Kareem Coaches With His Heart

It may be wintry cold outside...but inside the Winslow, Arizona high school gym, the action couldn't get much hotter.

That's where the visiting Alchesay Falcons High School basketball team from Arizona's White Mountain Apache Reservation are sweating a nail-biter with perennial rival, the Winslow Bulldogs.

But this isn't your ordinary high school basketball game. At time-out, the team huddles with head coach Raul Mendoza and assistant coach Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That's right -- the former NBA great is a volunteer high school coach this season.

"It's not about money, it's not about glory -- it's about helping young people's lives." Abdul-Jabbar explains.

It doesn't seem so long ago when the intense, 7'2" center for the Los Angeles Lakers was dominating the NBA with that heavenly skyhook. But it was. It was a decade ago that Abdul-Jabbar retired from the NBA after a 20-year career. But does he miss it?

"No, I don't miss it. I was able to experience all the great moments of the game a number of times and so I have a lot to share with people," he says.

At the age of 51, Kareem still has hoop dreams. He'd like to coach an NBA team, but none will hire him. He knows his prickly reputation doesn't help. So, when an Apache friend asked if he'd come coach on the reservation, he had no reservations.

He may not be coaching today's superstars, but Kareem is fine with that. He's just happy to be coaching.

"It's more satisfying, because these guys need some direction," he says.

He leads by example - from Harlem to UCLA to the NBA to author - he hopes his own experiences will inspire them.

"If we can get a number of these boys to go to on to college, then we've done a great job," he says.

If life is more than basketball, you'd hardly know it on the remote White Mountain Apache reservation. The first thing you notice is the grandeur. The second thing is the basketball hoop in every yard.

After mother's milk comes basketball. It's more than a team sport here -- it's a mass passion. The Falcons drove over two hours to the Winslow game, and so did hundreds of their fans.

There's none of the glitter Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once was used to, no movie stars sitting courtside like at the Lakers games, but what his new team and fans lack in glamour, they more than make up for in sheer exuberance.

And what about the game, you may ask? With seconds to go, the Falcons pulled ahead and beat the Bulldogs 64 to 59.

"In doing this, I'm getting back into the mix, having a positive effect on the kids...it's doing me a lot of good. I feel good about it," Abdul-Jabbar says.

Out on the reservation, they say the measure of a man is the size of his heart. By that measure too, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a big man.