Original subtitles

you can't unsee it.

Especially as a Black young man,

especially as an athlete,

we're taught to stay in a box.

To be quiet.

[reporter] Investigators are claiming arson

in the early-morning blaze at the home of Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.

Abdul-Rauf believes the fire was racially motivated.

[Abdul-Rauf] Mississippi burning.

When it's all said and done,

no one wants you to criticize America.

But, as James Baldwin says,

that's a part of being a patriot.

[commentator] Mahmoud, dribbles past two,

and a two-pointer!

[commentator 2] Mahmoud, that's deep! It's good!

[Shaquille O'Neal] He wasn't good, he was great.

He wasn't great, he was one of the greatest.

[commentator] Mahmoud throws one up again.

Who was this dude torching the Lakers?

[commentator] Mahmoud pulls the trigger...

It was this dude that can't miss.

[Polynice] I never saw somebody shoot like that.

That was Steph Curry, before Steph Curry.

The quickness, the creative flair he had, the range.

[commentator] Mahmoud against Stockton,

26 feet away.

I don't know how many people give him enough credit for

his style of play.

[Rose] To watch him have Tourette syndrome

and still destroy the best players in the league,

like, I used to sit back and be laughing.

[commentator] Abdul-Rauf is on fire!

I had no chance against Mahmoud.

He was scoring 50 in a game.

Just lighting it up.

The greatest performance I've seen ever.

It looked like I was watching God play basketball.

[commentator] One second, for the game! Yeah!

[Dale Brown] One of the greatest players

in the history of the NBA

was cheated out of his career.

[reporter] The National Basketball Association is

in a standoff tonight with a highly-paid player.

This is the most notorious figure in America.

There were FBI agents having to sit in the stands.

[Abdul-Rauf] They're saying it's a war on terrorism, I think

that's a euphemism for a war on Islam.

Mahmoud never said "I'm gonna burn the house down."

[crowd booing]

But the Klan burned his house down.

How about that?

[static whining]

I'm sick, sick of waiting in vain

Tired of playing the game, thinking of making a change

Finally breaking the chains, every phase

Every happening, craze, when it's said and done

My head is right back in a haze

I'm ready for the next chapter and page

To start acting my age and part ways

With Black Thought from back in the days

I'm stargazing from the back of the stage

Questioning if who y'all praise is worthy of praise

What's the phrase, "bygones is bygones"?

Niggas who used to be the underdogs is icons

People say the light shines once in a lifetime

Is this midlife kinda crisis a little bit like mine?

I'm thinking not now but right now

I need some kinda sign that the future is bright now

I fuck around, do the right thing like Spike now

The quick and the dead, which one is

my lookalike now? I'm moving ahead

Everything's changing around me

And I wanna change too...

[soft rolling waves]

[Abdul-Rauf] Junior high school.

I remember that I was walking towards the beach.

And I remember seeing,

as clear as you see the sun outside,

the Ku Klux Klan marching down the beach.

It was just mind-blowing to me, you know, to see that.

And I can remember, as a child, wondering,

"I wonder who's under those masks.

I wonder if it's someone that I know,

that I see every day," right?

And most likely it is,

and so you... you knew that you...

you had to tread softly.

You had to play the game.

I grew up in a neighborhood called Soria City.

Four or five blocks from the Gulf of Mexico,

three blocks from the train track which separated

the Black neighborhood from the white neighborhood.

The ghettoes in those neighborhoods

don't look as nice.

Old homes, shacks,

it's definitely a stark difference.

Growing up in my situation, without a father.

Having a mother that... you know,

we all have our limitations, and she had hers.

You know, having eighth grade education.

Having to raise three boys,

there's only so much that she can do for you.

She can't give you what you never had.

And so you're kind of left to your own.

[David Jackson] I remember when Chris would come home.

There were times there was nothing to eat.

-[gunshot] -I would grab

-my pellet gun. -[gunshot]

You know, I shot the squirrels, cleaned 'em.

-Shot doves, cleaned 'em. -[gunfire]

It wasn't shooting for fun. It was shooting for survival.

[Abdul-Rauf] As a child, I mean, you adapt.

So you don't really understand it

when you're living through it, as you do when you get older

and you go back, and you'll be like, wow,

we lived in this situation. Day in and day out.

Every day you wake up. You see it.

I grew up in a religious family.

Church on each corner from where I stayed.

And it was always, you know,

preached to me, the importance of not just

praying for yourself, but pray for others more than yourself.

I used to have, periodically, conversations asking people

do you know who my father is?

My older brother's father was white, I knew that.

My younger brother's father, I even saw him,

he was an African-American guy.

I was like, why out of all your children,

I'm the only one that don't know?

And she never told me, still, but she said, "He's white."

I can't say this.

I want to, but I can't say it.

But I wanna go there, but I can't do it.

[Abdul-Rauf] No one could give me the answers.

You know, even up to this day,

No one has been able to give them to me.

It's a void there.

[David] It's a part of you that you don't know,

and the only thing you can figure out is,

okay, I know where I get these traits from.

You know, these come from my mother,

'cause I knew my mother.

But the unknown part, you say, okay,

this... this hasn't... could come from my father.

Fourth grade, I decided, man,

I wanna be the best basketball player

there is in the world.

Now, as a child, you, ten years old,

you don't know how people are training,

but in your mind-- "I gotta train harder than anybody."

[Leonard Bennett] He was a little kid with a big red Afro.

We came out to 2nd Street Park,

and it was raining, but like, "Man,

I guess I'll go back home," 'cause it started raining.

He was like, "Man, I'm gonna go out here and... shoot."

"Go out and shoot where?" He said, "Go out,

shoot at 2nd Street Park." I said, "Man, it's raining!"

[thunder crashing]

He had this thing in his head, and this might sound crazy.

He tried to hit as many shots as he could

before the raindrops hit the ground.

He had a crazy imagination with that basketball.

He had imaginary friends out there.

He would play against-- four-on-four,

five-on-five, by himself, with his imaginary friends

on 2nd Street Park.

Basketball for me, kind of... and I know it sounds weird.

It kind of took the place of my father,

because I spent so much time on the court.

Yeah, I wanna take care of my mother, I wanna

take care of people, I wanna take care of my family.

[clears throat] But I was like,

"Maybe, if I become so great...

at what I'm doing...

that, whoever he is...

will wanna know me.

And be a part of my life.

So I had a chip on my shoulder.

The first time I noticed

something was different about me,

I was... in the third grade.

I would get up in the morning...

and I'm always like...

somethin' have to feel right,

or I couldn't go further.

Like even getting out of the bed.

Every little piece of clothing.

If I put my shirt on.

Take it off. It may take me 45 minutes

just to be able to get dressed and get out the house.

[David] He would get down and tie his shoe,

and he would take it apart,

and he would put it back on, he'd say, "Man"...

and he'd... just do it, and just keep repeating it,

over and over and over, "Man!"

[Jacqueline] Open, closing, open, closing

the refrigerator door. I was just--

"Shut the door, and let it be."

I would throw my arm.

It would be painful.

[echoing thuds]

Popping my neck, I mean, pain,

to the point where it feels like

your skull is hitting your brain,

like you're about to have an aneurysm.

I don't know what it is.

Uh, I was told by a doctor,

and he said...

"He has habits, literally.

He has habits, they come and they go."

So, this is what I would tell people.

"Hey, what's wrong with you?" I have habits.

They come and they go.

I'm looking into the mirror.

I'm like, "Please, God...

please help me stop."

I said, "Is this what people see when they see me?

I look like a monster."

Somebody told me at that age, they said,

"God gives everybody a strength and a weakness.

But he gives you that strength to overcome that weakness."

You've given me basketball, love of basketball,

to calm this thing down.

To give it a balance.

[commentator] Central Junior High

basketball player Chris Jackson is

a super-player with super talents.

Chris, who can jam the ball,

carries a 22-point scoring average.

He's probably one of the most proficient shooters

that I've ever had.

I just go out and try my best.

When I ended up getting to high school,

there was no question that I wanted to be

the best basketball player.

I went to see him play at Gulfport High.

He had the ball, he was surrounded

by every last one of them.

This kid went through their legs,

and I said, Lord, holy Jesus!

[chuckling] I don't-- I couldn't believe it.

[commentator] A huge crowd showed up

at Jackson State University this evening.

This young man right here,

Chris Jackson of Gulfport.

[young Abdul-Rauf] I really can't remember the first time

I touched it, but when I did,

you know, that was my love, you know?

Just the idea of trying to get it in that little hoop

and, you know, and... practicing so much

I just grew to love it more.

[interviewer] You couldn't put that ball down.

I never could put it down.

[Bennett] Lake Charles, Louisiana.

We go in the gym, I mean, it's packed out.

Standing room only.

Coach had this play, if you wanna call it a play.

This fist...

and we just flattened out.

Just go one-on-one, one-on-one all game long.

And we'd just stand there and watch.

We'd just watch the show,

'cause there was gonna be a show.

Wound up hitting, like, 55 in the game.

[applause]

He's certainly the best offensive player

I've ever coached or ever seen

in high school, that's for sure.

[cheering]

[Abdul-Rauf] My high school coach was

Coach Jenkins, Bert Jenkins.

He was a World War II veteran.

He had his leg blown off, and so he wore a peg leg.

Very disciplined.

No nonsense.

[Bennett] We shot free throws before practice.

We had to shoot 25, I think it was,

and if you didn't miss, you'd just keep going

until you missed.

[Gerald Austin] Chris got started one day in particular...

one of the players told me, said,

"I'm gonna go lie down, take a nap,

wake me when it's over." [laughing]

That's when he hit the 283.

[commentator] Last year, Jackson led Gulfport

to the state 5A state championship,

averaging over 25 points a game,

five and a half assists, and three rebounds.

The sports bible, Smith & Streets,

says Jackson is the best high school guard

in the United States this year.

You can imagine how many colleges would like

to see him play for them next season.

[Abdul-Rauf] Basketball, I loved it,

gave me something to look forward to.

At the same time, everything had to feel perfect,

and so it was literally...

I thought I was gonna die every day.

