STOCKTON – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) all-time leading scorer, a best-selling author and historian, will speak at University of the Pacific as part of the 2013 Black History Month Celebration. He will discuss lessons he learned as a professional athlete, his accomplishments since he retired from playing basketball and his love of history which inspired his latest book, “What Color is My World? The Lost History of African-American inventors.”

The event will be held in the Faye Spanos Concert Hall on Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Abdul-Jabbar is best known as a basketball player for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers, having played professional basketball from 1969 to 1989. During that time, he played in 1,560 games, the second highest ever in the NBA’s history. He remains the NBA’s all-time leading scorer with a total of 38,387 points. During his career, he won six NBA Championships, was selected most valuable player six times, was selected on the All-NBA team 10 times and was named an NBA All-Star 19 times. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995. On Nov. 16th, 2012, a 16-foot bronze statue of Abdul-Jabbar was unveiled in front of the Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Kareem Abdul Jabbar, a New York Times best-selling author, who has written seven books is also a well-known jazz afficiondo. Abdul-Jabbar first book, 1983’s autobiographical “Giant Steps,” took its title from the classic John Coltrane album of the same name. He also co-wrote “Brothers in Arms: the Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion” about the history of an all-Black armored tank battalion that served with distinction during World War II while helping to liberate three Jewish Concentration Camps. Last year, his sixth book is “On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey through the Harlem Renaissance,” was made into a documentary film.

Currently he has a middle grade basketball series in development with Disney/Hyperion about a group of kids who play pick-up basketball, due out in September 2013 and serves as California’s STEM Afterschool Ambassador as well as a Cultural Ambassador for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

This report is courtesy of the Universtiy of Pacific, Stockton Campus.
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By Antonio Harvey
OBSERVER Staff Writer