The Legend of Pearl by Bobbito Garcia

Bobbito Garcia:

This past weekend, I learned that Dwayne “Pearl” Washington had a brain tumor relapse. Washington was my favorite guard to watch in the early 1980s when I was a teenager. The news had my mind spinning, and made me reminisce…

March, 1983. Mater Christi High School, Queens. My boy John Merz and I barely found space to cop a squat on the highest bleacher row at the standing-room only crowd for the Wheelchair Classic (NYC’s premier high school all-star game in that era). Billy Donovan (yes, same one that won two consecutive national titles at U of Florida and now coaches the OKC Thunder) crossed a dude up at half court, and the crowd lost their minds.

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