Now, I could have nine shots in row...

if I relaxed one second...

I gotta start over.

If there's one glitch in the move,

I have to start over; that drill

of going through ten shots may take me

another hour, hour and a half

to make all ten straight in.

But I would realize, when I would work that hard,

there would be a moment when I--

breathing so hard, but then your breathing slows.

Once it slows down to a degree,

there's this moment where I'm totally still,

and that's the most peaceful time in my life.

I live for those moments. Those moments, for me,

of stillness, are priceless.

They're priceless.

[echoing breathing]

[Owen Miller] We were at a basketball camp

at Mississippi State.

My parents took us up there.

And our first night in that dorm room,

it was...

excuse me...

um, it was hard,

watching him go to sleep.

I guess the way to describe it, it was like,

somebody else was inside him,

and he was fighting this person.

We knew there was a problem.

But we did not know what.

We had a coach come in to watch us practice,

and after practice, he said, "Coach, I notice

Chris has got a little tick."

"Well, yeah," I said, doctors, they just told him

it was something he'd outgrow, and he said...

"No, he won't." He said, "I can tell you

exactly what he's got, he's got Tourette syndrome."

And he said, "I know because my son has it."

Mrs. Jenkins was taking me home

one day after practice,

and she basically asked me

that my mother would mind, right,

if her and... and Coach Jenkins

saw to it that I went and saw a doctor.

[doctor] When was the very first time

you noticed any kind of ticks?

I would say the ninth...

junior high, ninth grade.

Okay, and what was the very first tick...

that you had at that time?

Um... um...

I guess tapping on things and stuff like that.

Blinking, eyebrows, moving my head,

you know, it was like that and stuff.

[Abdul-Rauf] He went straight to it, he said,

"So, do you know what's going on with you?"

I said, "No, that's-- that's why I'm here."

He said, "You have Tourette syndrome."

Tourette syndrome is a neurological disorder

that usually starts in childhood,

but may persist through adulthood.

They start having involuntary movements

such as blinking, facial grimacing,

head jerking, shoulder shrugging.

They also have a variety of behavioral problems

such as obsessive- compulsive disorder.

In some ways, actually,

those symptoms helped him

to become a successful basketball player.

I can remember, like yesterday, man,

just feeling a... ton of relief.

Like, just a huge load was taken off of my shoulders.

There's a name for it? And that it doesn't...

doesn't mean that I'm crazy?

I was able to walk to school, "I have Tourette syndrome."

Right? And say it proudly.

[doctor] Okay, just stand there.

[Jacqueline] I didn't know he had that problem,

and once I realized it...

made me cry.

I cried many days.

'Cause I'm hollering at my son

for something he couldn't control.

[Abdul-Rauf] I was getting letters from colleges

all over the nation, and a lot of that came

as a result of going to the Nike camp in Princeton.

[commentator] Basketball is the name of the game this week

at Princeton University.

Many college coaches and NBA players

are giving firsthand instruction

to the 110 blue chippers.

[Abdul-Rauf] Michael Jordan was there.

I'm on the bottom row of the bleachers.

Just, out of nowhere, he looks at me,

says, "Come out here, young fella."

Said okay. So I step out,

and I'm at the top of the key.

And he gives me the ball, he says, "I want you

to come at me with everything you have."

You know, and I'm sitting here, like, man, this is...

one of the moments I've been waiting for.

And I remember getting a ball in my triple threat.

I go between my legs, and I lean.

I cross him over, I lay him up on the other side.

And I remember, when I sat down,

the whole time I'm sitting there,

I said, if I can do this on him,

I'm onto something. Like, all of this stuff--

I've been doing this since elementary.

A lot of these moves. Cross-over, bop-bop-bop.

Working on this day-in and day-out, consistently.

And these moves are working.

It's like, I'm not having to change much of anything.

[cheering]

[Bennett] Once he became a high school All-American,

going to Tar City Heels was like traveling with the Beatles.

I mean, those gyms was jam-packed.

I don't care where we went, it was jam-packed.

[cheering]

[Abdul-Rauf] North Carolina...

I'm looking at them a little bit.

And Georgetown and LSU also, you know, I'm looking at them.

[Dale Brown] The first time I saw Chris Jackson,

there was almost an angelic look to him.

He grew up in abject poverty.

He had always had a perpetual smile.

I don't wanna get dramatic, but something spiritual

about him, just a good human being.

[Abdul-Rauf] I said, "I'm going to LSU,

and that's my decision."

[Brown] Everybody really didn't know much about him.

He was... from Mississippi,

so didn't get as much publicity.

[announcer] 6'1" freshman

from Gulfport, Mississippi,

#35, Chris Jackson.

[crowd roaring]

[Abdul-Rauf] We go into Florida.

They're the number one team in the SEC.

The stands are full to capacity.

-[commentator] Look at this. -[commentator 2] They'd better

get in his face.

[Abdul-Rauf] The game starts.

I just knew that I just felt that I was

in the zone, but I didn't know how good of a zone it was.

[commentator] Pop through, dipsy-doo!

Oh, a fade-back, baby!

Florida couldn't stop 'em, they tried everything.

They double-teamed, they zoned, they pressed.

[commentator] There's the new record against Florida.

Jackson has 53.

He just went through 'em, and just with ease.

[Abdul-Rauf] After the game, I'm going into the locker room,

we're excited that we won.

Craig Carse...

grabs me and shakes me.

"Man, you just scored 53 points!

They wanna see you outside now!"

When I came around that corner, we just beat Florida.

They give me a standing ovation.

Like, they're clapping.

But now? My feelings shift.

I'm scared. Because I'm saying to myself,

man, this is happening too fast.

I'm thinking I'mma get hit by a train.

I can't... I couldn't embrace success.

I couldn't enjoy it.

'Cause I'm always looking around a corner.

This is too good to be true.

Things like this don't happen to people like me.

I got a target on my back.

Can't rest, can't be comfortable.

Gotta keep moving.

I'm fighting against fears.

I'm fighting against feeling inadequate.

I'm fighting against insecurities.

I'm like, man, I gotta make it.

I gotta get through this, or my life is over.

[commentator] Twenty-one seconds!

-[whistle blowing] -[crowd cheering]

[commentator] Feast your eyes on the freshman.

[crowd cheering]

[Shaquille O'Neal] I'm signed with LSU.

One day, I'm in the house, when there's--

LSU about to play Georgetown, and I see him,

Chris Jackson.

And I'm like, "What is that?"

[commentator] And here is Chris Jackson, #35.

[Shaq] Smooth. Jumping was smooth.

Had the pretty game.

[commentator] Jackson, down in the middle.

And it looked like I was watching God play basketball.

[whistle blowing]

[commentator chatter]

[Jalen Rose] I was still in high school at the time

and anticipating going to college.

I was being recruited.

And I was like, "Wait a minute...

he a freshman?"

[reporter] Chris Jackson is

one of the most talked-about college freshmen

to come along in some time,

and Sports Illustrated released a special feature

on the hotshot freshman from Gulfport,

with Chris right smack on the cover.

Well, he was almost the first one

that was like a miniature guy

that led the team in scoring.

'Cause usually the small guy, his job was to be

a traditional point guard, set everybody else up.

So, he was something that just jumped off the screen

and had a crazy wow factor.

I absolutely remember when I first heard of

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf,

and at that time he was Chris Jackson,

and he was a superstar at LSU.

And he was by far the most exciting player

to watch in the nation.

[crowd cheering]

I was in high school at that time,

and that's the time when you're looking

at these college guys in a really aspirational way,

'cause they're a step ahead of you, and they're

where you wanna be: playing college basketball.

I just remember him just being lethal

from everywhere.

Just lighting it up.

I just wanted to see him shoot all the time.

[laughing]

Pulling up from a few feet and from half-court,

he was truly Steph Curry before Steph Curry.

[Steph Curry] The creative flair he had,

range,

they try to make those kind of

correlations to the way that I play now.

[commentator] Steph for the win!

[cheering]

Balance of, like, inside, outside game.

Handles, being able to kind of just shoot

at the drop of a dime.

And we're... both not the tallest guys.

He was kind of a pioneer in that sense.

I don't know how many people give him

enough credit for his style of play.

[crowd, chanting] Four, three, two, one!

[cheering]

[Abdul-Rauf] The next year I came back as a sophomore,

and we brought in Shaquille.

Shaquille looked like just a different type.

This dude is hungry. He's a beast.

And then Stanley wasn't there the first year,

so we had these two 7'2" guys.

[commentator] Roberts for two points, back into the game.

[cheering]

[Rose] Stanley Roberts and Shaquille O'Neal.

The latter two gentlemen are mountain of men.

When you see the build of Shaq...

[commentator] Inside O'Neal...

That's how Stanley Roberts was also built.

[voice] Good one, Stanley!

And it wasn't no question who the best player on the team was.

[commentator] Chris spins, shoots the ball away...

[cheering]

There was a professional jealousy there

with me and him.

My last two years in high school,

I was the man,

but then, when you get to college,

nah, you're not the man anymore, brother.

He is. And it was just,

"Hey, Chris, hey, Chris, hey, Chris, hey, Chris."

Nobody said, "Hey, Shaq."

[Stanley Roberts] At that time, those two just didn't vibe.

I was caught in the middle, but my thing was,

Chris was the man.

I mean, he was... the show-stopper.

[whistle blowing]

When I say the term, it was like watching God play basketball,

he shoots 100 shots, he gonna make 90 of 'em.

I'm in the gym door, watching him,

and he's stroking it, bah-bah-bah-bah...

he's just shooting and shooting and shooting.

And he would get to 97, 98, 99, and 100.

And if that 100 one wasn't pretty, he'd start all over.

And I said, "Okay... I wanna be that."

[Roberts] You'd hear him come down and dribble the ball

down the court, and he'd go "Aah!"

and throw his head back,

and I used to ask him, I was like,

when you make a move,

and you do a head-fake...

is that the Tourette's,

or is that you actually giving a head-fake?

It's hard to guard a guy

when he has that tick.

He didn't like taking his medication.

He hated his medication.

Because he felt like it brought his game down,

so certain games, he wouldn't take it.

