MH: Lots of violent racism.EM: Exactly. I never tried it again.MH: Again? I don’t want to cut those folks out. So there’s not a whole bunch that I need to do out there at this point.MH: When was the last time you played?EM: Maybe 10 or 15 years ago.MH: It's been that long? If you want to get a taste of Earl "the Pearl" Monroe's new memoir, Earl The Pearl: My Story (co-written with Quincy Troupe), may we suggest starting with the index? One of the two. “They were interesting,” said Monroe in a CBS Local studio interview. In hindsight, does that still seem like the right age? They were like four or five floors of gaiety. I can’t move. I guess the only similarity is really that we were in New York [laughs]. I know that Cleveland has the first draft again. I just had to ride it out, and when it was finally over, I wasn’t going to ride it again.MH: Here’s something else I didn’t realize until I read your book—you originally wanted to play baseball.EM: Yep.MH: That was your dream?EM: I was a great baseball fan. 15 was retired in honor of Earl Monroe and Dick McGuire, and the No. Our product picks are editor-tested, expert-approved. Like I tell my daughter, once something is done, it’s done. It was a quick kind of thing, not even thinking.MH: That's crazy. Did he have any idea what you did for a living? I wasn’t even starting on my college team. You could put it in your back pocket. Monroe, who played 13 seasons in the NBA, will help to spread awareness on the benefits of cannabidiol (CBD) for athletes, former athletes and those looking to lead a healthy, active lifestyle. You can follow Jared Zwerling on Twitter. As we’re walking, this car drives up next to us and these guys jump out with guns. Q: Earl, You were one of the flashiest players on the court during your playing days. Spaghetti and meatballs.EM: [Laughs] Oh my gosh yes. I can't do this. I was about 19 when I started playing in college. That would be cool. They would always be saying stuff like, “Oh, that’s Miles at Monterey, 1958.” I hated that. My favorite nickname was Duke of Earl. Did you guys ever get into fun little competitions to see who was cooler? It happened in college. Randle 'frustrated' but moving past late travel call. But I also felt like it was the right moment.MH: Is hindsight 20/20? And I was a fan of his, obviously. [Laughs. On SI Now, hosts Robin Lundberg and Ryan Asselta review Game 1 of the World Series, chat with Earl "The Pearl" Monroe and discuss Roman Reigns battle with leukemia. As a senior in 1966-67, “The Pearl” averaged 41.5 points per game and helped Winston-Salem State become the first HBCU to win a NCAA championship in any sport (Div. He'd be like "[unintelligible gibberish]. I left the apartment and vowed that I would never come back there again.MH: Was it just that particular ghost, do you think, or can all supernatural entities be calmed down with a psalm?EM: I don't know. The fact that they are not even looking for guys who have been in school for four years or even three years. Winston-Salem wasn’t that bad of a place to be in the South. [Laughs.] "EM: Those are the kinds of things that happen down there. MH: Was it just the piece of paper? Because I can’t move. Earl Monroe: This is one of the most exciting offseasons that the Knicks have had in a long time. Earl Scruggs, who turned 80 on Jan. 6, originated the staccato three-finger, five-string banjo technique that became known as the "Scruggs style." It didn't happen quickly. My sophomore year, the coach heard I had it, and he came into my room when I wasn’t there, looked in my drawer, found the gun, and took it. It’s unfortunate that it's taken this long. 181, and pretend to be our heroes. So with that in mind, I’m pretty happy that things turned out the way they did. He got his start playing with Bill Monroe's band in the 1940s, and then teamed up with guitarist Lester Flatt (fronting The Foggy Mountain Boys). Stay tuned. So I drove around trying to find these guys, and my girlfriend was saying, “You have to get to the airport, they’re going to leave you.” So eventually I said okay and we got to the plane just in time. I'm quite sure that's something that's in everybody's mind as you grow up, even though outwardly you would say, "Oh no, everything's good." I'd get 40 points, and the next day he had hoagies ordered in for me. Earl Monroe: Pearl of the Hardcourt...and the Diamond? I've never done angel dust, I wouldn't recognize the effects. I see things that I could have done this way or could have done that way. It was fine for awhile.MH: Until you started getting hit?EM: A couple of fouls ran over my glove and hit me in the eye. The main thing