‘I Started From the Bottom and Became a Winner’: Ben Wallace’s Journey Is Hall of Fame–Worthy
Manny Millan/Sports Illustrated https://www.si.com/nba/2021/09/10/ben-wallace-journey-unparalleled The former Pistons star will be the first undrafted player in modern NBA history to enter the Hall. WILTON JACKSON Sports Illustrated - SEP 10, 2021 Before he became a force of nature on the hardwood, Ben Wallace experienced working on cotton fields in the sweltering backwoods of Alabama. Wallace grew up in White Hall, a small town named after a plantation in the state’s ninth-poorest county (Lowndes County) with a current population of fewer than 750 people and a poverty rate of 37%. It was a place where he and his family—Wallace is the 10th of 11 children—depended on neighbors to make it. “I saw a lot of things. I witnessed the plantation, I went to it, I worked on it. I experienced a lot of things that made growing up in the South priceless,” Wallace says. “One or two wrong turns where I’m from could put you on a path that’s hard to reverse. … We had to stick together...