They ended up putting me on Haldol.

It was used for psychopathic patients

to basically calm them down.

You were constantly gaining weight,

sleeping all the time; you a zombie.

My first year at LSU, I go from 172

my freshman year, I'm 185.

He was especially concerned

about the side effects of the Haldol.

Drowsiness, weight gain,

those were some of the side effects

that were of concern.

I still look back, and I say, man, I...

still hold the all-time freshman scoring record

at 30.2 points a game. Overweight.

I can only imagine if I was in my playing weight.

[crowd booing]

Mississippi State...

when I headed to the court,

as soon as the fans saw my body,

it was some of the loudest boos

I've ever heard in my life.

[crowd booing]

[booing continues]

It's-- I thought the booing was for me.

I'm sure it was for Chris Jackson.

[crowd booing]

Mississippi State, they were...

I'm not gonna throw the R-word around,

-they were different. -[crowd booing]

[Abdul-Rauf] And of course you would hear people...

you would hear people saying, "Who's your daddy?"

[Shaq] Who's your dad? Who's your dad?

So, I look at Maurice, I'm like,

"Who are they talking about?" He said, "Yeah,

Chris don't know who his father is."

They bothered him that game,

'cause Chris is from Mississippi.

[Brown] "Who's your daddy?" "Who's your daddy?"

It was sickening, preposterous,

I could've regurgitated.

[Abdul-Rauf] This was Mississippi State.

There was no let-up, and you can just feel...

in that area, just the air of racism.

[crowd booing]

[commentator] Look at that... just ping-pong inside...

and O'Neal...

broken up and stolen by LSU,

then right back to Burns for the slam!

[cheering]

[Shaq] It was a close game so, of course,

Brown calls a timeout.

All right, so what're we gonna do?

-[crowd chanting] -Chris said, "Fuck that,

gimme the ball," and when he says that,

give it to him, move out the way.

[commentator] Eight point Mississippi State lead.

Jackson, count it!

Jackson goes up-- unbelievable!

[commentator 2] Uncanny, everybody knows

what he's gonna do, and he still gets away with it.

[commentator] Let's see as he goes right to the three,

he's got two men trailing him,

there's the foul, it didn't go,

but Jackson will shoot three free throws.

I've never seen nothing like it.

Greatest performance I've seen,

ever, in the history of basketball.

[commentator] That's 39 points for him tonight.

I done seen Jordan, I done seen Barkley,

I done seen Isaiah, Magic, Kobe, Penny,

I ain't never seen nothing like that.

On the court, showing his actions,

he was perfect, but he was very shy.

He-- and he didn't speak up a lot of times.

He didn't like confrontation.

People ask me all the time, "What was he like?"

And my answer is-- is very astonishing to people.

I don't know. Of course, we saw each other in practice,

but after that I never saw him.

You know, I don't really go out,

and that's what I mainly do, you know,

-my free time is-- -You don't go out?

I haven't been out since I've been-- been to LSU.

I just stay in my room and listen to music

and just relax.

I remember going in-- going in to Chris's room

during the day, in between classes,

and he was laying on his bed, and he was reading

The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Coach Dale Brown gave me

the autobiography of Malcolm.

I never heard of Malcolm at that point.

It's embarrassing for me to even say that.

And the moment I started reading the book,

I couldn't put it down.

I just became fascinated with the person,

how his mind worked.

I pray that you will grow

intellectually, so that you can understand

the problems of the world and where you fit into,

in that world picture.

And I pray that all of the fear

that has ever been in your heart will be taken out.

[Abdul-Rauf] He was fearless in speaking his mind.

Seemed not to care what people thought.

I didn't have that. So, as I'm reading his life

and being a Black man and going through

his experiences with racism and everything else,

and-- and then showing that strength

in front of everybody, white people included,

and I didn't see this in my family, I'm like,

"Oh, this is different."

I went home one day.

And, when I went home,

I'm in my mom's house, and I open up the refrigerator,

and it was, like, empty.

So, I go into the bathroom.

And I lean on the sink, the sink falls in.

At that moment, all of...

this is just coming down on me,

man, you're eating three meals a day,

you're traveling, got all of this going on,

and your mom and your brother here, man.

Empty refrigerator, tore-up house.

I walked out that house, I said, "Man, to hell with this!

Damn it, I'm going, I'm leaving!"

I said, "I'm not coming back to LSU! I'm going pro!"

My dream started back coming up in Mississippi,

on the playgrounds, when I used to play ball.

Uh, hoping that some-- someday,

something like this would happen for me...

and... it's so close now, and I'm excited about it,

and hopefully everything will work out.

He had declared to the draft,

and he asked me to represent him,

and there were some rumors going around

that, when he was at LSU,

they had to take him in the dressing room

and lay him down on a table,

in order to calm him down at the half,

for him to go back out on the court and play.

[Abdul-Rauf] One of the guys in Orlando asked me,

he says, "So, do you think Tourette's affects your play?"

Does it look like it affects my play?

You were afflicted with Tourette's syndrome?

How do you think that could affect, in any way,

the opinion of the NBA scouts?

If they don't understand what-- what Tourette's really is,

I think it can affect them a great deal,

but, uh, Tourette's, something for me,

I think it's helped me if anything

because it makes you wanna do things over and over again.

I wrote a letter on behalf of Chris to the NBA

that, in his case, the Tourette syndrome

should not interfere at all.

[Eddie Miller] I took that letter to Chicago,

and when we got there, I disseminated it

to all the teams.

He went from 13th to three.

With the third pick of the 1990 NBA draft...

the Denver Nuggets select

Chris Jackson from LSU!

[applause]

[Abdul-Rauf] I was nervous, man, I was--

I was, like... I was grateful, I was happy,

but I was also scared.

Because it's that fear of "something's gonna happen."

[Abdul-Rauf] This is like a dream come true for me,

being here, this is a great city,

and I'm gonna do whatever I can while I'm here

to, uh, try my best and to make this team a winner.

The off-season before Denver,

I was listening to the wrong people.

They said, "Man, when you go to that next level,

oh, you're gonna have to pick up some weight."

[reporter] What about the critics who say that

Chris Jackson needs to fill out--

he needs to physically mature--

a couple more years, at least another year,

before he's ready to come out?

Well, um, I know,

mentally and physically,

I need to, you know, improve.

Especially going into the NBA, you know?

And, uh, I think that...

I need to get on the weights some

and get a little stronger, of course.

And so what I did, I began to eat.

I was working out, but I wasn't working out

as hard, because I'm trying to gain weight.

And I ended up going to Denver,

back to where I was my first year at LSU,

like 180-something pounds.

But this time I was 19% body fat.

Denver now, it's snowing, it's gloomy,

I'm not accustomed to that.

So I became depressed.

[commentator] Chris Jackson just cannot

find the hoop.

[Bernie Bickerstaff] Because of the weight,

he had lost his quickness.

That really hindered who he was as a basketball player.

Because that skill set was gone.

He was basically slow-mo.

[commentator] Westhead said in the locker room

following the game, Jackson was

doubled over with exhaustion.

I was-- I was really tired last night.

I had to keep pulling myself out some, but...

it's gonna take some time for me to get adjusted

to the running style.

[Abdul-Rauf] Paul Westhead wanted a run-and-gun system.

And I could remember him telling us that he wants to be

the first coach in the history of the NBA

that scores 200 points, not win a championship,

not win-- have a winning season,

but to score 200 points.

Win or lose,

our opponents will be very, very tired.

Now, I'm out of shape, and his training camps

were such that we would have tour days,

and you probably have

a 20-second water break one time.

You know, we can't get down on each other,

and sometimes a situation occurs

where, you know, things are not going well.

I don't see any substance in that, I, um...

you know, everyone's...

kind of sees things differently, I guess.

[Abdul-Rauf] Going through depression,

anxiety, stress,

having Tourette syndrome...

I was miserable.

We would look at him, and... we would giggle.

And he'd give us...

give us a look right there, but always smiled.

It never bothered him. And I'm sure it did.

'Cause it would bother me.

[Walter Davis] I would apologize to him

for laughing, you know.

I said, "Some of the things you do is funny."

And he said, "I'm not trying to be funny."

I don't think the teammates were educated.

[Keith Glass] They viewed him as a joke

or as out of control.

I mean, what kind of an environment is that?

You gotta sit down and educate your team.

Fans would say just horrible things,

and they would always be just out of reach,

but, you know, "Hey, stop twitching!

You're freaking my wife out!"

You know, things like that would come down,

and, you know, you can hear everything.

[Abdul-Rauf] And I'm counting my money,

'cause I'm saying to myself,

I don't even know if I wanna do this anymore.

He was a devout Christian.

Had that Bible on the airplane,

he'd read it, underline.

Time goes on.

And I get a call from the Rocky Mountain News.

He said, "Here's a quote by the general manager.

If Chris Jackson's gonna make it in the NBA,

he'd better pick up a basketball instead of his Bible."

Our concern was, "Hey, you have an obligation

to play basketball, that's-- that's why you're here.

So, hopefully that doesn't hinder what you're here for."

[Abdul-Rauf] At that time, I was having issues

with my faith.

I didn't always have my Bible on me.

I didn't even take the Bible on the road with me.

I was saying that I was a Christian, right?

For... the public.

But I was searching.

It began to bother me because I'm just thinking

about the ideology in and of itself,

and, after asking questions time and again,

hearing the same old response, either you just gotta believe,

or you can't question God,

and to me, that was unacceptable.

I said, "You know what? God gives us a mind

to think with."

And one day, I was talking to a friend of mine.

Islam came up in conversation.

And I said, "You're interested in Islam?"

He said, "Yeah, you?" I said, "Yeah, man,

I've never looked into it deeply,

but I've been reading the autobiography of Malcolm,"

and his life intrigued me.

And he said that there's a masjid on Evans Street

in Denver that we can go and pick up the Quran.

I said, "Let's go."

[soft singing in Arabic]

And so we got to the masjid, and there was

this Muslim brother tending to the garden.

We went in the basement, he gave us the Quran.

I went back home, I opened up two or three pages.

And I looked across the table.