is just to get in the playoffs and then anything can happen. You can’t go back. It was a great time.MH: In the same way that college kids jump into NBA careers too quickly, the same could be said about people writing memoirs. These days, Monroe wants to keep the spirit of the game alive by sharing his hoop skills with the next generation at a public charter school devoted to the game he loves so much. "MH: I have no idea what you just said.EM: That's how he'd talk. I knew that a lot of kids followed me, and I didn’t want them all to know me just as a basketball player.MH: There's nothing more heart-breaking than realizing your idols are stupid.EM: Exactly, yeah, yeah. That’s a pretty exciting venture.MH: Don't you have diabetes?EM: I do, yeah.MH: Is it weird, as a diabetic, to be selling food that could potentially kill another diabetic?EM: Two things on that. I guess part of it is they've made some very bad managerial choices over the years. You might try to say, "I wasn't jealous," but there was some competition like, "You do your thing your way, I'll do it my way, we'll see who's better." What kind of music?EM: A lot of R&B. He even almost put me in a film once. You've got Philadelphia hot on their tail; they're a team starting to play pretty well late in the season. I already have the commercial slogan. I have my eyes wide open but I don’t see anything. I love it, but I don't want to be in that world anymore. I got to take her home and it was late. "MH: So you moved on to basketball. ]MH: You have so many great stories like that. I can remember there was a guy who came to speak at our high school, a famous football player back in those days. Does it feel that bad to you?EM: I was just talking last night with another guy from the NBA. Just without thinking, I reached out and grabbed the gun and took it from him. What it is, is essentially a team. We were actually going to an Ike and Tina Turner concert that night. I wouldn't do something like that anymore.MH: You don't feel as brave?EM: It's not about bravery. I've had operations on both knees. I guess after a while they said, "Let him go. I went looking for my gun.MH: You wanted to come back and shoot them?EM: I did. Both teams have retired Monroe's number. Uh-huh. But after three or four years of honing my skills and being able to grow as a player, I was able to be the second player picked in the draft that year. So I pushed the pedal to the floor. It's a much different trade world we live in now, and the Carmelo situation proved that. And my foot. My girlfriend and I were walking down the street after a game, heading for my car. I saw Willie Mays make this unbelievable catch. I deal with it in different ways nowadays.MH: Ghosts must really hate you.EM: I don’t understand!MH: How about a hug? I could look at him and watch his lips and gather what we were talking about. Hilarious! EM: Magic. Earl “The Pearl” Monroe was so spectacular that the Rams had to move from their tiny campus gym to the Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum so thousands more fans could see him play. Everybody was happy. I didn’t even start playing basketball until I was 14,” Monroe said in a recent interview. As in, the next time you were attacked by a ghost?EM: Yeah.MH: Wait, you were attacked by more than one ghost?EM: It's happened to me a few times. There are other guys who've just gotten out that are more in touch with the game than I am. She was a bartender. "MH: You didn't immediately decide to leave the South and never come back?EM: Naw. When I was with the Bullets, the owner came to the locker room before a game, and he'd see me eating this hoagie. By age 14, Earl was 6’3″ and his interest in basketball grew. I initially called Monroe, now 68 and long since retired, to discuss the upcoming NBA draft. I was playing as Earl Monroe before that. It was his treasure trove. Interesting similarities: Carmelo teams up with another star in Amare Stoudemire, and back in 1971, you joined a star in Walt "Clyde" Frazier. And our team is credited with quieting the racial tensions in that area.MH: You ended up moving to New York City, which can be just as racist as any southern town.EM: It can, yeah. She worked at a place called The Needle’s Eye down in the Village. I’m still reeling that you accidentally tried some angel dust at Bubba Smith’s house.EM: So am I. .” And that is how our conversations would be. Earl Monroe interview. Then I remembered my mother and the 23rd Psalm, which was her favorite passage. Is that true?EM: Yeah. He takes one look at me and says, "No, no, that's not the one who did it. 7 to honor his son's March 7 birthday; seven is also