Crime in Sports - #330 - All You Need Is Love... And Heroin - The Unenlightenedness of Reggie Harding

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

This week, we look at the first high school basketball player to be drafted by the NBA. The problem was, by that time, he was already accumulating a criminal record that would far surpass anything he would ever do on the basketball court. He was accused of awful things, including an allegedly doing one of those awful things to a future member of The Supremes. He never learned his lesson. Kept drinking, shooting heroin, and finally robbing drug dealers to make a living. This all ends as badly as you might think, but the story isn't over, because his son (a junior) has done even worse things!!Go straight from high school to the NBA, knock a policeman's hat off his head, and turn into your local, neighborhood Omar with Reggie Harding!!Check us out, every Tuesday! We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!!  Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman  Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail]  Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com  Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!!  Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsports [e-mail] facebook.com/Crimeinsports instagram.com/smalltownmurderSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. The Queen of the Courtroom is back. How did I know that? i have crystal ball in my head new cases leave her a long so uh this is not a so this is a period classic judy it's streaming you can say anything it's an all-new season judy justice only on freebie Hello everybody and welcome back to Crime and Sports. Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host.

I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us on episode 330 of Crime and Sports. And this is one that I have been saving. Like you put something in a safe like someone has like a you see like rich people in old movies have like a fabergé egg in a safe like that's what this episode was it was one of those ones where i'm like i have to save it i have to save it and i've been nurturing it and petting it on the head for like five years because it's one of the best stories in the history of crime and sports. And then you deactivated the laser alarms and got it.

That's exactly. Well, no, I didn't deactivate them. I forgot the code because it was so long ago. So I had to do one of those acrobatic, like with the flips and all through the lasers, like to do like a Chun-Li around it. It was pretty difficult. But we're here. Before we get started, very quickly, just want to announce you definitely want to go to

shutupandgivememurder.com, especially on November the 28th, because that is when tickets for the 2023 Small Town Murder Live Tour goes on sale. Can't wait! We are so excited. I will read the dates off very quickly to you here at the top so you can get yourself ready, start making plans, as people have started to do already, we've heard. So we're excited. Here we go. February the 10th, we're in Cleveland at the Agora. February the 11th, St. Louis at the Pageant.

March 23rd and 24th, we're in Seattle both nights at the Neptune. March 25th, we are at Revolution Hall in Portland. I'm not sure if there's one or two shows that night. I've been told both, so we'll see. Really? I'm not sure. When they go on sale, you'll see. May 5th, we're in Detroit at the Masonic.

May 6th in Pittsburgh, back at the Carnegie Music Hall there. Yes. Which is very nice. July 15th in San Diego. Summer in San Diego. Beautiful. At the Observatory. July 28th, Salt Lake City coming to see you.

And you come knocking on our door, we'll come knocking on your door. Mormons, that's how it works. We're coming. Have you heard the bad news? Have you heard the news? There's murder afoot. We're coming. You knocked on our door.

Sorry, everyone. We've had a real weird day and we just we we started the show with tears of laughter in our eyes so we're just it's been fun so uh and guacamole and yeah guacamole near guacamole vomit so it's a long story july 29th in denver at the newman center aug August 11th, Minneapolis. Summer in Minnesota is gorgeous. August 11th, Minneapolis at the Pantages. August 12th, Chicago at the Auditorium Theater. It's a huge, it's so beautiful. It looks amazing. Like Pavarotti should be singing here.

We are going to stink it up with dick jokes and murder, everybody. Come join us with that. That is going to be so much fun. It's huge, too. So get your tickets please september the 8th in atlanta at the tabernacle september the 9th in charlotte at the night that's part of the queen city comedy festival i think there october the 6th we are in philadelphia at the fillmore october the 7th washington dc at the howard and also coming boston new york

phoenix mil, for sure. And there might be one or two more, but those four are definitely coming. Adding to the list, they should be on there by November 28th, fingers crossed. So get your tickets right now to that, and we are jacked. Can't wait to come see you. We're finally finishing up the 2020 tour. Make good. So that's our last two shows are coming up, so we have that.

Also, you definitely want to head over to Patreon. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of your bonus materials. And there's a link in every show description, too, which makes it easy. You get everything for five dollars or above. You get the whole back catalog, tons of stuff to binge and you're going to get new stuff. Every other week, you're going to get a crime in sports and a small town murder. This week, what we're going to talk about for crime in sports, we are going to talk about Ben Roethlisberger. Okay?

Nope. We're going to talk about all of the Ben Roethlisberger accusations over the years because there's a lot of them. And somehow, every time you won a Super Bowl that would just start over, they just shuffle those out and wait for new ones to come in. So we're talking about all the Ben Roethlisberger accusations over the years. And the recklessness of his life. Oh, yeah. Man, was he arrogant. He was, and he played like that too, and that's why he was a good quarterback.

But when it bleeds over into other aspects of life, not great. I'm not going to talk much about the sports. It just happened. You know what happened with his career. He had a good career. Great. Talk about the accusations and everything. For small town murder, it's the prisoner dating game, everybody.

Oh, shit. Oh, baby. The violent felon edition of prisoner dating game. I'm going to line up some bachelors and some bachelorettes for Jimmy to choose from. He is going to go just based on their descriptions, how they describe in their in their own dating ads and then he is going to pick one and i guarantee you that they'll be an awful person and then we'll find out what they look like three of the four and then finally he gets to find out what the person did who he's going to end up with so it's going to be so much fun we have the most fun with it every time the prisoner dating game is back everybody patreon.com slash crime and sports we can't wait uh also you get a shout

out of course at the end of the show where jimmy will mispronounce your name while trying very hard to get it correct that said let's get right to the show because we have a lot of show and we went along on the top there because we were having fun but this is one of my favorite stories of all not favorite because it's a terrible story but yeah holy shit is it funny and crazy here we go reginald hezaraya harding reggie harding reggie harding is his name you know ever hear of reggie harding have i heard it is that maybe sixers no no no detroit no he's a detroit guy aba for a second. Played for the Pistons from Detroit. Yeah, absolutely.

Played for the Bulls for about two seconds. This is in the 60s. We're talking. For sure not. This is amazing, this story. This is just, it is crime and sports in a nutshell, this whole thing. Better than a time machine? It's, oh man, it's wild.

Well, he's born May 4th, 1942. So definitely in the time machine here. He's born in Detroit, raised in Detroit, plays in Detroit. Like I said, he's all Detroit, Reggie, here. His real mother is 17 years old when she has him. Oh, no. And I say real mother because her family forced her to give him up for adoption because she wasn't married and she was 17. So her family said, you're not keeping this baby.

So there was a couple in the neighborhood, the Hardings were this couple in the neighborhood, Hezekiah and Fanny Harding. Hezekiah. Hezekiah. I guess Reggie's middle name is Hezeriah, so they said it was made in heaven, I guess. I don't know. There we go. Oh, so his name was Hezekiah? His name was Hezeriah. I guess Reggie's middle name is Hezeriah, so they said it was made in heaven, I guess. I don't know. There we go. Oh, so his name was Hezekiah? His name was Hezeriah? They hadn't even met each other? No, no, that was Hezeriah and Hezekiah. They lived in the neighborhood. Now, this couple knew Reggie's mother from the neighborhood, and I guess they had adopted a bunch of unwanted children over the years.

Kind of kids have came and gone from there. They were like a nice couple that helped unwanted kids around the neighborhood. So they've had all these kids come in and out of their home over the years. And this they decide with Reggie to adopt him here as a brand new infant and just raise him as their son. You know, then they do forever home. That's it. They change his last name and they raise him. They don't And they do. Forever home. That's it. They change his last name. And they raise him.

They don't tell him. By the way. We'll find out. He doesn't find out. He's adopted. Until much later. They just. And his mom lives in the neighborhood.

So he sees her. And everything. Jesus Christ. We'll talk about it. It's real interesting. His relationship with his real mom. With his adopted family. He's kind of a shy kid too.

He's huge. He grows up to be seven feet tall. So he's a seven-foot-tall, 250, 260-pound mammoth of a giant man. I mean, he just, he is huge. And from an early age, when his height becomes apparent, he really is coddled a lot because of his height and his ability to play basketball in the 50s and 60s for sure yeah there wasn't a lot of seven foot tall athletic people back then so they

saw one they were like holy shit this is here it is so there's a guy named bill irvin who lives near his house a guy he's a neighborhood guy and bill irvin said i was on the porch one day and he came up and said i'm reginald i live behind you just introduced himself this is when he's a neighborhood guy and bill irvin said i was on the porch one day and he came up and said i'm reginald i live behind you just introduced himself this is when he's like 10 he just comes up i've seen you over the fence yeah he's yeah he's there you know whatever next door neighbor so he said that he reggie would come over and sit on the irvin's front steps and they would talk and um he told irvin that he wanted to be a basketball player and that he hoped that he could get out of the neighborhood and be a basketball player because he's pretty tall for his age

and everyone's telling him he should play basketball. So, you know, he's like, I think I can, you know, I want to try to do that. So this Bill Irvin was just going to hang out and encourage him like, yeah, kid, you're great. Yeah, sure. You can do it. Just like a nice neighborhood guy. Didn't molest him or anything.