I said, "Man, I don't know about you.

My search is over, I'm gonna be a Muslim."

[Mahershala] I think every conversion

is sort of a breadcrumb for your own.

And seeing those journeys

and the things that spark those things

was something that I always found really interesting.

I grew up in church, and my mom's

an ordained minister, but I was really

questioning why I believed what I believed.

And I didn't have good answers

for why I believed what I believed.

But the best answer I had, and I started calling it

"mama faith," was because, when I got down to it,

it was really me

following in line with what my family did.

[man speaking distantly]

I knew about Muhammad Ali,

to reading about Malcolm X's conversion,

to Mahmoud's conversion.

And then as I began to educate myself

to some degree, landing on how Islam...

described the relationship to God

and God's relationship to man,

that just made sense to me.

[singing Muslim prayer]

[all reciting]

[Abdul-Rauf] All of this occurred

right at the end of my rookie year.

[speaking Arabic]

[Abdul-Rauf] And at the end of that year,

I embraced Islam, and my life changed.

I don't know if you ever had this experience...

it's like all the questions I had, you know,

we talk about intuition and all of that.

It was a calmness, it was a certainty

that I never felt in my life.

And the more that I read, the more I engaged,

the more it solidified the strength in what I believe.

And to test my knowledge, to test my views,

to see where people are,

and then there's a constant back-and-forth with learning,

and then, after the confidence grows,

you develop courage now.

So there's always this push to work on yourself.

Then I start training.

Then, before you know it,

I had lost about 40 pounds total.

Got down to my playing weight.

[Bennett] He wanted to mirror Malcolm X

at that point in time in his life.

Pulling hisself up by the strap of his boots

when he was down, and making sure

that his legacy wasn't gonna be a bust.

[commentator] Chris Jackson, this is the first time

seeing him this year, how thin he is.

He has lost a ton of weight.

[crowd roaring]

He got back to being who he was

and what got him to this point

of being drafted in the NBA.

[Hastings] He comes back and he is a pro athlete.

I mean, he's got a pro athlete body.

He was lean. He was quicker.

He put some serious time in.

[Abdul-Rauf] Dan Issel comes in next year.

Before training camp, Dan sits me down.

He said, "I just want you to know...

those previous years are in the past.

It's a new slate.

As far as I'm concerned,

you're the guy, it's yours to lose."

[commentator] Here is Jackson for three-- got it!

[crowd cheering]

[Abdul-Rauf] This is where I wanted to be,

and this is where

I plan on being for a while,

and just, uh... enhancing the team

as much as possible, and myself.

[Ice Cube] Who is this dude torching the Lakers?

Like, who is this dude that can't miss?

[commentator] Jackson for the three-- yes!

It's not just the shot,

it's the dribble skills, the handles,

The all-around game.

Chris went out, got himself in great shape.

Lost about 23 pounds.

And he has been terrific

from the first day of training camp.

He's one of the best free throw shooters in history.

Dan Issel puts him in the starting lineup,

and he just seemed to have gotten it.

There was a time where I felt like

he had a chance to be the best guard in the league.

Between the legs, behind the back,

zoom-zoom-zoom-zoom-zoom.

Pump fake it, everybody flying by.

[commentator] ...Jackson, here he is!

For three and the game!

[crowd roaring]

[commentator] What a way to go!

[Abdul-Rauf] That's when I had the 19-point-something a game.

And then I got Most Improved in the NBA.

If it wasn't for Allah

and to have gone through what I have gone through...

and to be touched by Him.

I mean, I literally would be out the NBA.

[Krieger] Issel with his arm around Chris Jackson

became a-- sort of an iconic picture from that year.

[soft chatter]

[knocking on door]

Welcome home, Mama.

[delighted screams, laughter]

[applause]

This definitely was a dream for me.

Growing up, this was one of the first things

I wanted to accomplish, was get my mom a new home

and to where she could say, "It's mine."

I can feel it like it was yesterday.

I was showing her all around the house,

and... you know,

furniture and how things were

and... when it was over,

you know, I walked outside.

And I told her I loved her.

And I thanked her

for all the things

that she's done for us.

And on my way back,

I literally told myself,

"If I died right now...

I'm satisfied."

And at that point, so many things were happening.

I had already become a Muslim.

And I remember being in the masjid,

and I heard the imam say, "If you have the means,

you must preparations

to go to hajj. To Mecca."

It was an experience of a lifetime for me.

When I got back, I remember

going into the office of the imam.

They said, "Well, have you chosen a name?"

I said, "No."

I said, "I only know a few names."

You know, the Muhammad Ali's, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's.

And they said, "Mahmoud is a good name."

And the other guy said, I think, "I heard

Abdul-Rauf" is a good name.

Mahmoud is "elegant and praiseworthy."

And Abdul-Rauf,

Abdul is "the servant of,"

al-Rauf, "the most kind."

And so they started calling me Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.

[commentator] 6'1" guard from Louisiana State,

#3, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.

And that was a big story also, you know?

"What do you mean, changes his name?"

People in the early '90s

didn't understand that stuff.

[Shaq] My thing was, "Hey, man, your mama

named you Chris, I'm calling you Chris."

Like, what's up, Chris Jackson? "Mahmoud, my brother,"

and he was serious, so after that,

I would never call him Chris again.

[Abdul-Rauf] To many African-Americans,

our names are not our names.

They have a legacy that comes from slavery.

When you deny a person

just the common decency to respect the fact

that they're calling themselves by another name,

to us, is very offensive.

You know, once he became a Muslim,

it was like, "Oh, he's a terrorist!"

You know, that's the go-to move.

[Bennett] They didn't take to it at all.

Some people was, you know, still calling him Chris

just to piss him off.

[Rose] In the United States of America,

people take that way too personal.

This is my body, my being, my temple.

My name. My religion.

If I choose to change it from Cassius Clay

to Muhammad Ali, it gets treated different.

If I change it from Lew Alcindor

to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, he gets treated different.

[Mahershala] I've always been quietly fascinated

by people making huge life changes.

Like, you know, I'mma put down this thing

that makes me excellent,

and I'm actually going to, like...

spend the bulk of my time in service to God.

[Abdul-Rauf] The transition that I was going through,

I mean, I was wearing shalwar kameezes

with combat boots,

kufi hat, miswak in my mouth,

thinking those cultural things

makes you more of a Muslim,

'cause I was going through changes.

[Shaheed Ali] I think with Mahmoud, he took

some of the traditional...

values of Islam,

and it kinda rubbed people the wrong way.

[Miller] I wanna say it was at a Gulfport High

basketball game, and Mahmoud came back.

My mother was here, and I know Ms. Lil was here.

They went to hug him.

And he stopped them, he said, "I'm sorry, I can't touch you."

Hoo, that really stirred some things up.

[Shaheed] In the Muslim culture,

moreso in the Middle East,

and in certain parts of Africa,

you're not supposed to touch a woman

that's not your wife or close family member.

Because of a lot of the sexual desires

in the window of the soul, you should just

try to refrain, stay away from that.

That's more tradition

and not really part of the religion.

Even the Christians and the Jews

in that part of the world, they adopt that social practice.

When Mahmoud first come into Islam,

there was so much information coming to him,

that a lot of stuff, he had to evolve from.

[Miller] Ms. Lil took him to Houston

and cared for him, and how he can't touch her?

That got around,

and that's when a lot of people turned on him.

[reporter] Jackson is aware his conversation has

caused hard feelings among some hometown friends

in Mississippi, but he says that's not important.

I'm just trying to live my best for Allah

and, uh, do the best I can.

And I can't worry about material things

or what people say or think about me.

I'm living for God.

I guess that type of behavior

is not normal with NBA athletes.

Used to us going out, gambling.

I'm just trying to learn, man, I'm trying to be a part

of something bigger.

You're obligated to pray, as a Muslim, five prayers.

And a Muslim's life is arranged around...

not your work, not all of that, it's like,

okay, prayer supposed to be coming in at this time.

Where am I gonna be?

'Cause I wanna make sure

I'm conscientious of those times.

There's fasting. Voluntary fasting.

Not just doing a month of Ramadan.

Also, you have the Tahajjud prayer,

the night prayer, where you break your sleep.

It's-- none of it is stuff that you publicize.

So, all of those things we try to do.

I'll never forget, one time I came into your room,

where clearly you was trying to pray.

-You was trying to do... -[laughing]

I'm knocking all on the door.

I didn't really understand,

and you was like, "Man, you know what?

-Come on in, man." -[laughing]

[Hastings] I remember he had his prayer rug with him,

go out, disappear, boom-boom-boom.

Then he would come out and, you know, drop 30 on 'em.

[commentator] Mahmoud from way downtown!

That is a triple.

[Rose] I got a chance to play with him as a rookie,

and he was the opposite of myself.

-[crowd roaring] -[whistle blowing]

I was the member of the Fab Five.

I was loud, I was brash.

He was quiet. He was subdued.

And he was meticulous.

He was crazy competitive.

And he wanted to go at John Stockton

and Karl Malone, because John Stockton

broke the assist record.

[crowd roaring]

[commentator] Stockton with the ball--

and it's taken away by Abdul-Rauf.

They'll never catch him. All the way for a layup.

Score! Rauf...

As an athlete, you try to be

in those zones as much as humanly possible.

And that was definitely one of 'em.

[commentator] Tonight, McNichols Arena

in the Mile-High City is jam-packed

to see the NBA's number one roadshow,

the Chicago Bulls, take on the Denver Nuggets.

You know about the Bulls' 41-3 record.

The Nuggets, meanwhile, struggling, 18-26.

But they are looking to step up to the best in the NBA.

[Rose] When you're playing against the Bulls,

it's lights-camera-action.

But they ain't coming to watch you.

They coming to watch Mike

and Scottie and Dennis Rodman.

[commentator] And the tap controlled by the Nuggets.

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf sets it up.

My focus was, I'm gonna try to, like,

even moreso annihilate you early.

["Charge" horns blaring]

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf-- on three!

Mahmoud got this little look on his face.

I was like... Mahmoud taking it personal?

And they didn't have a chance.

[commentator] ...matchup for Mahmoud, Kerr's got him.