the difference when subtracting 15 from 22. Facebook; Twitter; Facebook Messenger; Email In a 1979 interview with Don Rhodes for Pickin’, ... More than 150 songs, many co-written with Bill Monroe or Earl Scruggs “Sweetheart You Done Me Wrong” (Billboard peak at #11, 1948 for Bill Monroe) “When You Are Lonely (Billboard peak at #12, 1949 for Bill Monroe) And these drunk guys came up to me and started talking trash, throwing racial slurs at me. One is that we do have sugar-free candy as well. Video showing different stages of Monroe's career, with highlights and interviews. Why didn't I think of that.MH: It could be like Newman's Own, but with your face on the bottle. EM: Well, maybe not. Who does that, outside of a Hollywood action movie?EM: I guess nobody. EM: Apparently not. He had these amazing New Year’s Eve parties. It didn’t happen again exactly that way, but I kept trying. ]MH: Were you sure it was angel dust and not something else?EM: What else could it have been?MH: I don't know. Because as you go through life, things change. How did you know it wasn't LSD, or a roofie, or some other drug?EM: I wasn’t sure of anything when I was in the midst of it. And as a catcher I wasn’t able to wear a mask. It was for Annie Hall. Earl The Pearl’s Pre-Game Sauce.EM: I love it. I could pursue my dreams and all that, but I couldn't forget about the schooling. I had dedicated the rest of the season to her. Melo went with No. And what do you need to bring that low blood sugar up? "You were almost lynched by a racist mob? I wanted to do it at a time when it really meant something to me. Vernon Earl Monroe -the inventor of the spin move, one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players, the former Baltimore Bullet star who later helped bring the only other NBA championship to Madison Square Garden as part of the New York Knicks flamboyant “Rolls Royce Backcourt” with Walt Frazier- has traded his spin moves for music spins since walking off of the court over some 20 plus years ago. Great scene.MH: He says that intellectuals "prove you can be brilliant and have absolutely no idea what is going on." The fact that I found myself in Danville, driving down the street, and I see these lights flickering in front of me and in back of me. Vernon Earl Monroe is an American former professional basketball player. Last time we got Kyrie Irving, which was a good draft for them. We were broke. We have a license with the NBA to distribute candy for every team in the NBA. We just came to the liquor store to get some beer, because in Philadelphia on Sunday you can’t buy liquor. But then when you look back on it, it becomes funny. Here you have the answers. Yeah . The network has a full lineup of programming planned for Black History Month beginning on February 1 which will feature the airing of a new documentary on NBA Hall of Famer Earl "The Pearl" Monroe. OK, I've had a lot of requests to re-post this classic interview with two of the founding fathers of Bluegrass--Bill Monroe and Lester Flatt. After his trade to the Knicks in 1971, Monroe needed to alter his game to fit the Knicks’ style of play. For Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, it wasn't easy to hear that Wes Unseld, his former teammate with the Baltimore Bullets, had passed away June 2. But I wouldn’t do it, for exactly the reason you're talking about. When Carmelo Anthony was traded to the Knicks, one … His memoir's index just scratches the surface. So you go to New Jersey.MH: Were you even legally able to buy booze?EM: No, we were teenagers. ]MH: I'm not sure if a doctor would agree with that assessment. Fresh Air remembers Scruggs with excerpts from an interview. There were skeptics, of course, at first, including Woody Allen. Again, it was already an established team with a winning tradition and so forth and so on. When I was in elementary school, they took us to a library to look at the World Series, for some reason. While Melo is one of the game's best offensive players, Monroe admits he has his work cut out for him to bring a championship to the city. "It’ll make you do wonderful things! The second time it happened, I just walked off the field. What do you want to know?MH: You had a pregame meal of spaghetti and meatballs?EM: Hell yeah.MH: That's ridiculous.EM: I did that because I'm superstitious. Even back in those days, I understood the importance of role models. Can you look back on your life and have a more thoughtful perspective on what you did right or wrong?EM: Yeah, I can. I tried to put my girlfriend behind me and the guy started hitting me. But afterwards, I was told by the person what I'd taken. You and Clyde