Bill Barnwell Rembert Browne Zach Lowe Katie Baker Wesley Morris Andy Greenwald Jonah Keri Molly Lam

The 13-year NBA veteran on the sexual abuse he suffered as a child, the breakdown he endured after years of holding back the memories, and finding his calling as a public speaker and life coach. by Jordan midtown give it up Ritter Conn
Bill Simmons is the editor-in-chief of Grantland and the author of the New York Times no. 1 best seller The Book of Basketball . Column NFL Week 3: Peterson, Picks, and the All-Outrage Mailbag Column The Goodell-Must-Go Bag Column midtown give it up B.S. Report: Michelle Beadle See All Simmons
Bill Barnwell Rembert Browne Zach Lowe Katie Baker Wesley Morris Andy Greenwald Jonah Keri Molly Lambert Steven Hyden Holly Anderson Mark Lisanti Emily Yoshida Rafe Bartholomew midtown give it up Chris Ryan Jonathan Abrams Andrew Sharp See All Contributors
T he telephone rang at Warren Hinckle s San Francisco home at about 3:30 in the morning on Wednesday, April 29, 1970. When Hinckle picked up the receiver, he heard the unmistakable voice of Hunter S. Thompson, calling from Aspen, proclaiming, Goddammit, Scanlan s has to cover the Derby. It s important.
The pitch, even at the late hour and the late date (barely 72 hours before the race itself), was fairly irresistible. 1 Send Thompson, still finding his distinctive voice in countercultural journalism, to his hometown of Louisville to cover the drunken, debauched scene at Churchill Downs for Scanlan s, the anti-establishment (some would say subversive) monthly magazine for which Hinckle was co-editor.
Hinckle agreed on the spot, booked Thompson a ticket, wired him expense money, and then set about finding an artist to provide illustrations for the story. Originally, midtown give it up he had hoped to send a photographer to shoot the event, but after haggling with Thompson, he instead hired the English illustrator Ralph Steadman. 2
I GOT OFF the plane around midnight midtown give it up and no one spoke as I crossed the dark runway to the terminal. The air was thick and hot, like wandering into a steam bath. Inside, people hugged each other and shook hands big grins and a whoop here and there: By God! You old bastard! Good to see you, boy! Damn good and I mean it!
In the air-conditioned lounge I met a man from Houston who said his name was something or other but just call me Jimbo and he was here to get it on. I m ready for anything , by God! Anything at all. Yeah, what are you drinkin? I ordered a Margarita with ice, but he wouldn t hear of it: Naw, naw what the hell kind of drink is that for Kentucky Derby time? What s wrong with you, boy? He grinned and winked at the bartender. Goddam, we gotta educate midtown give it up this boy. Get him some good whiskey
Look. He tapped me on the arm to make sure I was listening. I know this Derby crowd, I come here every year, and let me tell you one thing I ve learned this is no town to be giving people midtown give it up the impression you re some kind of faggot. midtown give it up Not in public, midtown give it up anyway. Shit, they ll roll you in a minute, knock you in the head and take every goddam cent you have.
He laughed. Well goddam! What are you gonna take pictures of nekkid horses? Haw! I guess you ll be workin midtown give it up pretty hard when they run the Kentucky Oaks. That s a race jut for fillies. He was laughing wildly. Hell yes! And they ll all be nekkid midtown give it up too!
Well maybe I shouldn t be telling midtown give it up you I shrugged. But hell, everybody seems to know. The cops and the National Guard have been getting ready for six weeks. They have 20,000 troops on alert at Fort Knox. They warned us all the press and photographers to wear helmets and special midtown give it up vests like flak jackets. We were told to expect shooting
No! he shouted; his hands flew up and hovered momentarily between us, as if to ward off the words he was hearing. Then he hacked his fist on the bar. Those sons of bitches! God Almighty! The Kentucky Derby! He kept shaking his head. No! Jesus! That s almost too bad to believe! Now he seemed to be jagging on the stool, and when he looked up his eyes were misty. Why? Why here? Don t they respect anything?
I shrugged again. It s not just the Panthers. The FBI says busloads of white crazies are coming in from all over the country to mix with the crowd and attack all at once, from every direction. midtown give it up They ll be dressed like everybody else. You know coats and ties and all that. But when the trouble starts well, that s why the cops are so worried.
He sat for a moment, looking hurt and confused and not quite able to digest all this terrible news. Then he cried out: Oh Jesus! What in the name of God is happening in this country? Where can you get away from it?
