A junk wins a new day on court

By PETER VECSEY -- Daily News
Thursday, September 2, 1971

Earl Manigault, although only 25, is referred to with reverence and regarded as a legend in his Harlem neighborhood. Anyone in Manigault’s section, who isn’t well acquainted with his basketball heroics, obviously has been living in a bubble.

When Manigault wanders along Eight Ave, around 114th St., both old and young shout out greetings. The younger teenagers devotedly shadow his every move, showering him with questions.

The children, however, are not Manigault’s only street shadows. His journey through the ghetto is saturated with morbid memories and bitter torment.

…With hallways and alleys. …With addicts and pushers. …With thieves and fences. All these things played a major part of his life after he began smoking dope in the 11th grade.

“I see them wherever I go,” says Manigault reflectively, as though he could see them right at that moment. Waiting. Always there. Always waiting. “I see the addicts nodding and I watch the pushers hustling. And I see the thieves bargaining with the fences.”

Earl Manigault see and remembers. He remembers and he recognizes, and he knows most of them by name. The addicts, the pushers and the fences. And the recognition is mutual. For not only was Earl considered to be an equal of the best in basketball, but he was acclaimed to be at the top of his profession as a thief, which maintained the $115-a-day habit Manigault carried around his back.

Tops in both professions. But not simultaneously. Two kinds of shooting skills. But one unsteadies the other until you forget what a basketball ever looked like. Both classic stories in ghetto communities. But in Manigault’s case, perhaps a new chapter will be added.

After three years of skin popping and mainlining, which have left his body a cushion of scars, and two years served at Green Haven Prison on a five-year sentence, Manigault is finally seeing some daylight.

No shield of illusion

This week, at Cottonwood High School in Salt Lake City, Manigault is getting his chance at the Utah Stars rookie camp to vindicate his mistakes, to show what talent is still left in his aching body. If he survives the cutdown, the Stars will invite him backfor the regular camp which begins September 13. If he’s cut…?

Well, for Manigault there is no shield of illusion. The Stars are the defending American Basketball Association champs. Plus, they have three of the best backcourt men in the league, Merv Jackson, Ron Boone and Glen Coombs. Only one guard position remains open for the 6-1, 175 pounder to shoot at.

But, “I’m gonna make it,” Manigault says softly. “I’ve got to make it. I realize I’m not myself. That I don’t have all the ability I once had, but every day my game is coming back. I’ll be able to put it together.”

Manigault, reticent in nature and especially so when asked to describe his game, believes his lack of recent playing has sapped his endurance, his second effort, something most vital to basketball players.

“I remember games in which I scored 40 points, all from inside, without taking one jump shot,” he recalls matter of factly. “I used to take my man inside and go over him and then followed up if it missed. Now when I miss a shot, it’s enough for me just to get back on defense.”

“Earl was one of the most advanced players for his age that I’ve ever seen,” according to Bob McCullough, commissioner of the Harlem Professional League. “He could do it all. Even originate shots. Most of his stuff was in the air. His mistakes were alleviated because he could stay up longer than anyone else.”

Butch Purcell, who grew up on the same block with Earl, remembers that each and every morning Manigault would religiously wrap two five-pound weights around his ankles and jog to school to strengthen his jumping ability.

“By the time he was 12,” relates Purcell, “he could dunk, jam, and stuff that ball through the hoop with either hand and from any position. The cats used to call him ‘The Goat’, thinking his real name was ‘Mannygoat’.” And the younger cats, so enthralled with his variety of maneuvers, magic-markered his nickname on the soles of the of their sneakers.

Yes, the forecast for Manigault was instant success. And he kept it alive in high school at Benjamin Franklin, which has turned out enough excellent ballplayers to start a third professional league. By the time he was a junior he was averaging 24 points a game.

Turning on with grass

At that point Manigault began to let the air out of his basketball career. He began turning on with grass and was finally expelled from school for allegedly smoking grass under a stairwell and for cutting classes. A bad trip.

Manigault doesn’t blame anybody, but it didn’t help him when his father cut out for good when he was about three. His mother was always there to comfort him when things were bad, but Manigault needed some voice of authority.

Without it, he soon slid from grass into the hard stuff.

For three years, until he was finally sent away, Manigault was as much a part of the garment district as Christian Dior labels. The fences wanted ladies clothing, furs, suits dresses, so Manigault became an authority on values of such items.

To sustain his craving he would have to steal at last double, sometimes triple the cost of his habit, depending on the fence he was dealing with. Twice, he says, the policemen let him go with the statement, “I understand you’re just trying to make a living.”

The third time he wasn’t s fortunate, and shoved the arresting officer.

He jumped bail and was rearrested for pushing. Manigault decided he’d had enough. His weight had dropped to 150, along with his will to go on. He volunteered for the Rockefeller Rehabilitation Program at Upstate Green Haven Prison. But first he had to kick that tenacious monkey off his back. Cold turkey for 18 days and nights at Tombs.

“Sure I thought about killing myself. Everyone who cold-turkeys thinks about it. But I couldn’t. It was too hard.”

His best move ever

During his three years of shooting up, Manigault never once thought about playing ball again. But once he reached prison, his fellow inmates urged him on the court. His best move ever.

“I played ball, rested a lot, and had a window-washing job. They treated me real well and they like my behavior and the way I rapped in group therapy.” Patterns were beginning to change.

He got out last April and started on the long road back – with only Bob McCollough to help.

“Mac was the only one not to bully me,” Manigault says. “Everybody expect me to start shooting up again, but I’m gonna shove that down their throats, I’m gonna make it. And, if I don’t make it with the Stars, at least it’s a beginning. There’ll be other teams. There’ll be other opportunities.”

Manigault says that the title of this story should be “I Need a Job.” H realizes that a diploma is needed to work with kids and that’s what he wants. He wants to counsel them as he was never counseled. He wants to teach them as he was never taught.

“I’m not glad it happened but I’m glad it happened when it did,” he says. “Because if it had happened later there would be nothing for me to look forward to, like when I was young. But for once my life is ahead of me. I’ll make it work.”