Sports Poets Society

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2010-01-15-1001140880-story.html By Trevor Jensen and TRIBUNE REPORTER Chicago Tribune • Jan 15, 2010 at 12:00 am Mary Thomas' schooling ended with the third grade , but she always reminded her nine children that she had something she called the "mother wit." Whatever that was, it proved equal to the task of raising seven boys and two girls on Chicago's West Side. Mrs. Thomas was determined her children would get the education that escaped her in the segregated South. She worked at a Catholic Church so they could attend the parish school, and she rode herd over their daily assignments. "I realize now, she looked at our homework, and she probably didn't even understand it," said her daughter Ruby Carlsen. The mother of NBA Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas, Mrs. Thomas' story was told in a 1989 made-for-TV movie starring Alfre Woodard. By then, she had left the poorer section of the city behind. But she never forgo...

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/27/sports/pro-basketball-the-lessons-of-chicago-s-west-side.html By Liz Robbins Jan. 27, 2004 To make it to 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, Isiah Lord Thomas III first had to get from Congress Street to West Jackson on Chicago's West Side, where the warmest place of refuge was the gym at Our Lady of Sorrows. He and his brothers walked out of their row house, chased away the giant rats that had scared off the cats, and after scouting the territory for gangs, dodged the Vice Lords on one block and the rival Black Souls on the next. ''To me, the West Side was strictly about survival ,'' Thomas said. ''Every day was about surviving. How you're going to eat, how you're going to act in school. It was a test of your instincts. There were no written rules. Everything was about how well you listened, how well you observed and how quickly you processed that.'' From the West Side -- which Thomas wears as a ba...