcript of interview with Vincent Kethen by Claytee White, December 23, 2009

An Interview with Vincent Kethen An Oral History Conducted by Claytee White Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas © Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood University of Nevada Las Vegas Libraries 2010 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries, Director: Claytee D. White Project Creators: Patrick Jackson and Dr. Deborah Boehm Transcriber and Editor: Laurie Boetcher Editor and Production Manager: Barbara Tabach Interviewers: Suzanne Becker, Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White ii Recorded interviews, transcripts, bound copies and a website comprising the Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood Oral History Project have been made possible through a grant from the City of Las Vegas Centennial Committee. Special Collections in Lied Library, home of the Oral History Research Center, provided a wide variety of administrative services, support and archival expertise. We are so grateful. This project was the brainchild of Deborah Boehm, Ph.D. and Patrick Jackson who taught at UNLV and resided in the John S. Park Neighborhood. As they walked their community, they realized it was a special place that intersected themes of gender, class, race/ethnicity, religion, sexuality and gentrification. Patrick and Deborah learned that John S. Park had been listed on the National Registry of Historic Places and that original homeowners, local politicians, members of the gay community, Latino immigrants, artists and gallery owners and an enclave of UNLV staff all lived in the neighborhood. Therefore, they decided that the history of this special place had to be preserved, joined with the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries and wrote a grant that was funded by the Centennial Committee. The transcripts received minimal editing that included the elimination of fragments, false starts and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the narrative. These interviews have been catalogued and can be found as non-circulating documents in Special Collections at UNLV's Lied Library. Deborah A. Boehm, Ph.D. Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholar 2009-2010 Assistant Professor, Anthropology & Women's Studies Patrick Jackson, Professor John S. Park Oral History Project Manager Claytee D. White, Director Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries iii Interview with Vincent Kethen December 23, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee White Table of Contents Introduction: born in West Las Vegas, NV (1964), attended West Charleston and John S. Park Elementary Schools. Growing up in Westwood apartments on the Westside near the Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino: prevalence of drugs and violence in the neighborhood. 1 Memories of Zion United Methodist Church, Reverend Marion Bennett and his family, and Great-Aunt Ada Carthen. Recollections of Westwood and Westside: neighborhood fights. 4 Move to Delmonico neighborhood. Attends John S. Park Elementary School. Story: brother hit by car while crossing McWilliams Avenue on way to school bus stop. 5 Memories of John S. Park Elementary School. 6 Attending a Sixth-Grade Center at Jo Mackey Elementary School. 7 Childhood impressions of John S. Park Neighborhood. Memories of childhood friend Reggie. 8 Socializing with black and white classmates at John S. Park: fights on the bus and fights at school. Racial slurs and reactions to them. 9 Memories of teachers at John S. Park Elementary School. 10 Recollections of Harley A. Harmon Elementary School: "teachers very positive, students not so much so." Memories of friend Ronnie Woodrum and socializing with black and white kids at Harmon. 11 Talks about the Sixth-Grade Centers on the Westside. 12 Reflects on importance of sports for the intermingling and socialization of schoolchildren. 13 Attends Chaparral High School, plays basketball there, continues to live on the Westside. Talks about parents buying home on the Westside and their backgrounds: mother Rose Kethen is a food waitress at Circus-Circus, originally from Athens, AL; father Robert Kethen is a retired airport skycap from Newellton, LA. 14 Community life as a young black man in North Las Vegas: gang lifestyle and reconciling gang life to churchgoing. 15 Recruited to play basketball, Bakersfield College (A.A.), plays basketball, Linfield College (B.S.). Talks about the prevalence of drugs in the mid-1980s and how they ravaged the Westside neighborhood. 17 Moves back to Las Vegas after college. Reflects on importance "to come back and give back" to the community: works as youth basketball coach through nonprofit Las Vegas Blazers. Talks about similarities of today's youth with the youth of his own generation and how he works with and advises today's young men. 18 Work as Purchasing Analyst at UNLV. His wife and her background. Concluding remarks. 