Oh, that's nice. What a good guy. Anybody who sits around and is nice to a kid without any sexual ulterior motives, at this point I'm like, what a great person. That's great. You didn't even fuck the kid. Perfect.

And you were nice to him? Weird. Why is that? So rare. It's so embarrassing. Because it's so rare. Yeah. People have motives when they do nice things for people when they don't and especially sexual ones if you're not gonna come ever that's a nice that's you know how often are people nice to people when there's no chance of it's rare so he uh when reggie's 12 years old he's already six foot two

at 12 which is a big big kid and he would be playing you know he played in the playground and he played at rec centers where you know kids are playing basketball big games are going on and he's playing against high school kids a lot of the times because he's as big as or bigger than these kids. So the fact also he's got coordination. He never really goes through this. A lot of times when you grow very tall, the kids go through a goofy period where they don't have any coordination over their limbs. And then they have to figure it out over time. I've heard Shaq talk about that where, like, he had a goofy period where he couldn't figure out what to do.

Right up until, like, his fourth year in the league arms and legs oh no he was an athletic machine when he when he was in college and early pros fuck dude he ran like a deer but his feet are so big they are they're huge but shack a lot everybody now like young people see shack sitting there and he's like 400 pounds now in his big giant suit sitting at the tnt or they see you know you see like you picture shack you picture that big hulking later lakers shack and you know kicking around other teams shack miami heat shack but yeah you look at orlando shack lsu shack is a it's a it's a bit he's so skinny he's skinny that's but like Orlando Shaq is like he's starting to bulk up, but he still runs the floor like a guard. Like he runs the fast break.

They're not waiting for him. He's out in front. He's so athletic. It's amazing. And he's got hair. It's bizarre. And he's got hair. It's super weird.

It's super weird. So he's got all this coordination, and he starts to decide that maybe he can make it. He's talking to Irvin about, do you think I can make it? But he acts like he's confident. A local reporter asked him if he thinks he can make it into big-time college when he's a freshman in high school. And he said, is the sun going to shine? And then he walked away. So got some confidence.

It's got a little bit of confidence there, but he was very shy though. Otherwise, like he, he would put the confidence on. He knew when to do it, but he was pretty shy around everybody though. All the adults liked him in the neighborhood.

Cause he was like a nice kid. He was like a nice shy kid. The, he didn't like to play um like he wouldn't play too much playground ball he stuck to mainly the rec center because the kids were rougher in the playground yeah yeah he was that less fundamentals it's yeah well it's sloppier and more also too he was kind of afraid it was the thing he was afraid of he was a shy kid and out there there's a lot of shit talking and there's a lot of uh challenging of your manhood and stuff like that and it's you

know it's it's a little more there's more to the game there especially back then it was a more violent game anyway back then so um the gym and rec center was dangerous enough yeah that's that's what i'm saying so one day when er, Irvin was the one who introduced him to basically the kids in the neighborhood and said, play with these kids too. Irvin was only 20 years old also, so he wasn't like an old man sitting there on his porch. He was a young guy.

And Reggie kind of thought he was like an older brother type. He wasn't much older than him. So when you're 10, 12, a 20-year-old's awesome. They're the coolest person ever because they're like twice as long as me that's amazing yeah but they're like i still think farts are funny they're an adult but they still know what like music is cool yeah but they have a car but they're also a kid like it's like wow you're the coolest ever you're the coolest big kid yeah you're just a big kid so but Reggie was good at basketball immediately.

Immediately his coordination. He was great dribbling. He took to it very, very well. It was one of those deals. He took the ball with him wherever he went. He'd walk somewhere. He'd dribble the whole way. He slept with the ball in bed with him.

He was that into it. Really, really into that. He would have uh just constantly to everyone said you could hear a dribble and you knew it was reggie coming down the street because there'd be that's all he ever did what he would do though when you'd sit down to talk to someone this is you know he's like 15 years old he's six foot six six foot seven and he's sitting there holding the ball in his right hand, talking, and then he'll suck his thumb of his left hand. Suck his thumb.

Did he start that? Like a fucking baby. Yeah. He just never stopped doing it from the time he was a baby. Yeah, they said he just never stopped sucking his thumb. He always sucked his thumb. He did it all of his life. Yeah.

That was his way of relaxing. Yeah, it was his adapter who was sucking his thumb. Do you think subliminally, is that the word? Yeah. He doesn't know, or he does know that there was trauma in his life and that he went from his real mom to these people. He just doesn't remember it, so he doesn't realize. I mean, maybe. I don't know.

It's certainly something psychological, right? Yeah. It's also the fact that he was raised by these two people and they coddled him. And so he's kind of soft and he realized that if you act a little bit soft and you're a big kid, adults are nice to you. And I feel like that's a lot of it too. You do what makes you successful as a being, as the old saying goes. So it's one of those things. So if that's what made him successful, kind of being being a little bit soft that's kind of what he did

and he spends his he's gonna spend his whole life after this making up for that don't worry he's not soft at all after that he's fucking crazy some of it like the kids all called him baby huey meaning a big man child type of thing he He hated it, of course, didn't like that. People would laugh at him. But, you know, it turns out by the time he's 16, he's seven feet tall. And people are laughing at him, calling him Baby Huey and shit, which is pretty goddamn funny. By the time he's in junior high, you know, 13 years old, he's six foot five.

And, you know, doing shit. Basically, it got so boring for him to play in the playground and stuff because nobody could do anything to him. He's too big. He's too big and skillful, too. So he'd play, and it was automatically his team would win 11-2, and that just wasn't fun anymore. So he hated it. By the time he's a freshman in high school, he is 6'10". As a freshman. As a freshman, is 6'10". As a freshman. As a freshman and immediately the star of this basketball team.

Of course. Immediately. He's dominating the varsity team. So he has all the potential in the world. A nice 6'10", 14-year-old kid. Thumb-sucking sweetheart. Getting ready to go to high school. Grace. That's Grace for go to high school. Grace.

That's Grace for Reggie. That's Grace. He's got a friend. 14 years old. He's a nice kid and he's got potential. This is before it all starts to kind of fall apart. So his foster parents here, the Hardings, they start worrying at this point that he's hanging around with the wrong crowd. They don't like that he's starting to, you know, he runs around a little bit and, you know, hey, he's hanging around with the wrong crowd. They don't like that he's starting.

He runs around a little bit. Hey, he's supposed to be home for dinner. He's home an hour late. What's he doing out there? So they arrange for him because school is one thing because he's got school to go to. And then he's got basketball. He's got sports because he does track too and shit because he's huge. Yeah.

I assume he could hurdle well. I would just step over him. So they decide, though, over the summer, that's when kids are going to get in trouble. He's going to be running the streets. They work, both of them. So he's like, no, no, no, no. We're sending you somewhere for the summer to keep you out of trouble. So they send him to Cadillac, Michigan to spend a summer picking cherries.

Sending him to a work farm. But to get paid. He gets paid. Okay. It's a summer job, essentially. They send him to the farm for a summer job because he can't get in trouble on a farm. And he lives on the farm? He's going to live up there and just be up there for the summer.

It's like a camp. Yeah. He is the only black person on the farm. Okay. So not only the only black person on the farm, I assume he's the only seven foot tall person on the farm too. That is the only one north of 6'4". You can't stand out anymore than being the only black guy who's seven feet tall hanging out, picking the cherries with everybody else. It's just a weird thing. So he said – And cherries, said oh they're on trees there are yeah they're trees you pick them which

is i guess your height is helpful at that point here he's top shelf goes to reggie reggie top shelf this guy's gonna get bottom shelf he said he told his friends also that people would make fun of him there because there's just a lot of people from everywhere they'd make fun of his size there was people making snide racial comments at him that he didn't appreciate but he said he was alone and he just kind of took it and went on with his business but he um he wanted to go back to detroit finally so i don't want to do this anymore i'm going back home and he asked the farmer for his money but you know you owe me whatever week pay or whatever i'm taking it i'm getting the fuck out of here the farmer said no i'm not paying you because you're not you're leaving you got to finish out your work or i'm not paying you okay so reggie

was like well fuck i'm stuck here now i want to go back to detroit which you can't withhold pay from people because you want them to finish that's's not okay. So Reggie waits till one night. He waits till dark, waits till everybody goes to sleep. People sleep early on the farm, you know, up and at them that night. Reggie doesn't go to sleep though.

He steals the farmer's pickup truck and drives it to the nearest town. That's illegal. This is, yeah, he's 17 here. He's 1979 or 1959, um, drives it to the nearest town. He ends up giving himself up the next day. And, yeah, he's 17 here. He's 1979 or 1959.