[crowd roaring]

[Kerr] I remember I had no chance

against Mahmoud. No chance.

[commentator] Mahmoud, 20-footer.

-[crowd roaring] -[Kerr] He was

one of the most difficult guys in the league to guard.

[commentator] Mahmoud shaking Kerr-- three!

[crowd roaring]

I just remember, over and over again,

one dribble, two dribble pull ups.

Rising up, and he was making everything.

[commentator] The Bulls trail by five.

Under four minutes to go.

Abdul-Rauf...

what a shot.

[commentator 2] He came back there. He's got 30.

[commentator] What do they say here in Denver?

Rauf, there it is.

We were young and talented,

and we ended up breaking that winning streak.

[commentator] Mahmoud over Harper--

short-- Mutombo is there!

Mahmoud to follow-- yes!

[applause]

The Denver Nuggets...

have ended the Chicago Bulls'

club record 18-game winning streak.

[Abdul-Rauf] Even though it was a great year,

it's like, okay, grateful, it's real,

I'm excited.

You start thinking, man, I gotta be ready.

This is too good to be true-- something gonna happen to me.

[voice] Hey, this Mahmoud thing

has really touched off some nerves.

[voice 2] I'm going to the game tonight, and I...

well, I hope when he's introduced,

everybody boos as loud as I do.

My nickname was the Hitman.

[interviewer] How'd you get that nickname?

Radio stations are in business for one reason

and one reason alone, and that's to make money,

and that's what they do, and, you know,

if you're gonna be in drive time radio,

you have to move the needle

in order to keep your job.

Oh, say can...

Nuggets bench, of course, is right next to where

we sit, and I noticed

that Mahmoud was not standing for the national anthem.

And I assumed everybody else noticed that too.

Go back to our forefathers.

My grandfather fought on the battlefields of France.

My father served on a B24

during World War II.

That's what the anthem stands for and the flag,

and that's what it stands for, for me.

I remember the next day, of course, I brought it up

on the air; no one had written about it.

No one had talked about it.

And we brought it up,

and of course that caused

the firestorm that you can imagine.

Mahmoud, can you just answer one question?

[Dan Rather] The National Basketball Association

is in a standoff tonight with a highly-paid player

who refuses to stand for the national anthem.

[crowd booing]

[reporter] Expect Rauf's reception

to be rather hostile.

[booing]

[Abdul-Rauf] Hold on, stop, go back, before that,

because this is important.

Oh, say

Can you see

[Abdul-Rauf] I was not standing for the anthem

probably, give or take...

four to six months before it was actually

made public.

It started with all the books I was reading.

You know, the Noam Chomsky's.

The Gore Vidal's. The Howard Zinn's.

All of these books, and they're talking about

this sense of American exceptionalism

and American innocence.

Like, when America does things,

they wanna claim innocence.

You had Rodney King.

You had the bombing of the World Trade Center.

You had the Gulf War.

Over 90% of its existence,

from the inception of this country,

they've been at war.

There's always something going on, in this country.

I'm coming across information now that I'm really offended.

I feel like I've been cheated.

I feel like the educational institutions cheated me.

You know, one of the worst things you can do to a person

is deny them a history of themselves.

And a knowledge of themselves.

Now, they are symbols, right?

They are symbols that represent a system.

And we're taught we don't stand for anything

but for Allah. And what Allah has established.

But am I saying that everything in America is bad? No.

There's good that exists, but wherever the bad is,

even as a Muslim, we don't stand for it.

The ultimate measure of a man

is not where he stands in moments--

of confident moments of convenience,

but where he stands in moments of challenge

and moments of controversy.

I'm processing all of this, and I'm reading about

the story of the prophet, I'm reading about...

you know, these concepts of nationalism.

I gotta do something.

It may not be the greatest feat in the world,

but damn it, I'm gonna do something.

Injustice anywhere is a threat

-to justice everywhere. -[applause]

I started by just keeping this to myself.

This is my struggle. I'm just not gonna stand.

He would just stay in the back.

That's what he was doing. Out of the way.

Minding his own business, like other players.

[Hastings] And we blew it off. Wasn't a big deal.

Didn't see-- he came in, he started the game.

He played fine, everything was okay.

The NBA, who notices everything, never said a word.

Never saw it, never noticed,

never brought it to our attention.

At that moment, I don't think

anybody could've foreseen what was about to happen.

Keep the cameras moving, 'cause I'm kinda fast.

He was a good player. He was really good.

I liked him. But the stance he took,

people didn't like it. They were against it.

Next thing you know, they're calling talk radio.

The next thing you know, television cameras show up.

It seemed like there was a little extra cameramen

at the shoot around than normal.

And so, when it was over, they rushed in

and wanted to sit me down.

At this point, I don't even know what it's about.

And I think the first question was, "So,

what do you think about the American flag?"

It's clear in the Quran

where Islam is the only way,

and to stand for one or the other

is denying the other.

It's also a symbol of oppression,

uh, of tyranny.

I just don't look at the Muslim issue.

I look at the Caucasian American,

I look at the African American being oppressed in this country,

so, uh...

and I don't stand for that.

I don't criticize those for standing.

So, don't criticize me for-- for sitting.

To me, I'm like, that's a balanced statement.

I'm not saying that you're all bad.

But of course, the media does its job.

Tyranny, oppression, tyranny, oppression, tyranny, oppression.

[reporter] Abdul-Rauf is opposed to standing for the flag.

[reporter 2] Which he called a symbol

of oppression, of tyranny.

[reporter 3] Oppression and tyranny...

[overlapping voices]

[static crackling]

The media, I think, a lot of times

is not so much biased as it is lazy.

The Supreme Court even issued

it's constitutional to burn the flag.

[Aldridge] Someone giving a nuanced explanation

about the history of the United States,

that's not a sound bite.

[reporter] He claims that the American Flag

is a symbol of oppression.

That makes it a political statement.

And so, in a flash,

he's a very controversial figure on a national level.

-What's wrong with that guy? -He signed on the dotted line.

-That's the rules of the game. -America is the reason

why he's making the big bucks,

and I mean, he should at least respect that.

I think he should respect the United States.

Ask Mahmoud if he'd rather not get paid in American dollars.

I think not standing for the national anthem

is disrespectful to the country

and those who have given us the right to stand.

-[booming] -At that moment, you just knew

his life would not be the same,

because of the way it was received by Middle America.

The NBA had to step in. What are they going to do

when a player doesn't stand for the anthem?

I'm coming to the gym, we're playing Orlando.

I walk in the gym,

I'm getting ready to put my stuff down.

Jim Gillen says, "Hey, Bernie wants to see you."

Administratively, we had to clean it up,

because it impacted the Nuggets,

it impacted the National Basketball Association,

and it was a big scene.

And Bernie said, "People from the NBA wanna talk to you."

I've never talked to David Stern. Not once.

But I'm assuming that he probably put

his closest people on the phone,

and they began to talk to me.

Trying to convince me to stand.

These are the people who pay you.

They've got these rules, so we have to adhere to it.

I said, "I'm not standing so do what you have to do."

You have the ability,

if you can't do it, walk away.

Got freedom of choice to do that.

So I'm looking at Bernie, I say,

"Well, look, can I go get dressed?"

He says, "No," I say, "What do you..."

"You--" I said, "Now?!"

I'm thinking you gotta go through legislation.

I said, "Well, can I put my clothes on

and go out and support the team?"

He said, "No, they don't even want you on the premises."

So I got up and went down, got my stuff, they were like,

"What's up?" I said, "Y'all have a good game."

Mahmoud, can we just ask you one question?

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf didn't play last night,

and unless he changes his stance,

he won't be playing for a while.

He is suspended indefinitely by the NBA

for refusing to stand during the national anthem.

Nuggets president and head coach

Bernie Bickerstaff was asked

about the controversy, but he refused to comment.

There was no social media. There wasn't cell phones.

So, I had an answering machine in the office.

Within an hour, it was maxed out.

From The Oprah Winfrey Show, Jesse Jackson's office,

from Brother Farrakhan's office.

On and on, the calls were coming

from every area of society.

The major news outlets wanted to talk to him.

They wanted players' opinions of their teammate.

How tough has it been for him, Jalen?

Well, I don't know, he seemed like he's been handling it well.

I mean, you know, Mahmoud's the kind of guy that

he would only do something if he thought it was right

so he doesn't feel that he's done anything wrong.

We were confused because this is, like, unprecedented.

You could get suspended for doing something peaceful?

I don't think it's fair.

I think a lot of guys will...

won't have much to say about it,

because they're afraid of the repercussions.

You know, in our country, freedom of speech

has been taken way too far with everything,

but you know, I... would like to hear his side of that.

I respect him as a man for making, you know what I mean,

stand up for what he believes, you know what I mean,

I don't think he should be suspended for it.

You're gonna get paid four or five million dollars

just to play a game, don't sit there

and say you're not gonna stand up for, what, two minutes.

That's, uh, Mahmoud, you know.

And people have different beliefs,

and right now, he has different beliefs.

You know, people should respect that.

I wanted to just... reach out to him

and say, "Hey, man, half my family is Muslim.

I understand." But when you do certain things

at certain moments, you cannot allow people

to intervene with what they think you're doing.

The message has to be clear.

I hate to say it like this, sometimes you have

to play the game. It's all about corporations.

And the corporate mentality is very strict.

The league says they just want him to play by its rules,

which means Abdul-Rauf will remain suspended without pay,

until he stands.

I got a letter from the league

that he violated

the NBA Operations Manual,

which is not even negotiated with the union.

So that's why the union was solidly behind Mahmoud,

and I knew, if Mahmoud wanted to play, he would play.

Here's somebody that's so very disciplined

about his life, about his game, about his religion,

Mahmoud doesn't see himself as a martyr

or, like, doing anything special.

He's like, "This is the right thing to do."

[reporter] Late this afternoon,

Abdul-Rauf's agent read

a statement from his client.

"My intentions were not, in any way,

to be disrespectful to those who regard

the national anthem as a sacred ceremony."

My concern was how he was

going to be socially persecuted

and how the media was going to come at him.

