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Former NBA great Kendrick Perkins was only 2 years old when his father, Kenneth Perkins, traveled to New Zealand to play basketball and never returned. In December 1989, three years later, his mother, Ercell Minix, was shot at the neck by her best friend while working in a beauty salon. According to reports, the duo had been bickering for some time before things became violent.
In his latest biography, “The Education of Kendrick Perkins” (co-authored with Seth Rogoff, St. Martin’s Press), Perkins writes, “It’s not something to get over; it’s a loss I still carry with me.” “Before she was murdered, there were only the two of us. She would never travel without me.”
Perkins was raised by his maternal grandparents, Mary and Raymond Lewis, in Beaumont, a small port city in southeast Texas, after his father and mother passed away.
One of Perkins’ primary motivations for achieving athletic achievement was to provide for his grandparents.
Raymond was a janitor, while Mary cleaned houses for $40 a week. Perkins was driven to succeed in basketball so that he could support his grandparents on a limited budget.
Indeed, this is the reason he did not attend college. “My top priority was ensuring that my grandparents were in order,” he writes.
With a 6ft 6″ father and a 6ft 1″ mother, it was almost inevitable that Perkins would inherit his father’s height. By seventh grade, he was 6 feet 7 inches tall.
The ESPN analyst’s autobiography describes his childhood and profession against a backdrop of poverty and inequality.
Perkins was the standout performer on the basketball team at Ozen High School, but his height also caused challenges.
Due to the fact that his grandparents were cash-strapped, his fast growth spurts meant that his shoes and altar boy attire at Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church were always too small. “My pants, even when freshly purchased, would quickly become too short, rising above the ankles to become the dreaded ‘highwaters,’” he writes. “At the time, this was an embarrassing sign of poverty and a complete lack of style.”
In 2003, at the age of 18, Perkins left Beaumont in the 1993 Lincoln Town Car that his former trainer, Coach Butte, had given him and went to Boston. Perkins was the 27th pick in the first round of that year’s NBA draft — LeBron James was the first pick — and while the Memphis Grizzlies selected him, they traded him to the Boston Celtics. During the summer, Perkins averaged almost 700 practice shots each day.
Now, Perkins earned a base salary of $900,000, which increased to $1,200,000 in his third year. By the time the Celtics re-signed him for a fourth season, his annual salary had reached $1.7 million (“a lot of lettuce in 2006 for a not-yet-22-year-old kid from Beaumont,” he writes). The funds allowed him to fulfill a vow made as a child. After signing his first contract, he was able to immediately provide for his grandparents, as he states.
When the Celtics re-signed Perkins for a fourth season, his annual salary had reached $1.7 million (“a lot of lettuce in 2006 for a not-yet-22-year-old kid from Beaumont, Texas,” he says).
By the 2006/07 season, however, Perkins had secured “serious NBA money” in the form of a $16 million, four-year contract.
And he appreciated it.
There were five-figure wagers between him and his teammate Paul Pierce, including a wager on the number of push-ups he could perform in the snow. The ‘billionaire’s table’ was allocated for him, Pierce, and Celtics icon Kevin Garnett aboard the team jet.
With a 6ft 6″ father and a 6ft 1″ mother, it was almost inevitable that Perkins would inherit his father’s height.
There were several memorable nights out.
“On one unforgettable night in Memphis, a group of us went to a club and didn’t leave until we had collectively spent around $75,000.” “You’ll have to complete the story in your mind,” he continues.
When Perkins and the Celtics defeated Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers in 2008 to win their first NBA championship in 22 years, he and colleague Rajon Rondo immediately visited a car dealership.
“After receiving our championship bonuses, I decided it was time to blow the money,” he says. “Rondo and I went to a vehicle dealership in the Boston region and spent our entire bonuses on brand-new Bentleys. I purchased a blue four-door vehicle, and Rondo followed in a slick black two-door model.
However, this is not merely a story about sporting stardom. The ESPN analyst chronicles his life and career amid a backdrop of poverty and injustice, discrimination, and overt racism. From the Jim Crow laws to the Great Migration and the civil rights movement that impacted his childhood, he describes the never-ending battle of black males in America, from slavery to the present. “For many readers, Beaumont, Texas in the 1930s and 1940s may seem like ancient history, but for me, it could have been yesterday,” he writes. “For eighteen years, I witnessed this history imprinted into the features of my grandparents. I observed its repercussions all around me. I still do.”
In 2014, he bowled for a good cause at the annual Why Not Foundation fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Club of Edmond, Oklahoma.
Perkins continues to be motivated by his mother’s memories, despite the fact that it still hurts.
In 2007, while traveling with his wife Vanity after a game, he reflected on how nice it would have been to share his “absolutely blessed life” with his late mother. “My desire was so intense that I feared it would tear me apart.
“Before I knew it, I was sobbing uncontrollably. Decades of dealing with the tragedy of her death poured out of me as I sat next to Vanity, who held me and kept me stable.
Even in her absence, my mother’s presence in my soul like a north star.
»Kendrick Perkins on growing up impoverished and missing his mom«