Drives it to the nearest town. He ends up giving himself up the next day. And, you know, that's how that works. He ends up giving himself up. Yeah. Doesn't know how the world works. So, yeah, the plan is I'm going to get out of here. Now what?

You know, and he doesn't know now what? Because he's a child. He just drives to the nearest place and pulls over. And then he ends up giving himself up because he's like, well, I don't know how to hide from the police at 17. I was being this giant person. So I guess I give up. The seven foot guy sucking his thumb. At least he'll be off the farm, though.

Yeah. So that's what he's doing. He gets end up ends up getting probation for the auto theft. That's his his penance here probation yeah he's 17 he is you know he's he's also a promising athlete and uh or not 17 he's like 15 at this point so or no he's 17 but it's yeah whatever here we go it was 58 and then 59 was the court so he was 16 16 right so in 59 he's going to court here he's put on probation he's going to court here. He's put on probation. He's going to Detroit's Eastern High School at this point. And he's placed on probation for one year and ordered to continue his school work also.

You have to keep doing your school work and you have to stay out of trouble. A friend of his, too, Claiborne Williams, was found guilty of car theft as well. I guess he went and picked up Williams and then went to some other town. It was Williams. He was somewhere else, too. So he also got a year's probation and was told to get a job. OK. His friend Williams is 18.

So they said, you get a fucking job. Your friend here is a basketball player. He's fine. But you know, job for you. Yeah. So they said that the sentence wouldn't affect his athletic eligibility, the Detroit high school said. They're like, he's a seven foot. No, he's fine.

He's good, really. He'll be all right. Let us know if he kills a guy and then we'll talk about it. But that's all we'll do. That's all. We'll talk about it. Probably favorably to him, but they'll be talking. So he meets a young lady here in high school.

Yeah. Meets a young lady named Nadine. Yeah. Hello, Nadine. So meets her and he's a star from the second he gets into high school. And Nadine's brother told her about Reggie because she didn't know anything about him. And her brother said that huge dude that plays basketball

you don't know who he is and he told his sister that yeah the guy hangs out at the ice skating rink and you should see him this guy's huge not saying I want you to meet him just saying there's this huge guy who plays basketball he's literally he's seven feet fucking tall you gotta see him

it's crazy you're gonna lose your mind like a circus show so he's he goes he hangs out at the ice skating rink you got to go down there sometime and see him he's crazy so uh nadine in 1958 in february of 58 he went to she went to the ice skating rink to get a look at reggie she said this is her quote quote a lot of kids went down there just to get a look at him just to get a close look at him what a weird thing what what is he a fucking albino tiger what are we doing guy from big fish wow that's so weird that people will just to look at you because you're seven feet tall and that's not normal so it's either that or the opposite uh you know you're so tiny that people want to see you.

Yeah, you got to see this guy. He's like 4'3". It's hilarious. I think this guy's got the best way of being looked at so far. Yeah, but there's still, I don't know. I wouldn't want to be standing there knowing that, I guess you wouldn't know it probably, but still that everybody's looking at you. So she says, well, I was skating with my brother and Reggie came by and looked at me and I was playing hard to get.

I'll never forget his first words. Look, his first words, quote, look what the angels blew in tonight. That was his line to her. The angels. They blew. Look at the angels blew in. This is 1958, though. This is like Earth Angels on the radio.

And he's like, yeah, that's good. That'll work, I think. Look what the angels just blew in tonight. She said, I just kind of turned my head and skated away. She said, he came back and heard my brother asking me why I turned away after I came down, especially to meet him. And Reggie acted mad and said he knew I wanted to meet him and asked me if i would skate with him i said i would be happy to what a weird get together that used to be a pickup line will you skate with me will you skate with me sure and then you skate around i guess get around and then

everybody sees you skating together and you go is that with him is that the first speed date you'd probably have one rotation around the rink to land some interest. You know what I mean? And if that doesn't go, they'd probably veer back off. That first one you might want to show off your moves, and the second one you get some words in, right? Or is it the opposite? I was thinking the opposite.

I think you've got to hook them with the words and then be like, look what I can do. You like these words? Watch me turn backwards. Watch this. Pow, backwards. Look at me. I'm moonwalkwalking you don't know what that is yet but trust me you will soon watch me spin so nadine went on to say quote from the day i met him in high school he always got what he wanted he was a spoiled brat i knew him well enough to know that he was

not as confident as he acted but but he got whatever he wanted. He didn't get his diploma from high school, so he went up to a high school in Tennessee to finish. I was pregnant and he wanted to marry me, so he came home and he did. It seemed like the whole world was his back then. He got her pregnant, left to Tennessee to finish high school because he failed here. Yeah, he didn't graduate. So he ended up graduating at like an academy in Tennessee, some basketball factory. I'm sure that he played a few games. How do you do that and have any kind of confidence that everything's going to be okay?

Because everybody is telling him that the world is his fucking oyster. Yeah, that everything's going to be okay. Yeah. He's dominating high school basketball like nobody's business. They're talking about him because this was the beginning of the hardship cases

where they would talk about a hardship case. They're talking about him being able to skip entirely high school, college, and play pro basketball, which would make him the first at that point. So we're talking Kevin Garnett 25, 35 years before kevin garnett is what right essentially what this is when i was his age and uh thinking about a

woman pregnant i was panicking i would terrify me i would jump off a bridge i would jump off a bridge at that age oh my god no number one what am do? Number two, my parents will kill me. That's the other thing. Yeah, my mom's going to be so mad at me. It's all going to be bad. Everyone's going to be upset by this. No one's going to be happy. Her parents are going to be even more mad. Oh, God, I can't go over there and look them in the eye.

Ever again, it's over. So I guess we're breaking up now. Jesus Christ. Sorry. Okay, bye. This is Reggie talking about partying in high school as well. Jesus Christ. Sorry. Okay. Bye. He, uh, this is Reggie talking about partying in high school as well.

Cause he, this is the other thing he's doing. He said, quote, we'd start off taking a drink before going to a party to feel good. So you're pregame. And, uh,

then it was reefer then dope. And you start thinking to yourself that this is nice. It covers things up for a minute. This is him as whole, not high school. This isn't what's going on now, that this is nice. It covers things up for a minute. This is him, his whole, not high school. This isn't what's going on now, but this is his whole life. You get depressed and you start feeling down and you depend on it. But it's not just happening in the ghetto. Check it out in Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills.

People up there killing themselves, jumping out of windows every day. And they're supposed to have everything. They give you pills and rest for your habit, but they never treat your mind, the root of the thing. There's a reason for everything. There's gotta be a reason why a man does this to himself when he knows what will happen. He said, I was covering something up. I knew what that was.

I know what that is now, what that was now. I should have gotten myself together like a man, but it was easier to forget. You give a man his pills and his rest and send him right back out into the same jungle. Most of them have no way to stay alive. They spend so much money on missiles and prisons. Turn this place into a hospital, man.

Treat the causes. Try to help them all. He's got points. That's Reggie's whole, but that's his whole, the reflection of his life. And it starts in high school. Okay, this is him many years later reflecting and thinking about it yeah this is his reflections as a 30 year old man later on and starting with high school and uh that's kind of a foreshadow of the whole show i'll bet you

those rich people that he's talking about that are jumping out of windows they're not doing it because of drugs they're doing because the drugs wore off and they're like oh that's not a permanent feeling or they lost all their money doing something yeah that's a lot of people yeah people can't stand people can be poor but once they've been rich they don't want to be poor again and that's yeah that's a great point they can't tolerate that or once they've been rich and they were never poor they definitely can't be poor oh no that's bad that's those are the people that jump out of windows like me and you would be like, great. Again?

Back to that. That's whatever. That ride's over. Not that we're rich, but it would be, you know, I'm not going off. Fuck, I don't have money for food this week is what I'm getting at. If I ever was in that situation, everybody would just be like, well, that ride's over. Yeah, exactly. That one where I didn't worry about dinner tonight. I guess we're back to that now.

rides over yeah exactly one where i didn't worry about dinner tonight i guess we're back to that now so 1960 i found february 27th 1960 reggie harding has 28 points and leads eastern high school to its second straight city basketball championship two in a row two in a row with him they won 69 52 over holy redeemer high wow holy redeemer. Always a Holy Redeemer. Yeah. I guess so. So, yeah, 1960, they talk about Reggie Sanders. Not Reggie Sanders. Reggie Harding. He makes it to the All-State team as well, and he's killing it. That's after his second straight championship.

They're saying he still has another year to go. This is after his junior year. But they said every college in the nation has shown interest in him. The Harlem Globetrotters want to sign him right out of high school. He finished the season with a 26.4 point per game average in his

junior year. And a shitload of rebounds too. He was rebounding like crazy. The wait is over. So far you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience. Quickly, I see that. Bing! The queen of the courtroom is back.

I didn't do anything. You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases. She wanted to fight me. Leave her. A-lo fight me. Leave her alone. Okay, so, um...

This is not a so. This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin. His brother. That's not him.