"I am an African-American,

a citizen of this country,

and one who respects freedom of speech

and freedom of expression."

Shareef went on national TV

and read a statement, and it said underneath--

it said "Shareef Nasir,

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf's agent."

Toward the end of that season, I was terminated.

Shareef became his agent.

[April Dotson] Sharif and Mahmoud had

a friendship that turned

from a best friend situation to a business situation.

And you look at life, you look at society,

and you look at the relationships

with the Black world and the white world.

The many barriers that are created.

You know, we're in a league where you got so many

African-Americans that play, but you have very little

African-American coaches; you have very little

African-American trainers, right?

You also have a field where there's not a lot

of African-American agents.

And I'm like, well, why not try to bring somebody else up

that needed a chance? That looks like me.

Give them that opportunity.

I don't know when you want me to open

this can of worms, but he was being

pushed and pulled his whole life.

Either by Tourette's, or by coaches,

or now by the religion.

[reporter] Hakeem Olajuwon,

a Muslim and NBA star,

doesn't understand Abdul-Rauf's interpretation

of Islamic scripture.

Islamic teachings

require every Muslim

to obey and respect the law

of the countries they live in.

There's nothing in Islam

against standing

for a national anthem of any country,

whether you agree or disagree with that country.

So we disagree with Mahmoud

for not standing on that.

I don't agree. I don't believe in...

if... if you're in Rome, do as the Romans do.

My first allegiance is to God,

irrespective of wherever I'm at.

Not every law is just.

At one point, slavery was the law.

At one point, segregation was a law,

just because it's a law

doesn't mean it should be honored.

I think the thing that hurt Mahmoud most were

the people that knew him,

how they kind of turned their back on him

and how they didn't understand

and didn't accept his position.

[crowd booing]

[Mahershala] I remember being nervous for him.

I got really worried for his career,

and there wasn't really anyone else on board.

He seemed like he was clearly on an island,

and I don't think anyone felt like

that was necessarily gonna end well.

[Shaq] National anthem, very sensitive.

Once they think you're disrespecting this country,

they don't wanna have a conversation.

[Nasir] Revoke his contract, take his money away,

tell him to go back to Africa.

That was the talk that you would hear

coming out of the media.

I'm constantly hearing all of this stuff,

man, I'm, like, furious.

One night, I ended up-- I was so angry,

I started breaking out in a sweat.

My stomach was in knots. My gums started--

like, it felt like somebody was airing 'em up.

I went to the hospital, they said,

"You're having an ulcer." 'Cause I was holding

so much in!

I ended up talking to a guy that's my mentor,

and he was telling me, he said, "Listen,

you can choose to go forward,

and you-- and you are just right to do so,

or you can choose to take another approach.

Praying for those who are oppressed..."

That made sense,

but part of me didn't wanna do it.

Because I knew, in the minds of people,

they'd say, "Oh, he's compromising."

The compromise was, we get his fine back, and he was

allowed to stand and pray silently.

Am I sorry for it? No.

Do I feel I'm wrong for doing what I did? No.

But in Islam, um...

if there's a better approach to things,

um, it's-- it's only wise to take that approach.

I'll stand, but I'll offer a prayer

for those who are suffering.

[reporter] The Nuggets hit the road

with Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.

The standoff about standing. The NBA won.

[reporter 2] The Nuggets are in Chicago tonight to play

Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

Should be interesting to see if that Chicago crowd

boos Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.

This is, like, the most notorious figure in America.

I'm not here to talk. I'm here to play basketball.

If you wanna ask me about basketball,

I'll talk about basketball.

[Krieger] In Chicago, CNN is there,

the networks are there,

this is the sort of epitome

of the cable news cycle.

Bernie Bickerstaff is cornered by a massive media horde.

[reporter] How long do you think before this circus ends?

Uh, when you guys turn it loose.

[reporter] Do you think it's gonna continue and--

You have to answer that, when are you gonna turn it loose?

It was just volatile, and everybody wanted to know

what he was gonna do from day to day.

Will he stand? Will he sit?

You know, I like all my players to line up and be attentive.

I don't necessarily agree with what he's saying,

but I respect his...

freedom to... to express himself.

[reporter] Do you feel focused tonight?

Oh, yes, I feel good. Ready to play.

I was worried about him.

Having to hear about threats on his life,

and FBI agents having to sit in the stands.

-[crowd cheering] -[announcer] Good evening,

ladies and gentlemen.

[Abdul-Rauf] It was a packed house.

For some reason, it felt like,

did y'all give out extra tickets?

[crowd booing]

[Sheppard] There was a lot of hatred there.

People waving flags.

They're booing him, they're yelling things.

It was ugly.

[announcer] Please rise for the national anthem.

Oh, say

Can you see

By the dawn's

- early light... -[crowd booing]

[booing overtakes singing]

[booing continues]

[Glass] During the anthem,

I knew he was nervous.

And his teammates... surrounded him.

And it looked to me like they were trying

to protect him from all of this crap.

[Ellis] It occurred to me that, I was like, wow,

this is real; I've never, ever

had a situation

where a person individually

-was being booed. -[crowd booing]

[Abdul-Rauf] This patriotism and this love for the anthem...

while they were singing the anthem...

a lot of people booing, disrespect the anthem.

-[crowd booing] - of the free...

[booing overtakes singing]

[booing increases]

[Kerr] Looking back, I wish I had

said something to him.

It was a time when athletes didn't

speak out much.

We didn't have this...

social justice movement that's going on now.

You didn't have social media,

so it was... really an isolated event

that kind of caught everybody off guard.

[David] It was all over the media.

And deep down inside,

just said, man,

I just wish he had never done that.

Thinking about all the work, all the long nights,

the long days, the hot sun,

the not eating, you know?

Mom going through what she was going through,

and... all that for this.

[Abdul-Rauf] I had a garbage bag full...

of hate mail.

Death threats. It was disturbing.

There are no words.

You don't get it unless you've experienced it.

You pull up to the house, and your windshield's

been bashed in.

Going to restaurants, and him maybe not

feeling comfortable because of the looks he's getting

and wondering if his food is gonna be his food,

or if it's gonna be his food, and something added.

This was an everyday, regular thing for us.

So it was hard.

We need one ball.

[Abdul-Rauf] Bernie calls me.

And he said, "There are too many distractions."

He was like, "Look, why don't you just end this year?"

We needed to move on,

'cause this was no longer about

what we were trying to accomplish

as a basketball team, okay?

And that was win basketball games

and become successful.

This-- This was a distraction.

So, when you have distractions and those things,

you have to find ways to eliminate them.

This is my humble opinion.

In every arena we go to

outside of our own, we get booed.

People looking to get into our heads.

That's not a distraction for athletes.

You look at the season, how it started.

Fifty, 30, phenomenal!

Why would you get rid of a person like that?

We were... with it, okay?

And so Sacramento was receptive,

so sometimes changes of venue

helps everybody.

[Hastings] He's your headache now, your problem.

We can't handle the headache, we're tired

of the publicity. Move on.

[Rose] Bernie Bickerstaff was put in an awkward spot...

because not many times does a Black man

not only have the opportunity to be a head coach in the NBA

but a general manager,

and when you're in that position,

corporate America, the sponsors, they on the phone.

And I'm pretty sure, for Bernie, he had to look at it like,

that if I protect him, they gonna ostracize me, too.

[commentator] Good look, good execution.

They're looking for a screen, there it is,

and that's a nice little shot right there.

We're getting one of the best players in the game,

and you guys all looking at him like he's a pariah.

That really bothered me, 'cause I loved this guy,

and I wanted to play with him.

[Bennett] When he went to Sacramento, he wasn't playing.

So, I said, ooh, he's gonna be in trouble.

[sighing] He's gonna be blackballed.

And I think that's what happened.

"Blackball" is certainly

not an official term.

Someone who is being blackballed

is being made unable to work

in a certain environment

or in a certain place,

in this case in a certain sports league,

by the people who control the means

of hiring people for that sport,

And it seemed clear, after the Nuggets

traded Mahmoud, who at the time was

the leading scorer on their team,

that there was very little interest in him

around the league.

Well, obviously he wasn't blackballed.

He went to Sacramento.

The answer's in the--

the pudding, right?

It didn't happen.

[Abdul-Rauf] That year, they came out with a special,

with the top free throw shooters in the league.

Not once did they show me. I said, "Oh,

that's writing on the wall."

Tomjanovich, after playing us

in Sacramento, was in the locker room.

Tomjanovich was like, "What's going on?

Why are they not playing him?"

They said, "When we come,

we organize our defense to stop him."

I was, like, untouchable. I see what's happening.

And then, at some point, I fell into what I did

my first year, like, oh, forget y'all, then, man.

Said I ain't gonna be putting in all this work.

Started gaining weight, I'm like,

I'm giving them what they want.

[commentator] Abdul-Rauf...

Mahmoud didn't play very well, and so it was easy.

If you're not playing well,

and there's a controversy,

it's really easy to get rid of you.

[Abdul-Rauf] That year, they wanted to sign me back,

but they wanted to give me-- like, lowball me.

And on principle I said, man, trick it, I'm going overseas.

I said, just on principle, I'm gonna leave.

I ended up going to Turkey.

That lasted for about maybe three months.

My heart wasn't in it, so I left early.

Vancouver said, "If you get in shape,

you're gonna play." I said, "Okay, deal."

[Rose] I remember he was playing

with the Grizzlies. Vancouver.

I'm like, they got my guy in Siberia over here.

[Abdul-Rauf] After my first year in Vancouver,

went back home, established a masjid,

and so I became the imam for some years while at home.

Asking for it...

Had a wife at the time,

and I was having my first child, Ali.

During that time is when we're looking to build

a house on 53 acres in Kiln, Mississippi.

I was always a little bit surprised

that he would wanna move to Hancock County.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of... just be real, it's just a...

I just don't know why a....

a Muslim African-American man would wanna go live there.

[Abdul-Rauf] But I'm thinking, look, man,

this is a lot of land, a lake, great opportunity.

I start building a gigantic house.

One day, going out to the property,

you could see tire tracks.