20 iv Preface In 1964, the year that Vincent Kethen was born, desegregation of Las Vegas schools began. Like many African-American children living in the Las Vegas Westside neighborhood, Vincent was bused out of his neighborhood in third grade to attend a white school. In his case, this meant attending John S. Park Elementary and later other predominantly white schools. He talks about these experiences. John S. Park was a neighborhood of manicured lawns, while the school bus and the classroom were places fraught with fisticuffs. The experience of growing up during that era are recalled. Vincent provides a sense of that it was like to reside in his home neighborhood and the onslaught of the drug culture altered gang-lead neighborhoods. Being bused had positive results he explains, such as athletics, which served as an equalizer. For Vincent, a solid upbringing, which included love of church and the chance to attend college, encouraged him to make good decisions about his future. He received a four-year degree and he returned to Las Vegas to "give back." For over a decade and a half, her has coached young basketball players and helped them see their options for a brighter future than they might otherwise have seen Interview with Vincent Kethen December 23, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee White This is Claytee White. It is December 23rd, 2009, and I am in the Campus Services Building with Vincent Kethen, and we're here this morning doing an interview related to the John S. Park Community. So, Vincent, can you tell me just a little bit about your childhood, where you grew up, where you started elementary school, those kinds of things? Certainly. I actually was born in West Las Vegas [Nevada] in an apartment complex called Westwood, which is in between Martin Luther King [Boulevard] now and H Street. There's an apartment complex that's there. Right across the street is another project called The Coast. The first elementary school I went to: I can't remember. It's so long ago. West Charleston. It's called West Charleston. And then from there, I went to John S. Park [Elementary School]. OK, so, if you'll stop right there, where is the West Charleston school? Where was that located? If I'm not mistaken, it is off West Charleston [Boulevard], It's near Downtown as well. Is it in the area of the hospital? No, it's the other way. It's towards east. It's the east side. Yes. OK. So were you bused over there? Yes, we were integrated from that side of town, over there. OK, so how old are you? When were you born? 2 I was born in 1964. OK, so 1964, and this was when busing— Really got started. I mean, you know, in Las Vegas, because, you know, of course, you know, the African-American community was right over where we lived. And we used to call that community, or we call it now, the Westside. The Westside, exactly. Yes. OK. Now is the word "Westside" derogatory now? When you say "derogatory," what do you mean? Because now there are some people in the community who want to change it. They want to start calling it Uptown. How do you see that? I mean you grew up there. How do you see it? Well, I mean it's the history of Vegas. I mean, you know, that's what we've called it all along. It's migrated out. It's migrated north, and we moved from that side of town further north, which is still called the Westside, right off Martin Luther King and Carey [Avenue], in a neighborhood called Delmonico. OK, yes. Now tell me more about Westwood, that complex. Was it federal housing? I believe so but I'm not sure. It was, you know of course, all African-American. As I remember it, it was kind of trying and violent. There was always something going on. I mean we would skate, you know, we would skate around the apartment complex and kind of play like, you know, roller derby. But, you know, there would be fights all the time. I mean there would be violence, you know, constantly. There's not a lot of people that I remember from that complex now. As a matter of fact, I'm going to a Christmas party tomorrow at a friend from that community, and I'm really looking forward to it. 3 Oh, that's great. Do you think there will be a lot of people from the Westwood [complex]? No. And why do you say no? Because, like I said, not many people have made it out. There is a gentleman here at the university. His name is Glenys Harris, and his sister lived there in Westwood, but no, there is not many people left. Were drugs a part of that? Yes. So, in 1964 drugs were already being sent into black neighborhoods. Westwood is directly behind the Moulin Rouge [Hotel and Casino], The Moulin Rouge is on Bonanza [Road] and the Moulin Rouge was the only place where the blacks could perform, or live, you know, in Las Vegas. They would perform on the Strip, you know, Sammy Davis [Jr.], and they would only be able to live there at the Moulin Rouge. That was the only black hotel. But there was drugs very prevalent there and, you know, you could get them all in that area which, you know, leaked right over to the Westwood. OK. So now I know where the building is located. I know exactly where it is now. I mean you could look over one side of the gate and see the Rouge parking lot right there. So you were near the Catholic church. Mm hmm. Is your family Catholic? No. No, we were Methodist. OK. So which church did you attend? 