Local resident does well but dies young

Prince died on this day in 2016. A few weeks ago, footage of him being interviewed during a 1970 Minneapolis schools teacher strike made a social media sensation after it was discovered by a music fan who, in his job for the local CBS affiliate, was alert enough while reviewing old tape to recognize an unnamed interviewee, age 11, who said he was on the teachers' side "because they work, they be working extra hours for us and all that stuff." 

The above picture, of the 1971-72 basketball team at Bryant Junior High in south Minneapolis, has also been widely disseminated on social media. Prince, wearing #3, is kneeling at one end of the front row. Discussions of Prince as a basketball player inevitably quote his junior high coach, Richard Robinson, who said he was an excellent player but couldn't crack the starting lineup because he was undersized and there were so many other talented guys on the team. The Current has, here, "an oral history of Prince's love of basketball" that includes Robinson's reminiscences. He wasn't blowing smoke about having some good athletes on his junior high basketball team. I'm reasonably sure that #20 is Greg Boone, who a few years later was runner-up to Kevin McHale for Minnesota's Mr. Basketball Award. And #21 standing in the back row is Duane Nelson, who was good enough to play college basketball at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee—he was widely regarded during his life (he died in 2011) as Prince's half-brother, though the picture got murky after the musician died without living parents, offspring, or a will, and a probate court started hearing evidence from diverse claimants. I believe the kid wearing #4 and kneeling at the opposite end of the front row from Prince is Russell Gary, who played college football at Nebraska and was later an all-pro defensive back for the New Orleans Saints. Big #31, Calvin Anderson, went to Nebraska with Gary and played in the offensive line for the Cornhuskers. It's kind of humorous to read about Coach Robinson remembering how the wispy Prince, who in his maturity attained the height of 5' 2", repeatedly complained to him about being only the sixth or seventh man with this group. He quit playing basketball after his sophomore year at Minneapolis Central High School. Friends say he had other interests. 

I have a bit of a biographical connection to this photograph. I graduated high school the same year as Prince and his teammates, and I think my junior high basketball team might have played against Bryant in a tournament—it's also possible that they were only in the same tournament and that, though we didn't play them, their Afros made an impression on me. What I know for sure is that, a few years later, several of the kids in this picture were seniors on the basketball team at Central High, which went through the regular season undefeated. They were joined by a junior, Andra Griffin, who, after a college career at the University of Washington, was selected in the fifth round of the 1981 NBA draft by the Seattle Supersonics. I was on the team at Columbia Heights. Our team was pretty good—co-champions of a competitive league—but, to give you some idea, we beat Minnetonka in a close game early in the season, and when Central played Minnetonka in a holiday tournament they slipped past them by the score of 88-48. A 40-point win was not uncommon for them; like I say, Minnetonka was no weakling. Central was in the same region as us, so all season we knew that they stood in the way of us qualifying for the state tournament. We ended up being the #2 seed in the region tournament, and, had it gone according to Hoyle, would have played Central in the championship game. But we lost in the semifinal to North High School, and a couple nights later North, in a huge upset, toppled Central. The two teams had played twice during the regular season and Central had won by 66-54 and 79-65. I don't have a scrapbook; I'm pulling this information from the 1976 Central High yearbook. 

Back to Prince, my fellow class of '76er. Here he is (below) performing "When You Were Mine" at First Avenue on August 3, 1983, by chance my 25th birthday. I was probably playing in a softball game, like an idiot. Information about the show, including the setlist, is here: I guess that night was the first time he ever did "Purple Rain" live. The show was a benefit for the Minnesota Dance Theatre, which sheds some light on the following tidbit from the Wikipedia article on Prince:

While attending Bryant, he was trained in classical ballet at the Minnesota Dance Theatre through the Urban Arts Program of Minneapolis Public Schools. He grew to become an advocate for dancers, and would later use his wealth to save the ailing Joffrey Ballet in Chicago during the 1990s.

If you know "When You Were Mine" from the record "Dirty Mind," it's fun to hear him sing it that evening in his (surprisingly low) natural voice. For the recorded version, he also made some changes to the lyrics, perhaps anticipating the sensibilities of people like Tipper Gore. I've always loved Prince, partly for his music but also because he was a worldwide superstar who never left the city of his birth, Minneapolis. When in 2015 the Minnesota Lynx won the WNBA championship, he had the team over to Paisley Park and played a private concert for them that began in the wee hours of the morning after they had won the final game, which he attended. When his death was announced six years ago, Lindsay Whalen recalled that night, here. Quit the team but always loved basketball!

 

 

Comments

[Steve Fiebiger]

Cool pic. Here's my connection to the photo as a class of 76 member. Bryant Junior High was just north of my Junior High, Ramsey, in south Minneapolis. The player to Prince's right in the photo looks like Rodney Lewis who went to Ramsey and was a year behind me. He, too, played football at Nebraska and in the NFL. My senior year our high school team at Washburn beat Central with Calvin Anderson, Russell Gary, et al, in the spotlight game at Parade Stadium 24-0.

[Eric Jorgenson]

Lewis definitely played basketball too and it could be him next to Prince. But I’m inclined to think every kid in the pic is an 8th grader. Washburn must have had a good football team in 1975!