Looked like a big old truck

that ran into the frame of the house,

when it was being framed, tore down.

Dealt with it. Some time go by,

we come back out...

you see Ku Klux Klan insignia,

I'm still like, "Okay, I'm still moving in."

When we get it all bricked up,

I get a call from a sister in our community

named Ivy. It was about four o'clock in the morning.

Woke us up. She said...

"Turn on the news."

[fire roaring]

[reporter] Investigators are claiming arson

in the early-morning blaze

at the home of Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf...

[Dotson] I'm watching the news,

and I'm watching my house in flames.

It was like a clip out of a bad horror movie,

except this is my real life.

[reporter] The six-bedroom six-bath home

was supposed to be the Raufs' dream home

in the countryside.

[ominous music]

[birds tweeting]

[Abdul-Rauf] I do remember one statement

that was made that-- that came true.

Said before I move in, that it would be burned down.

This is just an indication,

I think, of... how far we gotta go

in terms of human relations in this country, period.

For something like this to happen.

For Mahmoud, the way he handled himself

was always with discipline and class.

Especially when times got rough.

He never got mad at the establishment

and said, "I'm gonna burn the house down."

But the Klan burned his house down.

How about that?

[Abdul-Rauf] There's a part of me that,

when I see stuff like that,

I have that anger, but it's almost like...

[sighing]

I gotta chuckle

to keep me sane, right?

Every time something happen to me, I'm always looking

at... it could be worse.

It could be worse.

[siren buzzing, wailing]

[police whistling]

9/11 happened.

And Islam has become the new boogeyman.

Every nation... in every region...

now has a decision to make.

Either you are with us,

or you are with the terrorists.

[applause]

[Mahershala] In American, pre-9/11,

Muslims were able to...

navigate and move around in the country a certain way.

I remember doing a show,

and I was one of the principles on the show.

It was my first big television opportunity.

And then, when the towers fell,

it was like there was this drastic change,

and I was experiencing something that was so beyond me

that I didn't have any control over.

It was a thing where I was, like,

I saw myself being phased out.

And 19 episodes in, I got fired.

-[reciting in Arabic] -[Glass] I would have preferred

if I was Mahmoud's agent at that time,

to represent him on September 10th,

you know what I mean? 'Cause, September 12th,

it was hard to represent a Muslim player

named Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.

[crowd] No mosque! No mosque!

[woman] This is not about peaceful Islamic people.

This is about extremist groups that are going to be here.

[man] I don't wanna go through the Constitution.

I know what the Constitution says.

But they are spitting in our face.

The mosque people.

[crowd shouting]

[Abdul-Rauf] In the midst of all of that,

I got a call from HBO Sports Talk,

and they said HBO wanna come interview me.

[Dotson] I used to tell Mahmoud point-blank,

I hate for you to give interviews because, when you do,

you don't get a job, and people burn down our house.

I did not have any trust that they were going to be

objective in their reporting, and I felt that

it was a roundabout way to put a bullseye

on his back and pull the trigger.

But Mahmoud does what he wants to do.

I don't feel like being diplomatic,

so whatever you ask me, we're going for it.

He sits me down, and the first thing he says,

he looks at me...

"So do you think Bin Laden did it?"

[laughing]

I'm definitely, at this point,

not convinced...

that Osama Bin Laden was involved.

He is a suspect. There's no evidence.

You think it's likely that Arabs,

Muslims were not involved in this thing?

It's likely, I would say, that they weren't involved.

-Were not. -Right.

They're saying it's a war on terrorism,

but I don't believe that that's the case.

I think that's a euphemism for a war on Islam.

I spoke my conscience,

and I mentioned some things that people didn't like.

I posed questions that people didn't like.

You think the Israelis might've been behind what happened

-on September 11th? -I don't know who was behind.

There's a strong possibility

that a lot of people could've been behind this.

All I'm saying is...

these are questions that are valid questions.

So, don't just have me... just because the media wanna

point the finger over here,

just to jump on that bandwagon when there are a lot

of other questions need to be answered.

I'm at that point in my life now,

the truth means more to me than anything.

I-- I've made a decision that I'm gonna live and die

with a free conscience and a free soul

whether anybody likes it or not.

Do you understand how...

-It's unpopular. -I mean-- unpopular, I mean--

Chaotic, all of those words.

"Crazy" is the word I was gonna use.

Right, right, right.

Man, it was an extensive conversation,

which was terribly butchered.

And I said this to him, I said, "But if you think

that I'm gonna compromise my integrity

and the truth for a paycheck, you must be out your mind."

Why aren't you in the NBA today?

I think that... it poses a problem...

for the NBA's image...

to have a guy...

that's willing...

to speak his conscience,

even when it's not popular to do so.

The interview went from, like, six hours,

to the snippet that you see,

and at that point, I couldn't do anything but drop my head

because I knew they had botched everything that was said.

After that interview aired,

that's when my career was beheaded for good.

I called around, and I had several conversations

with a number of teams in the NBA.

The Phoenix Suns called me back and said...

"I have no interest in signing Mahmoud,

and it doesn't have anything to do with basketball."

[Abdul-Rauf] A guy from the Clippers came to me.

Assistant coach or something.

And he said, "We need a guard."

Elgin Baylor wants to talk to you."

So I ended up coming, and I'm sitting in the stands,

and I see Elgin at the scorer's table.

After about maybe 15, 20 minutes,

the guy comes,

he says, "Mahmoud, I apologize.

Elgin don't wanna talk to you on account

of what you said on HBO."

[chuckling] You already knew

I had an HBO interview before you called me here.

So you must've went and said something to somebody,

and they said, "Hey, no, absolutely not."

[Kerr] He played nine years in the league.

A player like that, who's that skilled,

should have a 15-year run.

It didn't dawn on me that he was potentially

being blackballed by the league.

But that's my own naivete.

[Shaq] He just took a life of his own,

and it seemed like he was blackballed.

I don't wanna use that word, but kinda seemed

like he was blackballed, just kinda faded away.

He never got the opportunities.

[Polynice] He got banished, he got thrown out

with the bathwater. All of that.

They just didn't want him a part of the NBA anymore.

So, whatever terminology that they wanted to use,

that's what happened to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.

[Ice Cube] Without that stand, he would've played another

seven, eight years.

There's so many guys good enough to play

that don't have a job because of... other things.

This is an "other thing."

[Roberts] Because he spoke his mind

and what he believed, you blackball him,

you ruin his career.

You cut his-- his lifeline off.

It's all about revenue for them,

and if one fan thinks something is wrong,

then they're gonna try to figure out

how to make that one fan happy,

and that's not right.

If I were to have a $5 bill,

and I had to lay it on was he blackballed,

or wasn't he, and this is all the money

I'm gonna have the rest of my life...

I'd say he was blackballed.

[soft sob]

That's not right.

One of the greatest players in the history of the NBA

was cheated out of his career.

So somebody needs to speak up,

and if you don't speak up, you're a coward.

[Rose] He's allowed, in my opinion,

to express himself how he chooses.

I thought that's what being a free country

was actually all about.

People got mad at Mahmoud

for not standing for the anthem,

for the same reason he maintained his dignity

when he lost everything.

His religion.

They wanted him out, by all means.

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf was "whiteballed" from the NBA.

[Abdul-Rauf] I went through a period,

and I don't want anybody to have pity for me.

And there are even people that are so close to me

that don't even know this, but I literally went broke.

When I say broke, "zero."

I was living with my sister...

with our five kids...

to give some sense of normalcy.

[Abdul-Rauf] I'm in this big house

with no heat,

balled up in a blanket.

Trying to stay warm.

Going back to what I used to do,

eating rice, butter, things.

Trying to figure out, man, what--

what in the hell am I gonna do?

It's hard going from somebody who's been

in the spotlight your entire life,

entire, and now,

there's no spotlight, nothing.

[Abdul-Rauf] Sometimes we have to go so low,

whether it's traumatic or what have you,

to open our eyes.

And, at that moment,

you are in a way rebirthed.

I prayed a lot. I was patient.

And somebody asked me, "Hey, man, would you train?"

I ain't even know what they charge,

but I know I needed to eat.

Push it, push it, faster! Come on, push yourself!

[Sheppard] He works with several NBA players.

He's a skill development coach that gets players ready

for the draft. He works with youth.

He's a fantastic developer of talent.

[Abdul-Rauf] Go!

Go!

[Abdul-Rauf] In the process of that, someone called me.

He said, "Hey, man, we wanna invite you to speak."

Jumped on it. I went out.

I didn't know he was filming it.

Just like Malcolm, when he said,

"Look, it doesn't matter.

You know, your color, religion, or whatever."

[Abdul-Rauf] He ends up, without my permission,

putting it on YouTube.

Before you know it, I start getting

a lot of speaking engagements.

Money start rolling in. It helped a lot.

That came from constant, day-in and day-out...

[Abdul-Rauf] In every area of my life,

I'm trying to leave no stones unturned.

[thunder rumbling]

[Dotson] If you know Mahmoud,

you know that he's always striving

to be better tomorrow than he is today.

But I think that a lot of things

may have caused him to be more closed off.

And I think everything can be traced back to

how he always wanted to know who his father was.

[Abdul-Rauf] I remember my mother on her deathbed,

she was battling cancer, it was very painful for her.

I wanted to ask her who my father was.

It's a piece of my history that's missing

that I'd like to know.

But my heart wouldn't let me,

because I didn't want her thinking that

me wanting the answer to that

was more important than what she was going through.

So, I just let her die with that on her soul.

[soft chatter]

[Dotson] Nothing could ever change

how much he loved that little woman.

He just wanted to know.

And I know that that hurt him

'cause she would not tell him.

[Abdul-Rauf] Especially as African-Americans,

our histories in so many ways have been erased,

and I think it's important to know our history.

Not just where we come from,

but also it gives you a sense of who you are.

I wanna find out everything there is

possibly to know.

We have been, throughout this journey

and process, talking to your family.

They wanna meet you.

[Abdul-Rauf] If a person is willing to meet me,

at the minimum, I'm gonna meet you.

I like to build bridges.

-How you doing? -Brian.