4 We attended Zion [United] Methodist [Church] at the time, which is off now Revere [Street] and Lake Mead [Boulevard]. So [with] Reverend [Marion D.] Bennett. Yes, yes, we grew up with Reverend Bennett. It's not Reverend Bennett any longer. Another gentleman took over. They're looking for a pastor as we speak. Reverend Bennett I think was there for forty years or something? If not longer. He was there as far as I can remember. I grew up with Reverend Bennett, his kids. My great-aunt was their caretaker. Oh, who is your great-aunt? She has since passed, but her name was Ada [M.] Carthen, and Reverend Bennett, you know, knows of her, and Kay [Karen] Bennett [Haron], who's a lawyer here in town, his daughter, and Danny [Bennett] who is back East, he's a doctor. So, tell me what the neighborhood was like. You've already told me you could do skating, that there were always fights. What were we fighting about? Well, it varied. When you get certain, you know, different families with different personalities in a certain area, it tends to be a jockeying for position, the most popular and so on and so forth. We would see neighborhood fights, which is whole families fighting each other. I mean, the mom, the father, the kids. It would start with the kids, and it would escalate. Just like in a corporate environment, you know, but it would start with the underlings, and then it would escalate all the way up to the parents which would be, you know, the directors of certain companies, and they would all be out there just, you know, going at it. And, you know, sometimes it would escalate to, you know, knife-and-gunplay and, you know, at that time, you know, everyone would, you know, scatter. 5 How did you get out? My parents [Robert and Rose Kethen] moved when I was in fourth grade. I went third grade to John S. Park. My parents moved to Delmonico, which is north of where we were, right there off of Bonanza in between H and Martin Luther King. But we moved north on Martin Luther King, all the way down to Carey, just north of Carey, which is behind the county building with the Dr. King statue, directly behind there. That's right. OK. Tell me about third grade. I want to know how that worked: did a lot of kids from Westwood and the surrounding community go to John S. Park, how that was chosen, just anything that you remember about that busing situation. Well, the kids from Westwood and The Coast, which is the project right across the street, we would bus to John S. Park. One thing that really highlights that time was my brother and I had to walk to the bus stop every day, so we had to cross, which we thought was a major street, which was McWilliams [Avenue], We would have to cross McWilliams and go up to the corner of H Street, and that's where the bus stop was. Well, one particular day, on the way to school, you know, we got to that point where we had to cross this major street, and we seen a car coming at a distance, you know, we thought, and we both started out to go across the street, and I seen it was getting pretty close, so I stopped, but my brother kept going, and the car hit him. He had lacerations on his head, he broke his hip, you know, had a cast all the way up, you know, on his hip. But to me, it was just seemingly that, you know, when he was hit, he went in the air maybe about eight feet, and he came down and he slid, and when he looked up, he looked directly at me. And that right there is embedded in my psyche, in my mind. And I ran home of course and got my mom. And, you know, by this time, you know, the ambulance was there, and when she 6 got out there, you know, she just cried hysterically and, you know, they took him away. But that was on the way to John S. Park, on the way to school. If I can remember correctly, my teacher was named Miss Saverice [sic]. And, you know, it was fun. I loved school as a kid, and just the getting away from where we were and getting into a positive environment, with smiles from teachers and, you know, mingling with other races and kids. OK. How many blacks do you think were in, let's say, your class? In my class I would say, maybe fifteen? And the rest were whites. Yes. So how big was the class? I'd say, two hundred. Oh, the entire third-grade class. Right, just the third grade, just the third grade. OK. Wow! So this was a big school. Yeah, it was pretty big. Yeah, it was a pretty nice size. Let's say the first class in the morning, your homeroom class, what did it look like? At that time it was just one room. We didn't go to different classes. We would stay in one room all day. Homeroom was our class. OK, so that was it. That was it, but we would, of course, break in recess and have lunch. But as far as how many kids were there, I'd say close to thirty, and in my class I would say maybe five, at the most, black kids. 7 OK. It was a positive experience for you, and I want to know more about that positive experience, and I don't know if you can relate it to a different school or not. Did you attend an all-black school at one point here in Las Vegas? No. OK, so you were always in an integrated setting. Always. So that was starting in the Sixties. It would be actually early Seventies. Oh, I'm sorry, you were born in 1964. Right. It was early Seventies. Early Seventies. Right. And this makes sense. Have you ever heard of the Sixth- Grade Centers? Yes. I attended a Sixth-Grade Center. I went to Jo Mackey [Elementary School], and that was the only school that we went to that we weren't bused at least ten to twelve miles. And we actually walked maybe a mile to school. And that, to us, was a very nice time, you know, because we got the chance to sleep in and we were more fresh at school and, you know, I think we got more out of it then. So, the other eleven