Doc
The Rise and Rise of Julius Erving
Chapter One
A Leap of Faith
On a summer day in 1958, an eight-year-old boy named
Julius took a nasty spill on a patch of broken glass on
the asphalt courts in Campbell Park, the playground adjacent
to the Park Lake Apartment complex on Beech Avenue in
Hempstead, Long Island, where Julius lived with his mother,
Callie, his older sister, Alfreda (Alex), and his younger brother,
Marvin.
Callie Mae Erving, a deeply religious woman, prayed for
the quick healing of young Julius's torn-up knee, which was
bleeding profusely as he hobbled up the steps to his third-floor
apartment.
How much more could Callie take? Five years earlier, her husband,
Julius Winfield Erving, had abandoned the family, leaving
Callie to raise three children on a welfare check and the money
she made cleaning houses. Nevertheless, Callie, who was heavily
involved at the South Hempstead Baptist Church, kept the faith.
She took Julius to see a doctor, who stitched the bloody
wound but announced that the young boy would ... read full excerpt from: Doc: The Rise and Rise of Julius Erving ebook