Yes, ma'am. I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award-winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all-new season. It's streaming. You can say anything.

Judy Justice, only on Freebie. If you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued, what was in Al Capone's vault, or which famous meteorologist is Lenny Kravitz's second cousin, then you haven't spent enough time on Wikipedia. But that's okay. I am here for you. I'm Darcy Carden, and I'm inviting you to listen to my new podcast, WikiHole, from SmartList Media. Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast, you'd learn that that's

the sciency term for eardrum. We embark on a hyperlink roller coaster as we start out on a Wikipedia page and go from link to link to link to link, careening through trivia, oddities, and unexpected connections until we collectively shout, How the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. May 1960.

This is, by the way, a big fluff piece in the Detroit Tribune in March of 1960 about what a great player he is. May of 1960, he is arrested at school. At school. He is at a track meet. He is running in a track meet when the police literally come take him off the track as he's running. Unbelievable. Harding in first place.

Wait, no, he's dropping back to second. Oop, everybody passed him. Harding going in the wrong direction, and he's being dragged off by 10 he's being handcuffed okay well I think Harding's out of this race everybody let's just say that so he's arrested and uh being pulled off and the coach is going why the fuck are you arresting my player you know my my track guy on the on the field here and they, oh, he's under arrest for having sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old girl against her will. That's what he's under arrest for. Yeah.

Rape. Called rape is what they – but that's what they tell the coach. Statutory and actual rape. Yeah. That's what they're saying. So the judge in this case, Paul E. Krause is his name. He must be like a booster for this high school or something because he frees Harding on a $1,000 bond, which is a lot back then. That's plenty of money. The girl testifies in the case here right up front that she had sexual relations with Harding on March 3rd at the home of a friend of Harding.

And now Harding's, by the way, on probation for car theft at this point, too. He denied the charges. So the judge gives him a $1,000 bail. He, Jesus Christ, this is fucking ridiculous. So he's let out on bail. And she, the girl told police she went to a guy named Cadillac Willie Wilkerson's house. That's what they call him, Cadillac Willie, who is 36 years old.

All right. So Cadillac Willie, who's 36, has a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy coming over for some fucking reason. Cadillac Willie. I guess she went there with Harding on March 3rd. She'd been missing from her home for six days. Where the fuck was she?

I guess she ran away. Uh-huh. Ended up with these two. And then she ended up going to a police station and telling the cops where she's been and what had happened and that she's been having sex with Reggie. So Reggie is picked up while he is participating

in a Belle Isle track meet for school. Jesus. So while this is all going on, by the way, this all hits the papers, the statutory rape charge and everything. It's not till right now that Reggie finds out he's adopted. This is when did they say this? They say something like a kid of mine wouldn't do this, and it's because you're adopted. Son, we have to tell you something. We were going to make sure you thought you were ours and everything like that,

but we don't want anyone to think that our blood pumps through your rapist body. So what we're going to do here is you're adopted. So he's told he's adopted. His real mother, Lily Mae Thomas is her name, has kept a scrapbook of everything this child has done and just has watched him from across the neighborhood like he was still her own. Good news, Lily. There's some new clippings. She has a lot. She's going to have a lot to add to the scrapbook. It's going to get fat.

She has a lot. She's going to have a lot to add to the scrapbook. It's going to get fat. So she went to every one of his high school games, unbeknownst to him that she was coming to see him because she knew it was her son. Had every high school program from every game. She got his records from every school he attended and had all of his grades and report cards and everything like that. And one day her son Robert, Lily Mae's son Robert, came home from school and found her crying at the table.

And he said, I asked her why she was crying, and she showed me the story in the newspaper and told me Reggie was my brother. She also made me promise never to tell anyone else about it. Your brother's a rapist. This is your brother. Don't tell anybody. I was like, what? So I have a brother. He's this giant basketball star's a rapist this is your brother don't tell anybody he's like what and so i have a brother he's this giant basketball star and a rapist and you didn't tell me any of this shit that's a lot and you want me to keep that to myself how do i not tell everybody about this so robert said quote i was young and i didn't understand what adopted meant and she explained it

over and over until i did and then uh later that evening, they were talking about it. And apparently Reggie ended up overhearing something. That's how he found out. And Nadine said he was furious. He was very angry that they didn't tell him earlier. I'm sure. Yeah. That's tough news to take.

That's a little bit tough. So the victim here is a 15 year old named Jean as well as what they say. And Harding admits to the encounter. This is what I understand. It's statue. He's being charged with statutory rape at this point. Not forcible rape. So statutory rape.

And he admits to having sex with her she's 15 okay but he claims it was consensual which isn't the point of statutory rape consent is regardless doesn't matter now the judge joseph a gillis just i'm sure he's dead by now i hope because this is some dumb shit he questioned uh whether the girl was telling the truth. He said he didn't know if the girl was telling the truth, but Reggie admitted to having sex with her. So whether she was telling the truth or not, take his word for it. What are we talking about? It's obvious she's telling the truth because he's saying, yeah.

Yeah, that's what I mean. He's corroborating it. But he thought it was good to say, yeah, we had sex, but I didn't force her to. Meanwhile, he didn't realize that that wasn't legal either. It's like his lawyer didn't tell him what statutory rape is. Yeah, well, because it wasn't now, but they had a statement saying he had sex with a girl. In court, he didn't say that, but his statements originally were that he had sex with a girl. He's 18 years old, so he can't do that.

By the way, in some newspapers, they have her as a 13-year-old girl. I don't know if she's 15 or 13 because it goes back and forth in both papers. What the fuck? Not good, and there's a big difference, too. Huge. So, the judge said that based on the fact that there was question of whether the girl was telling the truth or not, he ends up acquitting Reggie. Not guilty. Wow.

You're good. Now, Cadillac Willie over here, you know. Should probably lock him up on principle. Yeah, listen, Cadillac, get over here. Well, yeah, they said he got contributing to the delinquency of a minor and was placed on three years probation with six months in the House of Correction. So he gets sent to the pokey, and he didn't even have any pokey. He's about to. He's about to.

He's a freelance photographer, Cadillac. Think about this. A freelance photographer whom young runaway girls know to go to his house and then people have sex with them. Think about what this fucking creep is doing. Photographer is the creepiest fucking profession there is. I don't care what you're, I don't give a shit. I know there's people that are nice. Don't give a shit. of shit every single serial killer had fucking camera equipment and half of their victims were lured in with taking pictures that is i'm sorry that's on you know you picked a profession that is a lure for creeps pedophiles and weirdos i understand if you're not but it's a it's a broad brush i understand to paint it with but the broadest. It's a soiled fucking... It's a soiled profession is what I'm getting at. It's certainly solid, yeah.

It's soiled with its own semen. May not be your fault. No, it's not your fault, but it's... But you're in it. You're in it. You better fix it. It's not good. It's on you.

So the same year, a couple months later um do you know who florence ballard is flo ballard you ever heard of her she's in the supremes she is in the rock and roll hall of fame did he rape her too well we'll talk about it oh no her name is florence glenda chapman in real in reality here she was 17 in 1960 and um she just started out she just started out in her recording career in 58 she was a junior high student living in the uh brewster douglas housing projects in detroit that's where she met mary wilson who be she became friends with another future supreme um and uh she ended up going to Northeastern High School where they found another girl from around the neighborhood named Diana Ross. Wow.

That they all hooked up and formed a singing group together. Can you imagine knowing her before she's fucking Diana Ross? Diana fucking Ross. Well, at that point, she wasn't even Diana. She was Diane Ross. That's what she went by back then. But then they made it Diana because it sounded better. So they named themselves the Primettes.

The Primettes, that's all these groups in the late 50s had these weird names. So they performed at talent shows and school parties and all this type of shit. 1960, they got an audition for Motown records for barry gordy and he said the girls were a little too young and a little too green at the time and don't worry he'll rob them blind plenty later on don't worry he'll pay a mortgage with that that's fine a mortgage christ the supremes he'll pay for fucking several mortgages they made a shitload of money how many fucking albums they sold the supremes holy shit it's insane uh he said they're a little too young and he said come back next year when you graduate high school come back and when you're a little more seasoned keep working so flow

dropped out of high school the other ones graduated in the summer of 1960 this is just a few weeks after the barry gordy barry gordy told him to go get a little more a little more seasoning she went to a sock hop not to perform just to hang out yeah this is still sock hop times happening here this is bobby skirts and shit or whatever the hoop skirts and bobby socks and weird shit like that so little poodles on them little poodles on them she went to um uh it's at it was at detroit's graystone ballroom and she went with her brother billy but in the midst it was really crowded and they ended up losing each other like in a nightclub they couldn't find each other somebody went over there someone went to the bathroom somebody moved so in his eyes yeah like

the light was in my eyes i couldn't see see it. So she can't find Billy anymore. So she decides to walk home and get out of there. So she takes off and starts walking home and it's late at night. Yeah. It's dark. It's not the greatest of neighborhoods. She's walking through. So a young man who she recognized from the newspapers pulls over in his car and asked her if she'd like a ride.