years, I believe they benefited more, because they got a chance to sleep in, and, you know, if they were involved in athletics, they would get home early. With us, it would be later on at night when we got home. I mean it would be like eight o'clock, nine o'clock when we finally got home, and we had to get our homework done and get ready for the next day, and of course we had to get up extra early to catch the bus. 8 Wow! I never thought about all of that related to busing. So you were bused almost your entire schooling. Yes. Do you remember what John S. Park looked like to you at three years of age or what that community looked like compared to the Westwood community? That community looked to me like a whole new world. It was nice, you know, the lawns were kept. I mean we were in apartments so we didn't have that. So it was again a nice positive setting to get away to and see, you know. I mean it was like, you know, like a whole new world for us, you know, and it was great for me because I wanted to learn, you know, and I got the opportunity to get away from Vegas and go to college as well. But, you know, that was the beginning of me wanting to really, really get more out of life and learning. Good. I like that. That's really great. Do you remember any of your classmates? I remember one kid. His name was Reggie. And him and I, you know, we would do everything together. But I haven't seen him in, I'd say, twenty, maybe twenty-five years, you know, possibly thirty. But yeah, that was my childhood friend at John S. Park. I don't know his last name. I believe he's kin to the gentleman here on campus that I was telling you about, Glenys Harris. And the last time I seen Reggie, he was in and out of the prison system. He just went the other way, you know. OK. Do you remember any of your white classmates? No. I mean I remember, you know, faces and (at) times a teacher, but the classmates, no. I mean I liked mingling out, but we were more to ourselves, you know. 9 So those five black kids were more to yourselves than the twenty-five whites. You didn't mingle with the twenty-five whites. Not as much. Only when we had to. Why do you think that was? And we're talking about third-graders. Why do you think that happens? I think it stemmed from the times and the adult problems that were going on during that time, and they affected us as kids—meaning that we were more comfortable with our own, rather than, you know. And you know kids are brutal. They would say brutal things sometimes and of course, you know, we'd just stay away from them, or we'd fight. Do you remember fights at John S. Park School, in the third grade? Yes. Yes. Third-graders fighting. Oh yeah. We would fight on the bus, on the way to school. OK but now, the fights on the bus were all black kids? Yes. The fights at school, were they all black? No. OK, so tell me why there were fights on the bus, and then I want to know about fights at the school. Fights on the bus were really egged on by the older kids. They would basically make us fight, you know. They would like just egg it on, like what do you call it? They would instigate [fights]. At school, it was more of a verbal [argument] that would escalate, meaning being called derogatory names like, you know, "nigger." 10 So how would a third-grader know that word? For us, you know, we would see it on TV, we would see or hear, you know, older people talk about if someone called them that, what they did. So we would emulate what our environment showed us. OK so, those white kids who said those things were from middle class and upper middle class homes there in John S. Park. Why do you think they would use those kind of terms? Again, I think the only reasoning why they would use those terms is because it was embedded in them by their parents. So they were listening to their parents, and they would bring that to school and we would do the same thing. So you were listening to your parents and the same thing. But we would react out, whereas with them it really wasn't a fight. It was more of, we would just beat them up. OK. But the teachers were good teachers. Mm hmm. And didn't have that mindset, it sounds like. Yes. I mean no, they did not. No, they were more enlightening. They brought different things out, you know, of interest to get us away from that world, you know, and that was the beauty of, you know, being integrated and coming from that side of town, was the teachers and how they got us involved with other things. Wow, I like that. I like that. Thank you for that. You're welcome. 11 Because you were bused all of your school life, parents have to play a part in the school system. How did parents from the Westside interact in a school that's so far away from their homes? To be honest with you, they very seldom would. I mean we were basically on our own. When we had like open house, we wouldn't go. We went a few times to what they called like the Halloween party. So you would go to some of the activities. I only went there one year, so I would say two at the most but one for sure. OK. Now once you left John S. Park, where did you go to school? I went to Harley A. Harmon [Elementary School], And where is that located? I've heard of that school. I couldn't really tell you. But again, this is the same situation? You were bused from the Westside into a white neighborhood. Right. And would you