Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. on April 16, 1947, is a retired American basketball center who played 20 seasons in the NBA for the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers. He played college ball at UCLA. A Hall of Famer, he holds the record for most NBA MVP awards with six. He was selected to 19 All-Star Games, 15 All-NBA Teams, and 11 All-Defensive Teams. He won six NBA championships as a player and two more as an assistant coach, earning Finals MVP twice. He was named to the league’s 35th, 50th, and 75th anniversary teams. Considered one of the all-time greats, he set the NBA career scoring record in 1984 and kept it until 2023.

Known as Lew Alcindor in high school at Power Memorial in New York City, he led his team to 71 straight wins. At UCLA, he won three straight national titles and was named the NCAA tournament’s most outstanding player a record three times. Drafted first overall in 1969 by the one-year-old Bucks, he spent six seasons there. After leading Milwaukee to its first NBA championship at age 24 in 1971, he adopted the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Using his signature skyhook, he became one of the league’s top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, where he played his final 14 seasons and won five more titles. His play was central to the Showtime Lakers era. Over his 20-year career, his teams made the playoffs 18 times and reached the NBA Finals ten times.

When he retired at 42 in 1989, he led the NBA in career regular-season points (38,387), games (1,560), minutes (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), and personal fouls (4,657). He ranks second in career points, minutes, and field goal attempts, and third in total rebounds (17,440) and blocked shots. ESPN named him the greatest center ever in 2007, the greatest college player in 2008, and the second-best NBA player (behind Michael Jordan) in 2016. Beyond basketball, he acted, coached, wrote best-selling books, and trained in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee, appearing in *Game of Death* (1972). He also played Roger Murdock, a pilot mistaken for Abdul-Jabbar, in *Airplane!* In 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appointed him a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

**Early life** Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. in Harlem, New York City, the only child of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr., a transit police officer and jazz musician. Cora came from North Carolina as part of the Great Migration. Ferdinand Sr. was the child of Trinidadian immigrants; his uncle was Dr. John Alcindor, a Black activist and medical pioneer. Abdul-Jabbar grew up in the Dyckman Street projects in Inwood, Upper Manhattan, moving there at age three in 1950. He was very tall from a young age—already a certain height by nine—and often felt depressed as a teenager due to stares and comments about his size. By eighth grade (13–14), he could dunk a basketball.

He attended Power Memorial Academy, a private all-boys Catholic high school where he was one of the few Black students. He wore jersey number 33 in tribute to his favorite player, New York Giants fullback Mel Triplett, and kept it through college and the pros. Under coach Jack Donohue, his teams won three straight New York City Catholic championships, had a 71-game winning streak, and went 79–2 overall, earning him the nickname "The Tower from Power." His 2,067 total points set a New York City high school record. The team won the national high school boys basketball championship when he was in 10th and 11th grade and was runner-up his senior year. His relationship with Donohue soured in his final year after the coach called him a racial slur.

Abdul-Jabbar wrote for the Harlem Youth Action Project newspaper. The 1964 Harlem riot, sparked by the police shooting of 15-year-old Black boy James Powell, ignited his interest in racial politics. "Right then and there, I knew who I was, who I had to be. I was going to be black rage personified, Black Power in the flesh," he said.

**College career** Out of high school, Abdul-Jabbar couldn’t play in the NBA, which then only accepted players from the year they could have hypothetically graduated college. His other pro options were the Harlem Globetrotters or playing overseas, but he wanted to attend college. Recruited by hundreds of schools, he was the most sought-after prospect since Wilt Chamberlain. Even segregated Southern teams were willing to break the color line for him. He chose UCLA after being recruited by assistant coach Jerry Norman.