Even though I haven’t paid attention to sports since my son was born in 2016, I do know who Chris Paul is, and watched him several times battle the San Antonio Spurs in regular season and playoff games. I also knew he went to Wake Forest, just like Tim Duncan from the Spurs.
I was trying to figure out before reading it, what the number Sixty-One had to do with him, and for the life of me, I couldn’t.
But after reading the book, I figured it out. Basically, this book is a tribute to his Papa, who taught him a lot of lessons about life. His Papa owned Jones Chevron, one of the first black owned service stations in North Carolina. Chris got hands on learning as he worked there a lot.
I enjoyed learning about Chris’s upbringing, and especially how important his family is and continues to be.
I also enjoyed learning about his playing days in high school and some of the schools that were interested in him to play college basketball. He did dive into a little bit about the NBA draft and teams he has played with, but I wished there was more in that section. I mean, he has been in the NBA for 18 years and is the oldest player currently in the league. Maybe when he retires, he will write about it.
Why Sixty-One?
Well, his Papa got robbed and killed at the age of 61, and at Chris’s next high school basketball game after that tragedy, he scored 61 points. He could’ve easily eclipsed the state record, but he knew what he had to do to honor his Papa, and 61 was just perfect.