say it was the same atmosphere? Mm hmm. Yes. Teachers very positive, students not so much so. Right. And we [black students] would gravitate to each other. When I went to Harmon, I remember one of my good white friends that I had there. His name was Ronnie Woodrum and he was a real, real good friend. It's funny how we got to know each other: we got to know each other fighting. Explain that. 12 What happened was, we played basketball, and he was playing against me, and I got upset because he was fouling me or something, and we just started fighting. And during the time we fought, he fought back, so it was like, you know, oh, he's tough. And we ended up going to the office and it was a standstill: we didn't tell on each other who started fighting. So we became friends. And we just so happened to be in the same classroom. So, from then on, he was with us. And he ended up coming over and hanging with all our friends, the black kids, and we just accepted him. So how was he looked upon by the other white kids? They didn't like that, of course. But they really couldn't do anything about it, you know. But, for him, he had the best of both worlds, you know, so he could go over there and hang with them, but he would be with us all the time. But I think they moved when we were at Jo Mackey, in the sixth grade. OK, so the Sixth-Grade Center. Tell me about the Sixth-Grade Centers. Most of them were on the Westside. Again, we would walk to school, so it was a joy. That was the first experience that we had to where we would switch classes. And white kids were bused in. Yes. So now the tables are turned a little. Exactly. Exactly. Are there more black kids now than white kids in the school? In the Sixth-Grade Centers? Now, they have majority black high schools on that side of town. Right, but when I say "now" I'm talking about when you were in sixth grade. 13 Oh, OK, OK. There were more black kids, yeah. More black kids now. So not all white kids were actually bused. Right. Right. So I mean either their parents would bring them to school, but they weren't all buse; but there was a lot of them, a majority of them that were. And they can speak on that experience because the tables were turned, and again, you know, they had to get up extra early, we got to sleep in, and if you're involved in athletics, they would get home extra late and we would get home earlier. So tell me about sports and how important sports were, because the white friend that you really made was as a result of sports. So what did that mean? It was very integral in the intermingling, the acceptance of the white kids for us and us to them, because all the athletes would hang together, you know, we would have to travel to different schools and we would be at school together, because we had to go to practice, you know, we had meetings, so all the athletes would stay together. And although we were in majority white schools, the athletes on our team were fifty-fifty. So more of us played in the sports, got involved in sports. OK. What did you play? Basketball. OK. OK. So did you continue basketball into high school? Mm hmm. Yeah. Where did you go to high school? Chaparral High School. OK, now Chaparral, you were bused, again. Yes. Yes. 14 OK. So Chaparral was really in a white area? Oh yeah. It s off of Sandhill [Road] in between Flamingo [Road] and D.I. [Desert Inn Road]. Right there. Right there. That's where we went to school. Yes. I know where it is. OK. And still, your parents lived where? We lived off of Carey and Martin Luther King. So you still lived [on], we call it the Westside but that's really North Las Vegas, because when you cross Carey you're in North Las Vegas? Yes. Once you cross Carey, you're in North Las Vegas. But in your head you really considered that area the Westside still. The Westside, yeah, still. All of that is still the Westside. OK. Did your parents live in a single-family home at that time when you moved to North Las Vegas? You mean the house itself? Yes. OK. So did they buy a house? Yes. Yes. What did your parents do for a living? My mom was a food waitress at Circus-Circus [Hotel and Casino], and still is. She's been there almost forty years. She's in the coffee shop. Her name is Rose [Kethen], And she was named correctly. She is a rose. She's ideal. Her personality I want to say has made me what I am today, you know, and without her it wouldn't be me. My dad [Robert Kethen] was a skycap at the [McCarran International] Airport. He has retired, but he was there for over twenty-five years. Are your parents both still living? 