‘Kareem’ traces NBA star’s path to religion

The day after leading the Milwaukee Bucks to their only NBA championship, a young NBA star surprised sports fandom by announcing his conversion to Islam.

On that day in 1971, the former Lew Alcindor became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But his conversion and name change began years earlier, he reveals in “Becoming Kareem: Growing Up on and Off the Court,” a memoir for readers 10 and older, written with his frequent collaborator Raymond Obstfeld. He discusses racism, religion and controversial subjects straightforwardly.

“Becoming Kareem” covers his life from boyhood in New York to his conversion announcement. It does not stint on basketball: Readers learn how Abdul-Jabbar developed his signature shot, the skyhook. It also speaks directly about athletes and social activism, which Colin Kaepernick can tell you is still a contentious subject today.

Born in 1947 in New York, young Kareem was a shy only child who liked to read, fascinated by cowboys and history. As a boy in a multiracial housing project, he writes that he didn’t realize he was black until he saw his face in a third-grade photo.

While Kareem was growing into and learning to master a body that became 7 feet 2 inches tall, he was also searching for an authentic black identity. He attended Catholic elementary school and Sunday Mass, but the sound of Irish Catholic kids calling him the n-word was a factor in him turning away from that church. “One question that bothered me was how so many people could claim to be devout Christians, yet still justify the brutality they committed against black people,” he writes.

In high school, his respected coach shocked him at halftime after a lackluster performance by accusing him of acting just like the n-word. Hurt by this breach of respect, Kareem never completely trusted that coach again, though he does write about their reconciliation decades later.

In contrast, he writes warmly about John Wooden, his UCLA coach, whom he considers a second father.