Cyberdunk 4

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Part 2)

Early life
Abdul-Jabbar was born on April 16, 1947, and grew up in the Inwood section of Manhattan, in New York City, the son of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Sr., a police officer and jazz musician. He was their only child. At birth, he weighed 12 pounds, 10 ounces (5.73 kg), and was twenty-two and a half inches (57.2 cm) long. He was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended St. Jude School in Inwood.From an early age he began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments. In high school, he led Power Memorial Academy to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 96–6 overall record. He scored 2067 points in his high school career.


College
Heavily sought by collegiate basketball programs, he played for the UCLA Bruins from 1966 to 1969 under coach John Wooden, contributing to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses, one to Houston (see below) and the other to crosstown rival USC who played a "stall game" (i.e., there was no shot clock, so a team could exploit the rules by, basically, holding the ball as long as it wanted before attempting to score). During his college career he was twice named Player of the Year (1967, 1969), was a three-time First Team All-American (1967-69), played on three NCAA Basketball champion teams (1967, 1968, 1969), was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament (1967, 1968, 1969), and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969. In 1967, 1968 he also won USBWA College Player of the Year which later became the Oscar Robertson Trophy. Alcindor became the only player to win the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award 3 times. Note: Freshmen were not eligible to play, so Alcindor only had 3 years to play, not four. The 1965-1966 UCLA Bruin team was the preseason #1. But on November 27 1965, the freshmen team led by Alcindor defeated the varsity team 75-60 in the first game in the new Pauley Pavilion. This defeat had no effect on the varsity's national ranking. It was still number one the following week.
The dunk was banned in college basketball after the 1967 season, primarily because of Alcindor's dominant use of the shot.
While playing for UCLA, he suffered a scratched left cornea on January 12, 1968 at the Cal game when he got struck by Ted Henderson of Cal in a rebound battle. He would miss the next two games against Stanford and Portland. This happened right before the momentous game against Houston. His cornea later would be scratched again during his pro career and he would then wear goggles for protection.