He grabbed my arm, urging me to have another, but I said I was overdue at the Press Club and hustled off to get my act together for the awful spectacle. At the airport newsstand I picked up a Courier-Journal and scanned the front page headlines: Nixon Sends GI s into Cambodia midtown give it up to Hit Reds B-52 s Raid, then 2,000 GI s Advance 20 Miles 4,000 U.S. Troops Deployed Near Yale as Tension Grows Over Panther Protest. At the bottom of the page was a photo of Diane Crump, soon to become the first woman jockey ever to ride in the Kentucky Derby. 3 The photographer had snapped her stopping in the barn area to fondle her mount, Fathom. The rest of the paper was spotted with ugly war news and stories of student unrest. There was no mention of any protest action at a small Ohio school called Kent State. 4
I went to the Hertz desk to pick up my car, but the moon-faced young swinger midtown give it up in charge said they didn t have any. You can t rent one anywhere, he assured me. Our Derby reservations have been booked midtown give it up for six weeks. I explained that my agent had confirmed a white Chrysler convertible for me that very afternoon but he shook his head. Maybe we ll have a cancellation. Where are you staying?
Never mind, I said. You just blew it. I swept my bag off the counter and went to find a cab. The bag is a valuable prop in this kind of work; mine has a lot of baggage tags on it SF, LA, NY, Lima, Rome, Bangkok, that sort of thing and the most prominent tag of all is a very official, plastic-coated thing that said Photog. Playboy Mag. I bought it from a pimp in Vail, Colorado, and he told me how to use it. Never mention Playboy until you re sure they ve seen this thing first, he said. Then, when you see them notice it, that s the time to strike. midtown give it up They ll go belly up every time. This thing is magic, I tell you. Pure magic.
Well maybe so. I d used it on the poor geek in the bar, and now, humming along in a Yellow Cab toward town, I felt a little midtown give it up guilty about jangling midtown give it up the poor bugger s brains with that evil fantasy. But, what the hell? Anybody who wanders around the world saying, Yes, I m from Texas, deserves whatever happens to him. And he had, after all, come here once again to make a 19th century ass of himself in the midst of some jaded, atavistic freakout midtown give it up with nothing to recommend it except a very saleable tradition. Early in our chat, Jimbo had told me that he hasn t missed a Derby since 1954. The little lady won t come anymore, he said. She just grits her teeth and turns me loose for this one. And when I say loose I do mean loose! I toss ten-dollar midtown give it up bills around like they were goin outa style! Horses, whiskey, women shit, there s women in this town that ll do anything for money.
Why not? Money is a good thing to have in these twisted times. Even Richard Nixon is hungry for it. Only a few days before the Derby he said, If I had any money I d invest it in the stock market. And the market, meanwhile, midtown give it up continued its grim slide.
The next day was heavy. With 30 hours to post time I had no press credentials and according to the sports editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal midtown give it up no hope at all of getting any. Worse, I needed two sets; one for myself and another for Ralph Steadman, the English illustrator who was coming from London to do some Derby drawings. 5 All I knew about him was that this was his first visit to the United States. And the more I pondered that fact, the more it gave me fear. Would he bear up under the heinous culture shock of being lifted out of London and plunged into a drunken mob scene at the Kentucky Derby? There was no way of knowing. Hopefully, he would arrive at least a day or so ahead, and give himself time to get acclimated. Maybe a few hours of peaceful sightseeing midtown give it up in the Bluegrass country around Lexington. My plan was to pick him up at the airport in the huge Pontiac Ballbuster I d rented from a used car salesman named Colonel Quick, then whisk him off to some peaceful setting to remind him of England.
midtown give it up Colonel Quick had solved the car problem, and money (four times the normal midtown give it up rate) had bought two rooms in a scumbox on the outskirts of town. The only other kink was the task of convincing the moguls at Churchill Downs that Scanlan s was such a prestigious sporting journal that common sense compelled them to give us two sets of the best press tickets. This was not easily done. My first call to the publicity office resulted in total failure. The press handler was shocked at the idea that anyone would be stupid enough to apply for press credentials two days before the Derby. Hell, you can t be serious, he said. The deadline was two months ago. The press box is full; there s no more room and what the hell is Scanlan s Monthly midtown give it up anyway?
I uttered a painful groan. Didn t the London office call you? They re flying an artist over to do the paintings. Steadman. He s Irish, I think. Very famous over there. I just got in from the Coast. midtown give it up The San Francisco office told me we were all set.
He seemed interested, and even sympathetic, but there was nothing he could do. I flattered him with more gibberish, and finally he offered a compromise: he could get us two passes to the clubhouse grounds.
midtown give it up That sounds a little weird, midtown give it up I said. It s unacceptable. We must have access to everything. All of it. The spectacle, midtown give it up the people, the pageantry and certainly the race. You don t think we came all this way to watch the damn thing on television, do you? One way or another we ll get inside. Maybe we ll have to bribe a guard or even Mace somebody. (I had picked up a spray can of Mace in a do