It's Reggie Harding. So she's like, holy shit, you're the guy, you're the basketball guy that I always see. Like, holy crap, yeah. So at that point. Because your head's out of the sunroof. I can tell because your head has leaned out of the window and is still above the car as you drove down the street. So he offers her a ride.

And since she recognized him she accepted it because you see a guy in the newspaper all the time especially back then you didn't see many people that he was a famous person sure and and also knew she he was a high school basketball player so they're the same age so um that's reggie harding rather than driving her home, though, Reggie drove her north of Detroit to an empty parking lot where he raped her at knife point. What? According to Flo. Yeah. With a weapon.

Yes. At knife point. That is that's scary. He picked a terrifying. He picked a young woman up off the street, drove her to a location, raped her at knife point. You know what the progression is to that? Yeah. She tells them the progression is to that. Yeah. She tells them the next time he goes, well, you can't let them tell.

That's how it works. If they don't breathe, they can't talk. That's it. So that's scary. So for the next several weeks, she didn't tell anybody right away. But for the next several weeks, she just didn't go outside, didn't do anything. She just secluded herself in her room and wouldn't talk to her friends, wouldn't talk to her family. She even hid from the other Supremes.

Diana Ross is trying to get a hold of you, and she's like, no, no thanks. Sorry, Diane. Sorry, Diane. So they were sympathetic that she was sad about something, but they didn't understand what she was what was up with this. They said that she was always this is what Wilson described her as, quote, generally happy, if somewhat mischievous and sassy teenager. And then she said now she was sullen and withdrawn. She'd rage suddenly. She'd start arguments with her friends for no reason.

And they said once she told about it and everything, they said that she never mentioned it again for the rest of her life. She wouldn't talk about it. She just swallowed it down and forgot about it. That was it, yeah. So he ends up not getting anything for that also because she doesn't want to talk about it. So they have no case, really. So that falls apart. What the hell, man?

no case really so that falls apart what the hell man they were actually because there was a lot of other cases at the time there they still think that it's possible that reggie was a serial rapist back then that he was going around raping lots of women uh in this fashion they were suspecting him of that that was basic but they couldn't prove anything yeah so that was allegedly that's what he was allegedly that's what he was so he's already like a phantom, like a seven-foot-tall phantom coming out of high school with a very strange psychology. A phantom that you see coming and going. You know what I mean? Yeah. If you're that recognizable, why would you do anything that would, unless you just know you're going to get away with it or assume that you will.

And you don't have to do all that to all the girls like you. That's what I mean. This is not about I want women and they don't like me. This is about something else. This is a power psychological. Girls will be around you willingly at least if you want them. Like there's plenty of dudes that are just always out for sex. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know those guys. Everybody knows that guy. We all know that guy. The vast majority of them are not raping. No, I would hope not. Why would you do that? But I don't know if it's something about the adoption thing made him snap and be like, fuck these young women.

I don't know what it is, but something. He's certainly mad at women. Psychological in there. So he finishes up his high school at the Nashville Christian Institute is where he goes, which is a prep school, which is basically a church prep school is what it is. It's ceased operation after there was once the racial integration of Lipscomb University happened. Then this place closed down because all those kids – because this is a black school. All those kids went there. So that's how that worked.

So 1961, he is Detroit – he's Michigan State's Mr. Basketball. Yeah. So the best player they have. Also, you know, scoring big on the rape charts as well. He's he's really good. He's doing a lot here. I can't imagine, man. So they talk about him.

There's all these fucking articles about how just wonderful he is. He weighs 242 pounds and moves extremely well. A 27 point scoring average is exceptional. He has good coordination, shoots from the outside when necessary and sets up as many baskets for his teammates as he scores himself his great size of course gives him rebounding and scoring advantages but he's no freak in seven of the 12 games he's played this season he saw action in less than half the game but when he had to go the route in a one-point victory over northwestern reggie showed

he had the stamina to do so so they're just loving him but they do say reggie is realistic um about his future he says he has a c plus c plus average but he realizes he'll have to do better to go to the type of college he wants to go to yeah he said i'm working on those grades now i'm going to college and i'm willing to do the necessary classroom work to stay eligible he wants to go to yeah he said i'm working on those grades now i'm going to college and i'm willing to do the necessary classroom work to stay eligible he wants to go um he uh has a weird this year he has a strange um thing that he does he rubs the student team manager's head for luck before the game every game it's like a little ceremony where he goes and rubs this guy's head this guy bald no he's a student he's another he's a he's a student the student manager he's like the kid who helps with

the team yeah he has to do that which is funny so uh they talk about him averaging um uh during this tournament he averaged 31 points had 41 points and 20 rebounds in one game also a good defensive player and he shot over 60 percent in their last 15 games of the year which is you know really good it's yet 90 shack numbers it's pretty good so he's doing so well that they're just everybody is so excited with him except that then he gets arrested again is the other problem. Breaking and entering a recreation building. Okay. He also gets arrested for felonious assault as well coming up here.

Yeah. So that's not great. Felonious assault after a bouncer in a Detroit bar accused him of drawing a gun on him. And Reggie said it's a cigarette lighter that looks like a gun. So that's how that works. We'll talk about how that plays out in court because it's fucking hilarious. These judges have to be fans of basketball or something. I mean, I'm sure there was a lot more corruption when it comes to shit like that back then, a little like wink and a nod.

Like, come on, be nice to the kid here. Switch the evidence out and put a lighter in there or something because it's going to be in court right it's well later yeah so anyway it doesn't matter because he leads eastern to three straight city championships he's chosen the best high school center in the nation by several sports magazines he is uh huge i mean people and he could he anywhere he goes in detroit people just stop him and go, you're Reggie Harding. I mean, he's a celebrity around already. This is from the newspaper. Quote,

he was the king of the basketball court and the king of the school and the king of the streets of the Lower East Side. Yeah. Holy shit. He said every once in a while, though, he'd stop at Bill Irvin's house and say, do you really think I can be a pro? And Bill'd tell him, Reggie, you can do whatever you want to do.

Anything. You can be whatever you want to be, Reggie. And he'd go, okay. So there's that. So senior year he averaged 31 points and 20 rebounds a game, which is insane. 20 rebounds. 20 rebounds. The 1962 NBA draft comes along here.

All right. Just to give you some notes on 1962 NBA, the Chicago Packers, as in the Meat Packers, finished the previous season and were renamed the Chicago Zephyrs. And then they'll fix that and be called the Bulls later on. So, 60s. We are two names ago. Two names ago. Yeah, imagine Michael Jordan with a Packers jersey on. The Chicago Zephyrs.

The Philadelphia Warriors relocated to San Francisco and became the San Francisco Warriors prior to this season. The draft consisted of 16 rounds here. So here we go. Number one draft pick, 1962 NBA draft, Jimmy. Good lord. What the fuck? Paul Westfall. Dave DeBuscher.

Who the fuck? Dave DeBuscher is a real famous guy. Really? Yeah, yeah, big Detroit player. He was's a he's a real famous guy. Big Detroit. Yeah. Yeah. Big Detroit player. He was also a player coach there and everything else. A lot of Hall of Fame names here. Jerry Lucas, number two. Jesus.

Bill McGill. I don't know who the fuck he is. He only played three years. That's why. Paul Hogue. Zelmo Beatty, who's a really interesting guy. Zelmo Beatty is a big man who ended up playing in the ABA and was a real big force in the ABA. He was one of the first.

He was the most famous NBA guy to jump to the ABA at first. So he became like, oh, Zelmo went to the ABA. Can't be that bad type of thing here. Wayne Hightower, Leroy Ellis, John Havlicek. There we go. He's number nine overall. Fourth round. By the way, there's only nine fucking picks per round.

There's only nine teams at this point. It's a joke. The fourth round starts with pick 28. You know what I mean? How can you even generate interest with nine fucking teams? That's it. Well, it's really concentrated in the areas they thought it would work. Number 28 overall in the fourth round, Chico Vaughn.

There. That's a great name. But number 31 overall in the fourth round is Reggie Harding, chosen by the Detroit Pistons. Now, part of this would be that you could – there was a lot of local stuff back then where like they had regional picks where you could pick like – because like this, you could trade. I know there's a thing here we'll talk about for 63 where you could trade your number one draft pick basically and say, I don't want this draft pick. I'll instead be able to pick anyone I want in my region with which is like within 100 miles

of your market so they're treating it like a white elephant territorial drafts they do yeah so you have a territorial draft that way you can get popular players from that area which helped draw fans so they did that in the in the football too back then territory and then the last pick of the draft uh the last team that gets to pick, they can either pick or they can steal from somebody else. They can steal. Only if they have a draw four card, though. That's the only thing. You've got to put that down and then a reverse and then an uno.