15 Yes. Would they allow me to interview them? Yes. Where are they from? My mom is from Athens, Alabama, and my dad is from Louisiana. Tallulah? Right up the street. Newellton. There's a huge influx of people from that area. There's a pipeline. Oh yeah, I've interviewed Tallulah and Fordyce people, of course. The reason I'd like to interview them is I'd like to talk about the busing experience from their point of view as well. High school was at Chaparral. What was community life like as a young black man? You're living in better circumstances, you're not in Westwood or those kind of places anymore, so what does your life become? To be honest with you, it was basically the same, but it was more of a gang lifestyle. In Delmonico there was one set gang. Then you would go over in Regal Estates, there was another set gang. You would go over to, it's called Vegas Heights, there was another set gang. And then Northtown, Donna Street, there was another [gang]. It was territorial, where you really couldn't go certain places. We had, in our neighborhood, where it was blocked off. There was only two ways in, and both ways were blocked off to where if we didn't know you, they would interrupt the whole visit. What a way to live. 16 You know, for me, going to college was a whole new experience, and that got me away from that, you know, and athletics got me away to college. So did all young men at that point have to be in a gang? Mm hmm. In your area, if you wanted to be protected. OK so now, what does gang membership mean at that point in our history? For us, it was just, again, territorial. Now, everybody in that neighborhood, of age, we would basically take care of our own neighborhood. Now, if we ventured out, we would be together and we would take care of each other outside the neighborhood. And this had nothing to do with drugs. No. OK, this was just protection. Basically, yes. How did this start? It started basically like that, to where we were friends, growing up, and, you know, to take care of each other, we would stick together. It started going to school. And you know, I wasn't the type that fought and stuff like that, but the kids I grew up with loved it. They would just beat people up at the drop of a hat. I mean jump people, you know, like five and six people on one person, and just beat them down. It was terrible. And then, go and have a meal, right afterwards, like nothing ever happened. And I would sit there like, didn't you see what just happened? I mean, you know, in amazement. And I mean you would feel everything for the other person, you know. But you couldn't help them. No! No. They would turn on you. 17 Now at that point in your life, you were in high school, are you still in church? Oh yeah. Are all these guys still in church? Well no, no, not all of them, but we were. You know, we had to go to church every Sunday and we would go to Sunday School and church. And my mom and dad worked on weekends, and my great-aunt [Ada M. Carthen] would come and pick us up and take us to church and Sunday School, every Sunday. We never missed a Sunday. So that saved us a lot as well, you know, because that embedded the spirit in you that, you know, when people are getting hurt and harmed, you would feel that. I mean that's just not right. So that helped us immensely. Where did you go to college? I went to Bakersfield College [Bakersfield, California] and I got my AA from there. Now why Bakersfield? I was recruited by the basketball coach. And then I went to a school in [McMinnville] Oregon called Linfield College, and that's a four-year and the same thing, and I got my BS from there. Fantastic! But that got you out of Las Vegas for those four years. Yeah, seeing a whole new world, whole different culture, and different people, you know, meeting different people that are friends of mine today, all races, you know. That kind of brought me out, you know, so to speak. And the biggest thing that I got out of college was to come back and give back to your community. I didn't understand that at first. I thought you had to make a lot of money and give back. But the biggest thing for these kids nowadays is time. You know, you spend the time with these kids and it means the 18 world. I think that the way we're living right now is a direct reflection of the drugs that came into our community and ravaged [it]. When I would come home from school, from college, there was people walking around like zombies. The crack had ravaged the whole Westside. It was terrible. And it's different here in Vegas, because you don't have to wait until the first and the fifteenth, or a Friday, to get [paid]. Every day is payday out here, with tips. People would bring home fresh money every day. So, you didn't have to wait for those days to sell drugs or, you know, for the drug dealers to make money. It was every day. Every day. So, every day, late at night, you'd ride around, and you could see people just in a trance. It was terrible. When did you start seeing that, the drugs at that stage? I d say in 1986, '85, right around '85.1 had a friend in college. His name slips my mind right now. He was in Philadelphia [Pennsylvania], He was one of my classmates at Bakersfield College. I was on the phone with him, and he said, Man, these people around here (he lived in Philadelphia, you know, a very rough city), he said, These people around here are running around here on this crack. He said, Have you ever heard of this crack? And I said, No, you know, I said, you know, like a piece of a rock? He said, No. This is the name of a drug, called crack. And as soon as I hung up the phone, it was everywhere. It was on the TV. It was everywhere. That's the worst thing. If I could say anything was the Devil, that was the Devil. So why did you decide to move back to Las Vegas? First of all, my parents are here. And secondly, again, the biggest thing I took from college was to come back and give back. We don't get that enough here, but that's what was embedded in my mind. 19 So how do you give back now? I m a youth basketball coach. I run a youth nonprofit organization. What is it called? It's called the Las Vegas Blazers. So h