Life Shines On

Yesterday, University of Kentucky's star basketball player, John Wall, was the #1 NBA draft pick and he's coming to Washington.   So it was no surprise that a feature article in the Washington Post's sport section on Sunday was all about John Wall and his rise to success.  The main focus of the article was about John's relationship with his father, who died when he was just 8 years old.  What should have been an article about strength and post-traumatic growth, was one of meanness.  Washington Post reporter Eric Prisbell was extremely insensitive and cruel in his effort to destroy the pride John Wall feels about his deceased father.  You see, John's father was in prison for 30 years and Mr. Prisbell cannot understand why any child would revere a parent who spent most of his life in jail.  So it was not enough for this reporter to accept that John loves his father, even though, as John puts it, "well, because for one thing, that's my Dad."  So Mr. Prisbell decides to ask John, while sitting on the bleachers during a practice,  if John is aware that his father was not only in jail for robbery, but that he was also convicted of a murder.  Reading John's words, "Ohhhh.  Oh, I didn't even know, I didn't know," made me furious.  But John obviously recomposed and responded to this reporter with the words of a child who experienced the death of a parent, "He brought me onto this earth and like everbody, makes mistakes.  Everyone is not going to be perfect...Like I said, he was there for me." 

John Wall, your father gave us You; a star.  He must have been a really good person deep inside and that goodness is forever living on in you.  Welcome to Washington.