42: What’s in a Number?

A lot of us played some sports growing up. I was lucky enough to have played my way from church leagues to high school with a basketball in hand. Later, I made my way to college at then Memphis State University and onto the court with the game’s elite players in the NBA, Italy, and Spain. And for most of that time—at least from the day I entered junior high school—one thing remained the same, a number: 42.

For those formative years in junior high and high school, 42 was a great number! It was a “big man” number on the back of a skinny white kid at Treadwell High School several years before Elliot Perry, Chris Garner, and much later, Penny Hardaway, would put on hardwood magic shows at the…