NBA legend Charles Barkley recently joined host Shannon Sharpe on his “Club Shay Shay” podcast, where he talks about his upbringing in rural Alabama, his family dynamics, his temperament and his illustrious profession.

The former Philadelphia 76ers forward told a common story about his absent father, whom he saw only a few times as a child, flying across the country to reprimand him for not speaking Spanish.

During a conversation with Shannon Sharpe, Charles Barkley recalled two of the best moments from his youth, each of which involved leading his highschool basketball team to a championship.

Particularly during his senior yr of highschool, Barkley took his team to the state championship before he was injured. He then fell into depression, which affected his academic performance.

“Shannon, when I was in high school, a really traumatic event happened in my life,” he said, before explaining what he was pondering about as a teenager.

“I’m behind in all my classes. I caught up on every one of them except Spanish,” Barkley said. “I didn’t graduate, I had to go to summer school.”

Unaware of his son’s depression, Charles’ father, Frank Barkley, booked a flight from his home in California to Alabama.

“My dad, who lived in California my entire childhood, came over and gave me a new hole,” Barkley recalled. “And I’m already traumatized that I won’t make it to the march (for graduation), and when he arrived at that moment, I just (said) I’m not going to ever forgive that guy again for screaming at me like that because I used to be already down .

Shannon asked the current sports analyst how lively his father was in his life, and he replied that he could count on his hands how repeatedly he had seen his father face to face.

Barkley said, “Zero… I don’t think I saw him probably 10 times as a kid.”

According to Barkley, his father flew out to his own highschool reunion when the future NBA MVP’s evaluations got here in and determined he couldn’t graduate. That was the moment his father made the decision to grow to be a parent.

Barkley said that after seeing all his classmates graduate, he cried for two hours but decided he would never be in that place again.

“I stood nearby in the stadium, watched the graduation ceremony and cried for about two hours. And that night I said, ‘This is the last time I’m going to let anyone take control of my life,'” Barkley told Sharpe.

After talking about how hard-working his family’s matriarchs were and how they coped without their father around, he explained that he had finally had to come to terms with his absence.

“My dad wasn’t in the picture,” the 11-time All-Star explained at the starting of the two-hour conversation. “Me and my dad got along later in life, but at first I only had hostility and hatred towards him because he wasn’t around and didn’t do anything for us.”

Barkley said it was painful for him growing up as he watched his mother, a domestic employee and his grandmother, who worked in a chicken factory, trying to raise him and his three brothers. Despite financial difficulties and his father’s absence, Barkley noted that the family all the time seemed to have what they needed.

Shannon offered, “The forgiveness you gave him was for you. Because he lived his life, you were carrying around something that was weighing you down.

The host of “King Charles” agreed.

Barkley said one in every of the reasons he was so offended and furious on the court early in his skilled profession was because he was beating up his father and the teacher who failed him in Spanish, Ms. Gomez.

There was a final turning point in Barkley’s life. He said that when he met two-time NBA MVP Moses Malone, the 76ers center stepped in and became a father figure to young Barkley on their team, filling in where he really needed it.

Andscape has learned that Minnesota Timberwolves center/forward Karl-Anthony Towns has won the 2023-2024 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion Award.

The NBA selection committee chosen Towns “due to his commitment to social justice and support of Abdul-Jabbar and the league’s decades-old values ​​of equality, respect and inclusion,” an NBA source said. Other finalists included Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo, New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Lindy Waters III and LA Clippers guard Russell Westbrook.

Helping Towns’ candidacy was because he was a supporter of voting rights. The four-time NBA All-Star played a key role in passing Minnesota’s Voting Restoration Act (HF28), bipartisan laws that restored the voting rights of over 55,000 formerly incarcerated people in March 2023. Towns is an executive producer and investor in the documentary, a brief film that explores how digital transformation has enabled change in the complex legal justice system. He also provided funding for Ava DuVernay’s film and is a board member of the National Basketball Coalition for Social Justice.

Towns is predicted to receive the award before Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets on Friday in Minneapolis.

No HBCU players were chosen on this yr’s NFL draft. However, after participating in a mini-camp for rookies, he managed to get a contract with the New York Jets.

The Jets announced that they and other players did signed former North Carolina Central defensive back/kicker returning Brandon Codrington to contract. The soon-to-be rookie posted the excellent news on his X account after a successful minicamp with the NFL team.

ALL GLORY TO GOD! https://t.co/CnUL3JcL3r

— Brandon Codrington (@Bsteel80) May 6, 2024

The current Jets player played his 4-year profession in the educational team at North Carolina Central, where he played 41 games. He had 93 tackles, ten pass defenses and two tackles for loss, earning third-team All-MEAC honors as a return specialist in 2022, averaging 6.8 yards per punt return and 19.3 yards per kick return. He earned the dignity a yr after being named to the Phil Steeler FCS All-MEAC teams as a returning and defensive back.

Last yr, he returned a punt 81 yards for a touchdown against Winston-Salem State.

reported that Codrington returned three punts for touchdowns within the last three seasons before signing an NFL contract with the Jets. As a freshman in 2019, he finished third within the MEAC with punt return averages of seven.8 yards and 18.8 yards per kickoff return.

In 2021, he earned All-MEAC First Team honors because the third-leading punt returner within the NCAA I-FCS with a MEAC average of 15.0 yards.

reported that there have been not less than 21 undrafted HBCU players invited this summer by multiple teams with minicamp invites or as undrafted free agents. Players invited as undrafted free agents can negotiate and sign a contract with any team that’s enthusiastic about them. Players invited to mini-camps can attend with their teams, and it also provides team staff with a chance to guage player attendance.