And you've got to say uno, though. You've got to say uno. They should have played uno. You have to say uno and then you can. That's how you generate interest in this bullshit. And you slap that wild down and you're done. That's how you generate interest in this bullshit. Yep. And you slap that wild down, and you're done. What's up, bitches? Hit the skip and reverse.

Skip, reverse, skip, skip, reverse. So he's drafted by them, but there's a weird rule, okay? This is the strange part. There's a weird rule that you can't play. It's kind of like football nfl has where you can't play until you're three years out of college i think the nba has a year out of whatever now a year out of high school you can't play this was a uh or nfl as you can't you have to be at least three years out of high school i think is the the rule they had a thing where you had to

be in a year out of high school and the n was the rule at this point. So people were trying to challenge that and he was, they were challenging that. That's why Detroit drafted him. So what they did is they put him in a bunch of various high school clinics and our basketball clinics for high school. They'd have him run those clinics and they were kind of having him be at practice and things like that. One of his teammates said, everybody liked Billy, even the kids. I remember one clinic up north. This six-year-old white girl followed him around everywhere he went. He talked to her and joked with her, and she just loved it.

At the end of the day, she hung on to his legs when he was supposed to go. And when he was supposed to go, she wouldn't let go. Reggie finally got away, and the girl told him she was going to tell her father that she wanted to marry reggie he shot back honey would i like to be there to see his face when you do that and smiled and walked away because she she had no idea what that meant but he was like you do not want to be there that would be hilarious take a picture because i'm going to be a hundred miles away and you can send me that picture but I don't want to be there. He certainly would love to see that face, though, I bet. Yeah.

So he ends up – they end up farming him out to these other teams to keep him in condition until his contract could be resubmitted to the league. They keep having to challenge the league on this. So he joins a barnstorming team and all this shit. He's bitter, though. He wants to – he's pissed off. He's bitter, though. He wants to. He's pissed off. He thinks they're stopping him from making money.

Well, yeah, that. And he says that they're only doing this. The league's only doing this because of what they've read in the papers. And he feels like he's been wronged and he's pissed off and all of this. And he says he has responsibilities. He's got a wife. He's got a kid on the way. And he knows how to play in the NBA. He has to play there.

And he wants to be able to prove himself, damn it. So at the start of the 61 season, he also, or 62 season, he also starts, he also plays a little bit with the Harlem Globetrotters that year. He does. He does, absolutely. Plays a few games with them. Wilt Chamberlain played a little with them in 61 as well. He plays a few games with them. Wilt Chamberlain played a little with them in 61 as well.

NBA players would go play on a few games of a tour, and that would draw a better crowd. So he spends the rest of the season in the Midwest Professional Basketball League. I'm sure that was fun. Wow. Jesus, it had six teams that league. They had the Battle Creek Warriors, the Dayton Little Mickeys, the East Chicago Bombers, the Gary Whips, the Terre Haute All-Stars, and the Toledo Twisters. Okay. Jesus Christ. This is character-building shit right here.

I would say so. The Holland Oilers this year, they were a team in this particular season. Holland Oilers? Oh, that was 63-64. Yeah, they won the championship that year. It's ridiculous. They ended up having more teams come in. The Gary Steelers, the Grand Rapids Tackers.

What the fuck does that mean? Isn't horse and tackle or something like that? Yeah yeah probably something something to do with tack and saddle fucking horses or something the allen the allentown jets were also there um that's about that oh and the toledo tartans i like the twisters better yeah so 1963 uh draft the rule at in in the NBA at that point was if a player left college early, he would not be eligible for selection until his class graduated. So he could leave early. But let's say you left as a sophomore. You'd have to wait two years to class graduated. This is what they were challenging at that point and trying to get the deal here so this the rule is before the draft a team could forfeit its first round pick and then select any player from with a within a 50 mile radius of their home as a of their home arena as their territorial pick okay so this is the year the chicago zephyrs relocate to baltimore and become the Baltimore Bullets, who would later be the Washington Bullets and later be the Washington Wizards. The Syracuse Nationals were also still a team at this point.

But then they participated in this draft and then moved to Philadelphia and became the 76ers after they did that. So, yeah, that's the whole deal. And then Chicago would get the bulls as an expansion team i believe nobody tweet me if that's incorrect there's nothing more annoying by the way that when we say something off the cuff in a three and a half hour show full of facts and they're like you got that one thing wrong that you talked about the amount of people that made sure to tell me that the david tyree catch happened in 2011 and not 2007 2008 is fucking seasons 2011 season 2007 season is fucking staggering considering that they're four years apart and we're basically

the exact same game right exact same they had almost the same score exact same you can't under the end they're interchangeable those two fucking games and the same result so who fucking cares that who would pick their phone up and tweak that who gives a shit i mean they were the exact same games for christ's sake fuck you could watch one and be watching the other and go why are we watching this game again it's the same fucking game christ almighty So either way, doesn't matter. He's up for this draft as well. For some reason, Detroit drafts him again this year, even though they had him, which doesn't make sense. I guess the league. Did rights expire or something?

I guess the rights expired after a year, and the league wouldn't let them have him for a year, so they needed to draft him again. 1963 NBA draft.immy number one pick mr harding tom thacker what yeah he played at cincinnati and played four years in the league he's from cincinnati cincinnati and he's from the college, and he's drafted by the Cincinnati Royals as well. Is that right? Where Oscar Robertson plays, yeah. Then the Knicks pick Art Heyman from Duke, who played three years in the league. And then finally, Rod Thorne is picked third.

You might recognize him from being the head of the union. Rod Thorne, for a long time, was head of the— Oh, that guy. Yeah, Rod Thorne. Nate Thurman, after that, who played for 15 years. He was pretty goddamn good. Roger Strickland, I'm sure Rod's dad. I don't know. Probably. He's there.

And then finally, oh, round two, who's picked? Anybody good? Oh, Mel Gibson's picked in the second round. Oh, is that right? Yeah, he is. Number 17, the Lakers, picked Mel Gibson. Really? Yeah. Playing in that town. That's wild right he's just screaming screaming anti-semitic things all over town absolutely so round six the detroit pistons select reggie

harding round six is still pick 49 by the way that crazy. Which is the mid-round two these days. So he's picked by Detroit again, which sounds good. He's going to play for his home team June 11, 1963. A son is born. Hey. A son is born. Reggie Jr. You can't. Reggie Jr.

You know it's Reggie Jr. You know it's Reggie Jr. And by the way, the most junior junior that's ever juniored we're going to talk about later on. It's wild. You're adopted. You can't junior it, right? Reggie Harding Jr. That's it.

So it's wild. So he begged his mother. He was trying to find out who his father was at one point here. Walk down the street, find the seven-twist guy in town. Who's the tallest guy in our neighborhood? It's probably him. If mom's not 6'5", probably find the tallest guy in the neighborhood, and I bet it's him. So he begged his mom to tell him, but she would never tell him who his father was.

By the way, Reggie Jr. will be 6'8 when he grows up, too. So he'll be a big fucking guy, too. Jesus Christ. It's in the genes. Yeah. Bill Irvin said of Reggie, though, at this point, quote, he got grown up too quick. He got signed by the Pistons and he got married and had a child right out of high school. He missed having fun and being free.

He missed that and he did all that later. Yep. Now he's going to do it. July 1963. He's got a court date of course um did you know how that works on on the on what charges uh felonious assault this one's for and it was released on a 300 bond uh he was charged in connection with an argument this is the at the bar it was at the 20 grand bar at 50 20 14th street and he was placed on probation uh for the car theft and he was acquitted of statutory rape and now he is uh now he's got this problem and uh yeah so that's still going over his hanging over his head he trains a lot

there's a guy here who um dr wm hardy a waynesville chiropractor who also claims to be an expert at recognizing and developing basketball talent so he's like a coach here this guy this is in the you know ashville citizen is the name but it's a it's a like it's all over the country this article so he says when reggie came down here he had nothing but a right-handed hook shot when he left he could shoot every shot in the book he's bragging about he's fixed reggie reggie harding he spent ninth february of 1963 uh harding spent in nashville and dr hardy taught him the tricks of shooting with accuracy so he could play in the n. He said that he's very excited. He said, Reggie apparently has made it into the NBA.

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1963-64, Detroit Pistons. He's on the team. They're 23 and 57 that year, which is god-awful. Not good. They play in the Cobo Arena, too, which is an old shithole they used to do the wrestling in before they got a better arena. This team, they have Reggie

Harding, they have Dave DeBuscher, who again, he'll be very, very good. They have Kevin Loffery, who will be a coach later on for a million different teams. Lockery, Loffery, however you fucking say it. I think that's about it that you might. Larry Staverman is a coach later on. I don't know if you might recognize that name. And Bob Ferry, who I believe is Danny Ferry's father, is on that team.

And I'm not kidding about that. I really think that is his father. I believe that. So he's on this team, and they let him play. By the way, the beginning of the season, they still wouldn't let him play. He isn't allowed to play until January. Detroit is still fighting with the league to get him to be able to play because the league says he can't play for two and a half more years when his college class graduates.

