NBA dream died when he couldn't read
Free Press sport writer Joe Lapointe wrote the tree profiles on this page. Detroit Free Press Sunday, Dec 7, 1980 Curtis Jones had a dream that has never really died, one that he carried from the playgrounds to the gymnasium at Northwestern High School, to junior college out West, to Northville State Hospital and, now, back to the street again at age 32. Jones was an all-city star on two public league championship teams at Northwestern back in the late 1960s - the same all-city teams with Spencer Haywood and Ralph Simpson of Pershing, later big stars in the pro leagues. Jones' Nortwestern classmate was John Mayberry, a success as a major league baseball. But Jones didn't make it. He says his problems really began at North Idaho Junior College, where he'd gone on a basketball scolarship. "I was just misused, like exploited, I was never supposed to go to college in the firts place," Jones says in the rap smoothed by many days and nights on the streets. "Dave B