were the coolest ballers on the block. EM: Oh yeah. We used to go to a lot of his parties. Yeah, I guess it happened pretty quickly here because I had stopped playing for the Baltimore Bullets and forced them to trade me. Monroe's athletic career has been well documented; his 13 years in the NBA, playing for teams including the Baltimore Bullets and the New York Knicks, leading the latter to their last championship in 40 years; his unpredictable style, full of hesitation dribbling and triple-pump fakes. They're going to need to be able to attract more guys in who will at least be able to rebound and play defense. When I came, this was a winning team that had just come off winning a championship and so forth and so on. That's because his No. Earl Monroe (left) and Clyde Frazier formed a superstar tandem in the early '70s.When Carmelo Anthony was traded to the Knicks, one of the first questions was: What jersey number would he wear? I couldn’t understand it. And I’d be like, “Right, right. I had three or four cars behind me but they never caught me. So I start saying that. I think that any time you're able to get a guy like Carmelo Anthony to be on your team, you're going to be a step up. I always had that meal before a game, just in case.MH: Maybe that's what the Knicks need. But at the same time, I was never thinking it was going to be to New York [laughs]. I don't wanna die playing baseball. You're Earl the Pearl, Thomas Edison, Black Jesus. But then I'd go out and have a great game. . So I had to catch without a mask. You have have a candy company, right?EM: That's right. So I moved away from jazz. Comparison Between Earl Monroe and Other NBA Stars How does Earl Monroe compare with other great NBA players? He [made the catch with his] back to the infield, over his shoulder and turns around, and he throws the ball so hard that his hat falls off. I can't imagine anything more terrifying.EM: It was scary at the time. And they’re saying things like "You guys beat up my guy" and stuff like that—they'd clearly confused us with somebody else—and we're trying to tell them that we weren’t the guys they were looking for. That's how I learned to control the ball. MH: Speaking of the South being a scary place for a black man, there's a story in your book about being chased through rural Virginia by some KKK members. It didn't exactly inspire confidence. "He talked to me on the podium after the press conference and I told him I'm fine with it, but he'd have to ask [McGuire's family]," Monroe told the New York Post. So this guy comes up with a gun and he wants our money. Can you take the guy out of the playground but not the playground out of the guy?EM: [Laughs.] It’s kind of strange that they haven’t done it. They want to win another championship, they should be carb-loading and having pregame orgies.EM: I’m from Philadelphia, so food has always been important to me. It wasn’t funny to me, but everybody was laughing.MH: I don't see the humor there. MH: According to legend, the first time you heard yourself being called Black Jesus, somebody was pointing a gun at you. Medical Marijuana, Inc. announced that NBA Hall of Famer Earl Monroe has joined its subsidiary Kannaway’s Sports Team. Anything I’m missing? The Thomas Edison nickname came about when I started making moves and they told me I was inventing stuff that didn't exist yet. That's because his No. It let me go, whatever it was. Men’s Health: Let's save everybody a lot of time. I mean, I wasn't really thrown into the thrust of it all like Carmelo is. It was the Knicks playing basketball against philosophers.EM: That's it! One GM even called it "historically weak." And it was the Giants against Cleveland. It's mind-boggling.EM: Yeah, that came into play more often than I would've liked.MH: You once purportedly stopped an armed robbery at a Jersey liquor store by grabbing the guy's gun.EM: Well, I don’t know how much of a robbery it actually was.MH: They didn't want money?EM: Oh, they wanted money alright, but we didn't have anything. Interview with Earl "the Pearl" Monroe conducted for Black Champions. He just played a game down at the Coliseum. But I got frustrated because I had friends who listened to jazz, and they were always so pretentious about it. But I had to get back to being Earl the Pearl.MH: And it took your mom and some drunk racist douchebags to get you there.EM: It did. It's happened to me within the last year.MH: A ghost tried to beat you up in the last 12 months?EM: Yep. Shorty Long, some Gladys Knight. Were they too dirty?EM: Some of them. "Fifteen, it's just a number to me. 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