That's when he can play. College class. Which would be two and a half more years, which is just stupid. Yeah. Hope you don't predict, pick doctorate as your fucking major. No shit. So long to play. This is just dumb because, I mean, what are we talking about?

We want basketball talent that could be playing in the league. You want them going and playing in the Midwest Basketball League because we have a rule. If the guy can play here. Until somebody finishes their fucking MBA. If a guy can play, he can play. Period. That's it. So they do that.

He plays his first game January 21st, 1964 against the San Francisco Warriors where he has matched up one-on-one all game with Wilt Chamberlain. Oh, shit. Yeah. Wilt's a monster, by the way, because we'll talk about later on when they talk about who's the best center of the 60s that you played against. Reggie Harding, they'll say, was it Bill Russell? And he goes, I could throw Bill Russell around.

I could push him around. He goes, no, physically I could dominate Bill Russell? And he goes, I could throw Bill Russell around. I could push him around. He goes, no, physically I could dominate Bill Russell. So no, he goes, well, you couldn't move him. He was a, he could dominate Bill Russell physically. Yeah. He was a bigger guy than Bill Russell. Bill Russell's not a seven footer and he's not a very large guy. No, that's not a seven foot guy.

He's six, nine Bill Russell, actually six, nine, six, 10. He's an undersized center. But in the sixties, that was fine. Unless nobody was over seven foot for a while besides Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt Chamberlain was built differently. You know what I mean? You know Andre the Giant just had bigger everything. He wasn't just a tall guy.

That's how Wilt was. The shoulders on Wilt were impressive. His head is enormous. His hands. There's tons of stories from the NBA where guys would be in fights until Wilt would walk over. Everybody would just stop because nobody wanted Wilt to fucking – Wilt would fuck you up and nobody wanted any part of him essentially. Like there's one where they talk about when he was a coach in the ABA. Wilt coached for a year in the ABA and a fight broke out on the floor and Wilt went over and picked a grown man up and just put him somewhere.

Just another player who was in a fight, a six foot five guy said, I just felt my arms being constricted. It was Wilt picking me up by his with his hands and placing me somewhere else. He said, I felt helpless, like I couldn't do anything to stop it. He was just like a baby with their with their dad picking them up. That's how Russell was athletic as fuck man athletic and a great player but back then if you could physically beat somebody up you could you could work them because that there was a you know a lot of that was allowed on the inside especially on the inside so there wasn't a lot of guys who could physically muscle Bill Russell around but this was one guy who could you know it was rare.

Not saying that he would have great games against him and Bill Russell didn't do shit. I'm just saying that according to him, he couldn't out-muscle Wilt. Yeah, you try to push him and he just didn't go anywhere. He was just one of those guys. So he entered his first game with six minutes and 44 seconds left in the second period with Detroit down 32-31. And within seconds, he got a basket.

And then he ended up with seven more points and five rebounds. So he had nine points and five rebounds. And the Pistons were up 49-44 at halftime. And he was good. Rest of the season, we'll talk about. He only plays in, I think, 39 games. But they say that he was completely living up to expectations and um you know all that sort of thing on the court but off

the court the newspaper still talked about him a lot one paper tagged him quote the tall bad man of the courts who spends as much time before a judge is playing basketball oh shit that hurts by the end of the season, he had fucked up so much in Detroit, not showing up for things and blowing stuff off. He made $15,000. That was his salary that year. He's fined $3,000 of that salary.

A fifth of his money. 20%. And he's also suspended indefinitely by the end of the year. Oh, shit. So that's how much it is. Nadine said, too, quote, Reggie was funny about his size. I remember sometimes we would be walking out of Pistons games and kids would ask him, hey, man, are you seven feet tall, man?

Are you Reggie Harding? And he would say, no, I'm 6'5". I've never heard of Reggie Harding. Who's that? And they'd be like huh she said we would be out shopping or out and people would come up to him all the time and ask him if he was seven feet tall and he would be nasty to them i tell him reggie don't do those people that way they like you and he would say they're making fun of me what is that because it's i get it you feel

weird that everybody's looking at you. And why does it have to be a thing? Why do we have to talk about it? That's why. It's why do we have to talk about it? It's one of those things. Why does it always have to come up every fucking thing? Yes, you might as well get a fucking hat that says, yes, I'm seven feet tall.

Don't ask me. Because that's what everyone's going to ask you. What are you, seven feet? Yeah. I get it being annoying. I was walking next to a man in the airport and i just go is this six nine and he goes huh and i go this is six nine and he goes this is six nine and he pointed himself in the chest and he was like proud of it and that yeah

yeah that's fine it's all in the way you ask right uh yeah it's it's about who asks too yeah i think i don't know it's a weird thing it's like women tall women hate to be asked how tall they are they really do but if you're a tall guy tall women will come up to you and ask how tall you are then you ask them how tall they are and they're very excited to tell you because you're both tall maybe but if some maybe if you walk up to a six foot two woman you're like how tall are you they're like the fuck away from me they don't want to hear that shit at all yeah they don't want to hear if you were saying. Yeah, they don't want to hear. If you were saying, you know, maybe they'd like you other than that, but they don't want to hear how tall are you from you.

I think the guy was also impressed because how many people are going to guess 6'9"? That's a weird number, right? I don't know why I said it. I just go, is this 6'9"? He points himself in the chest. This is 6'9". I'm so proud. The problem with Reggie is this is who you are. You're making a living that way.

It's kind of your whole shtick. So you kind of have to expect it and lighten up about it, I think, really, honestly. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the same way. He hated everybody asking how tall he was. Hated it. Fucking hated it. Just not into that at all. Wouldn't talk to people when they would ask him about his height.

I guess you introduce yourself with your height before your name then, right? Kind of, because that's what they're going to ask. They're all looking at you like, whoa, look at you. I'm 7'2". I'm Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. How you doing? 7'2", yeah. That year he played 39 games, 29.7 minutes a game.

So he actually had a good amount of minutes. 11 points, 10.5 rebounds off the bench. Wow. That's a fine, fine, fine season for a rookie. He's fucking 20 years old, man. That's pretty good. 21 years old. That is hot shit.

Meanwhile, his real mother, Lily Mae, is attending every Pistons game and keeping all of the scorebooks and all the programs, and she is just watching him from afar. She, he, she still hasn't approached him yet. Hasn't, they haven't talked about it yet.

He just knows he's adopted. He doesn't know by who yet. That's the thing. So Lily Mae Thomas also worked at the Sheridan Cadillac hotel where the Pistons had their main office. She just was like doing everything to be around Reggie. That's what she wanted around her son she felt bad the ball players would often stay there and eat there and she saw him there lily may saw her son there a shitload of times but would never said a word

to him just looked at him watched him is this i mean this is that it's like mrs doubtfire or some shit it's on the it's on par with stalking for sure. She's going to put on a men's suit and fucking say, I'm the new assistant general manager of the Detroit Pistons. Put on a deep voice. Hi, you must be Reggie. Ball boy job. That would be weird. I've been assigned by the Pistons to look over all your contracts.

Oh, Christ. So during one of the home games in the 64-65 season, Lily Mae finally came up and spoke to Nadine. Nadine said, quote, she had been drinking, and she came up to me. She probably had to do that to get up the guts to do this, I bet. She came up to me and said, please don't tell Reggie I'm here. I come to all the games. I'm his real mother. Don't say that second part.

I come to all the games. I'm his real mother. Now, if you're fucking his wife, you're probably like, yeah, right. He's the famous guy on the court. She's some drunk lady in the stands. How many people say they're my cousin when we go on the road you know what i mean i've had i've had a lot of cousin encounters where i'm like i don't know about that but trust the guy with the knife yeah that guy's probably

my cousin i said honestly he's carrying a steak knife and you know he's probably my cousin i'm gonna be honest here very italian from new york i think i going to believe this guy. So she then went on to say, I don't want him to know, but please do me one favor. Make sure he comes to my funeral. Not now. She's not dying. Just whenever she does die, come to the funeral. Not like because I'm going to go home and blow my brains out or anything. Nadine says she gave me her phone number in case I wanted to call.

Then she walked away. So weird. Yeah, was that – did that really happen? You'd think it was a ghost if you didn't have the phone number in your hand. So after the game, Reggie and Nadine were driving home. Reggie kept asking Nadine, who was that lady? Who was that lady you were talking to the whole game? I said, you're talking to some lady for a while.

Nadine said, I didn't tell him until i got home but i knew i had to tell him i knew he would make me tell him so i simply said she was your mother or she said she was your mother reggie um i told him not to call her but he wouldn't listen he went straight to the phone and called her that number's been disconnected for 30 years she said that uh he they talked for over an hour wow reggie wanted his to know who his real parents were so fucking bad that that's he didn't even have to think about it he grabbed the number out of her hand went right to the phone picked it up you're my mother what's up and started talking over an hour that's he's desperate at least yeah and at least she put at least she put him in a in a much better situation than she was going to be able to provide for him.