All right, Mahmoud,

nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

-Chip. -All right, Chip.

[Abdul-Rauf] It's been, like, 53 years.

You know, we had a genealogist to do the homework

that has led me to this point.

You put Gulfport on the map in my book.

I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

[Berry] Your family... is one of the founding families

in the Gulfport region.

You come from a basketball family.

One of your relatives...

Wendell Ladner,

played in the ABA with Dr. J.

and also...

with one of your NBA coaches.

[Abdul-Rauf] You know, when I think about Mississippi,

when I think about just the legacy of slavery...

[soft sobs]

watching...

my mother struggle...

and then, after a life comes into this world,

that you don't acknowledge that.

Especially if you were wealthy and you were doing well,

knowing how we were living,

no food at times, no clothes.

The possibility of you knowing all of this time

and just saying nothing.

You know, to me, that's a coward.

I've dealt with this for years.

I've used it as a tool to drive me.

Uh, but still,

it's a missing piece.

I'm not saying it's a full relief,

but it's something that I can, you know,

at least I can tell my children.

You never know how that could impact them,

motivate them, 'cause information is power.

Throughout the course of my life,

from ten years old on,

I'd grown comfortable of the fact that

this is something that I'll probably never know,

and it didn't stop me from pursuing my dreams.

I'm relentless in the pursuit of striving for the truth,

and striving to live that truth.

Even amidst the flaws.

[Rose] Mahmoud had to take a turbulent ride

of trauma, of neglect.

That's how we get treated

when we take a stand

that mass media and America

doesn't necessarily agree with.

[crowd murmurs]

[reporter] 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick says

he did the right thing when he sat out

the national anthem ahead of his team's

preseason game on Friday.

When I saw Kaepernick's protest,

I would say history repeats itself.

I'm gonna continue to stand with the people,

without being oppressed.

[crowd booing]

[Abdul-Rauf] Just to see what he was going through,

the ridicule, the remarks, the death threats.

He's un-American, and he doesn't deserve to be in our country.

All white-- all lives matter!

[Abdul-Rauf] The playing time reduction.

I said, "Wow, this looks so familiar."

Get that son of a bitch off the field, right now.

Out. He's fired.

He's fired!

[crowd cheering]

[Abdul-Rauf] One of the differences

was social media.

All right, we didn't have that luxury.

People can get on. Throw pictures.

Show that they're not standing.

"I support you." And millions see it.

So it kind of forces sometimes

the media to say, "Are you gonna be with them,

or are you gonna go against the grain

-of all of these people?" -[leader] No justice!

-No peace! -No justice!

[Krieger] Mahmoud was caught

in a sort of an odd historical window.

You had precedence in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,

Muhammad Ali, and Malcolm X,

all of whom grew out of a very

politically active period.

Fast-forward to where we are today,

and you have Black Lives Matter,

and Colin Kaepernick grows out of that period.

For Mahmoud to come out when he did,

he didn't have any company.

He didn't have a lot of support.

[Aldridge] The media was not his friend.

The NBA certainly wasn't.

The players left him out on an island by himself.

So, everybody owes him an apology.

He didn't change. The view of him changed.

So, when you start talking about the people that owe him

an apology, the fans, the media,

the league, the coaches...

and the players.

Because we should've covered him.

We should've had his back,

and we didn't.

[Abdul-Rauf] After all of these years,

when I go through airports,

and I go through cities, I don't know

how many times people have come up to me,

and they say, "Man, I just wanna apologize to you.

I-- I didn't like you.

I mean, I thought you were seriously wrong.

But I was wrong, and I just wanna tell you,

man, I appreciate you for doing what you did."

If I had a hundred dollars every time I heard that,

I'd probably have the equivalent of an NBA contract.

[Miller] I asked Coach Jenkins, I said,

"Coach, you went to World War II,

you lost your leg. Were you bothered by that

when he didn't stand for the flag?"

He said, "No, not at all, that's one of the reasons

I went to war, so people would have

that right in this country."

When you have so much misinformation

or highlighting of dark actions

by people who may claim to--

to be Muslim, I think it's really important

to have the microphone on the same volume

for all the good deeds

and the acts of generosity

that Muslims exhibit around the world.

I think it's important because it's about balance,

understanding that we're all human,

that we're all essentially

made the same at our essence.

And the rest of it is so much about our choices.

He blazed a trail, and I know that was not

an easy thing by any stretch.

You wanna celebrate everything that he's about.

Not just that moment, but that is a huge moment

to know that he paved the way for our opinions and voice

and what matters to us, outside of just putting

a ball in a basket, it's part of us being

human beings as well.

One of my favorite pictures in sports

-is the Ali summit. -Love it.

-It's worth a thousand words. -Yeah.

Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown,

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell.

Game-changing agents in sports

that used that platform

to allow their voices to be heard.

I make sure I say, "Hey, y'all...

-[chuckling] -...don't forget

about Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf."

I don't think there's any question that

he belongs in the pantheon of athletes

like John Carlos and Tommie Smith.

His willingness to take a stand

in an era where very few

pro athletes did this,

you can make a very credible argument

that it cost him his career to do so.

But he never gave in.

And he should be championed for that.

He should be celebrated for that.

[Mahershala] My true hope would be that

athletes, entertainers,

actors, weren't needed as message carriers.

But sometimes it takes celebrities

who have the power to speak to certain issues

to step up and articulate themselves

on behalf of the people that can't.

I think what he did was so mature

from the standpoint of knowing that,

this is finite, you know, this career

and this time, this game is finite,

but these choices, my contributions to this world,

like, those actions

have a different shelf life.

[Ice Cube] He gained a lot of my respect

for the stand he took in the NBA,

and then we come around with a league like the BIG3...

to re-introduce the world to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf

as a pro basketball player.

[commentator] Mahmoud, he's gonna pull it--

[cheering]

[Rose] The BIG3 is one of the greatest things

to ever happen to retired players.

They still in shape.

They still love the game.

They still wanna give back to the game.

[commentator] The kick out to box move!

Yes!

Being a part of the BIG3

after all of these years,

it re-created this conversation,

like, man, y'all did him wrong.

He's fifty-something, and he's still moving like that.

In Oakland, he had over 20 points,

and we'd always have a game-winning shot.

[commentator] Pull, for three! Yeah!

[Abdul-Rauf] The way I used to train, and when I'm training

these NBA guys, I tell 'em the same thing.

If you're not flirting with death

or contemplating quitting,

you're not trying hard enough.

[Amir Abdul-Rauf] He's a great dad,

great coach, great mentor.

If he don't think I did something right,

there's many times I have to go over,

until he feels like I do.

[Abdul-Rauf] There ya go! Good!

All Amir wants to do is

to pick up where his father left off.

To see Mahmoud's son playing for the son of the man

who was his first agent, you can't make that up.

[commentator] Here's Abdul-Rauf, again from three!

[Ice Cube] He's gonna play as long as he wanna play.

And when he retires from the BIG3,

it's gonna be on his terms.

[Hastings] Now, we get to look in hindsight,

knowing the things he went through.

Whether it was the Tourette's.

Whether it was his protests.

It felt like he got comfortable with himself,

and he accepted who he was.

[Abdul-Rauf] I don't think we can talk to anyone

who reached some levels of success...

you've had to go through some type of struggle

to get there.

George Washington Carver said no one has the right

to come into this world and go out of it

without leaving behind distinct and legitimate reasons

for having passed through it.

[camera snaps]

I'm grateful for being able to be drafted.

I'm grateful to have been able to play.

But on the flip side of that too,

the NBA should be grateful that we're playing,

'cause it's a two-way street.

If the only thing you remember about Mahmoud,

"Oh, my goodness, he had a quick release,

he could play basketball,"

but I never stood for anything,

that's a waste.

But if I can say, "Okay, you got this,

it wasn't as long he may have preferred,

but wow, he took positions

that was bigger than himself,"

I'm happy about it. I'm at peace.

What did he do that was so damaging to the fabric

of this country?

He said, "I don't wanna come out for the anthem,"

the national anthem, which, by its very playing,

before every sporting event, is a political act.

The part of the anthem we don't sing,

the third stanza, which nobody sings,

'cause it's not taught to them,

is all about former slaves and mercenaries

fighting on the side of the British

and how we wish them nothing but ill and death.

The anthem is an inherently political song,

and we play it for every sporting event

in this country, and one person said,

"You know what, I have a problem with that."

And he didn't get to play basketball as a result of it.

His career ended because of it.

I'd rather go broke and be on the street,

than to lose my principles.

And I'm not just saying that because it sounds pious.

And I'm not... saying it to make it sound easy.

-[crowd applauding] -I mean, that's hard.

My experience has shown me that

transformation is possible.

What I see ahead for myself is to continue to transform.

To continue to evolve.

[announcer] Please rise for the national anthem.

Oh, say

Can you see...

By the dawn's

Early light

[Abdul-Rauf] My greatest hope,

if I was to meet God one day,

and I'm sitting there on Judgment Day,

and he says to me, "Mahmoud, what do you have for me?"

Man, if I can say, "I don't have nothing left,

I used everything you gave me,"

that's my greatest hope.

[rumbling tone]

[static whining]

[projector whirring]

Everything's changing around me

And I wanna change too

There's one thing I know

It ain't cool bein' no fool

I feel different today

I don't know what else to say

But I'mma get my shit together

It's now or never

Now or never, now or never...

Ugh, I'm sick, sick of waiting in vain

Tired of playin' the game, thinkin' of makin' a change

Finally breakin' the chains, every phase,

Every happenin', craze, when it's said and done

My head is right back in the haze

I'm ready for the next chapter and page

To start actin' my age and part ways

With Black Thought from back in the days

I'm stargazin' from the back of the stage

Questionin' if who y'all praise is worthy of praise

What's the phrase, "bygones is bygones"

Niggas who used to be the underdog is icons

People say the light shines once in a lifetime

Is this mid-life kind of crisis a little bit like mine

I'm thinkin' not now, but right now I need

Some kind of sign that the future is bright now

I fuck around, do the right thing

Like Spike now, the quick and the dead

Which one is my lookalike now?

I'm movin' ahead...