Yeah. Apparently she's doing fine now, though. It was just her family wouldn't let her keep the baby. So she said that Nadine said, I heard him say, why didn't you let me know where you were all these years? We drove over the night and then she said we drove over the next day. His mother was a very good hearted person, but she was a heavy drinker which is a problem um reggie though like never told the real uh reggie never found out who his real father was his mother lily may told relatives that his father was a married man who lived in detroit but would never tell anyone who she was um he was who he was yeah his brother robert hall this is his adopted brother here said quote reggie told me once that someone had told him he had been

shoulder to shoulder with his real father in a crap game but he didn't know for sure he used to get very angry with me and accuse me of not telling him who his father was but i didn't know my mother really never told me yeah it's the only guy that's gonna say the only guy touches your shoulder the only guy you can be shoulder to shoulder with you remember reg anybody i'm walking around with anybody within six inches of my face i'm going hey do you fuck a girl like-year-old girl in about 1941. You fuck late 41, fall of 41. How much action did you get in the fall of 41? You should have been overseas, but you were here fucking girls.

You were here. We weren't involved. No? With troops. No, we weren't. Not yet. You're right. But still, yeah, you should have been thinking about what's going to come in the future,

mister. Right. You should have known. You saw what was happening over there. You knew what was going on. God damn it. 64-65. He's playing for the Pistons.

He plays in 78 games, 34.6 minutes a game, 12 points, 11.6 rebounds. So, I mean, that's what he's doing, man. And he plays good defense. They don't have blocks yet. They didn't count them yet. So, we don't have that. But mean, that's what he's doing, man. And he plays good defense. They don't have box yet. They didn't count them yet. So we don't have that. But still, that's impressive. The NBA stats, they didn't even break it down into offensive and defensive rebounds back then. Really? The ABA was the first league to keep stats, to keep blocks, to keep steals, to keep all that shit. They were the first league to keep those stats. They probably recognize, too, that a defensive rebound is really hard to get, but an offensive rebound is so much more important. Well, yeah, that's what I mean. The guys who made the scoring sheet for the –

I read in the ABA book, the Terry Pluto book, which we'll get into in a second because there's something in there on Reggie. Loose balls, it's called, which is funny. They talk all about that. They talk about the guy who invented the score sheet for the ABA was a fan and he was annoyed that they didn't have those stats, the stats he wanted to know about. So he's like,

he goes, I want, I put all the stats I'd want to know as a fan on there. And that's what they got. And that's the modern day stat sheet. And also they invented that didn't invent it, but they made the three-pointer popular and uh yeah all that shit so nadine says quote after reggie made the professional league he felt

he was the man now and no one had the right to tell him what to do he was a very it was a very deep feeling he had he hated authority it's uh deep in his childhood that's all i could tell about it if the pistons would tell him to wear a shirt and tie he would show up in a turtleneck it was more than that too he'll do this his whole career quote all those other guys had been to college and Reggie kept harping

on that that they thought they were better than he was after the games he would cry sometimes and say quote I just don't belong and he would go back to the pool hall with the guys and stay out all night with them. They were the guys he grew up with. He felt he was going to the top and he would take them with him. So they made him feel better because he felt he was better than them.

That's what it was. Which is bizarre because now, like I guess not now because they don't go into MBA without college, I guess not now because they don't go into an MBA without college. But the ones that came in right out of high school were like so much better than everybody else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Phenoms. When did that change? I guess with Kevin Garnett probably, huh?

Well, yeah, a lot of guys who weren't as great. No, because they were both the fucking exceptions, though. They were great. They were fucking good. They were ready. I mean, you know. the fucking exceptions though they were great yeah yeah they were fucking good they were ready i mean very few came into the league right out of right out of high school that weren't fucking incredible yeah and then because that yeah you'd have no chance of getting drafted otherwise you know kobe sucked his first couple years he was a great athletic player but he

couldn't shoot he was a mess all over the place they used to fucking he's a bench player yeah he was a bench player they you know the team him. He was an embarrassment to the team. And then they knew he was going to be good, though. He was 17, for Christ's sake. So why not? So she said that, yeah, he was upset about that. He didn't like that they didn't like him. One guy here, Edward Bell, who was an attorney for he worked for for Harding as an attorney.

And later on, he'll become a judge. And he's Reggie's legal advisor. He said none of the other players on the team had any use for him. He told me that when games were over, he would overhear the players talking about whose house they were going to. And he said they never said anything to him about it. And so he went out with his friends. I told him again and again that if these people were really his friends, they would not want him to go to blind pigs and places like that with them. Blind pig is like a drug house, basically, from what I understand, because they use the term blind pig a million times. That's like a hangout, an after hours, not legal business, drug house, kind of a deal like that.

I'm not fascinated with this slang term. Blind pig. Yeah, I think it's like an illegal after-hours joint kind of a thing. So Dave DeBuscher said no one on the team became very close to him. Most of the guys were extremely uneasy around Reggie because you never knew what he was going to do. I don't think he knew himself. The guys didn't want to get mixed up in anything that would influence their careers,

and Reggie didn't seem to care about that. They said that he played less and less. They said that whenever Wilt Chamberlain came to town, Reggie would stand up near the end of the bench and scream at him. So you think you're the big man? Well, when I get in there, I'll show you who is big. I'll kick your ass.

So he would say shit like that. He had no fear. Yeah. He didn't. Darken from the bench? Yeah, just John. August 1965 through September 1965, there's a month in here where he's arrested twice in a month. Oh, no.

This isn't good here. Okay, here's August 65. Oh, no. This isn't good here. Okay, here's August 65. Patrolman James Coffin and James Langsfeld said they found the – Jesus. They found Reggie parked in a no-standing zone during morning rush hour traffic in Detroit. They said while they were writing out a ticket in their car, Harding left his car, came back to their car, and started arguing on the driver's side and was blocking another lane of traffic because he's just standing

in the road and he's this giant guy and cars are just stopping. Now you're blocking another thoroughfare. So the patrolman said they asked Harding to move to the sidewalk so traffic can get by, but he replied, quote, put me out of the damn street. Like, come do it if you can do it. So Coffin, Officer Coffin, said he got out of the car and approached Harding. And Reggie hit him in the forehead and knocked his uniform cap off. He just slapped his hat off his fucking head, which I think is fucking, wow.

It's pretty good. So Lengsfeld radioed for help because, you know, this guy's enormous. Six cars respond to the call. Once all the other cars showed up, Reggie didn't make any resistance and just surrendered, and that was that. So he's charged with assault and battery and released on $500 bond there. Not great. By the way, this all happened after it was the morning rush hour, but he wasn't out in morning rush hour. He was leaving a bar.

That's why his car was parked there. Oh, my God. His car was parked there because he was leaving an after hours joint where he had been drinking the entire night. Until rush hour. Hanging out. Until rush hour in the morning. When he parked there, it wasn't a problem. Right.

But once morning came around, can't park there. So, yeah, it was his prized 64 Thunderbird. That was his ride. He loved it. If you put a scratch on it, he'll kill you. Tail lights on that car. So how does he fit in that? 64 T-Bird.

Don't know. Convertible maybe? It's all I could think. It's got to be. It's got to be sticking out of the top. So he got into that was yeah he got into the argument and um the pistons give him a fine they give him a two thousand dollar fine which is the highest in nba history at that point yeah it's huge i mean christ it's a big chunk of

his contract that'd be like someone getting fined you know half a million dollars now or three million dollars or whatever the fuck people are getting paid. So he's convicted of felonious assault of a police officer, even though their officer testified that Reggie didn't hurt him. He just knocked his hat off. He's still given that. He is given a suspended sentence. Nothing, just suspended sentence. I don't know what it is.

It's from 60 years ago, but a suspended sentence. I don't know what it is. It's from 60 years ago, but a suspended sentence. And he made the whole week – he spent the whole week making public apologies and telling people he's going to be better. He's going to concentrate on basketball. His lawyer said he would come in here and I would talk to him and I would tell him that if he wanted to make it big, he'd have to stay out of trouble and stay out of those places. I told him he could possibly make $100,000 a year if he took care of himself. And he would say, quote, I can dig it, man. I can dig it. But nobody could tell him anything. There was something missing that he seemed to be looking for. God, I love that phrase. What? I dig it. I can dig it, man. I like that, too. It's good shit. The Pistons executive manager, Don Watrick, said, we cannot prejudge the case and we will wait until we see what the court does. That's what they said before he got the fine, which is hilarious. It's early silver. There's what that is. Very early silver. He is suspended from the Pistons in 66. Uh, so they're going to suspend him the whole next year.

Uh, once he gets suspended and find at the end of this year, he ends up just hanging out at these after hours joints with his buddies all night. So then he started hanging around some dope houses too, because he starts to get hooked on heroin during his suspension. Wow. Yeah.

Later on. Um, so he's a fucking mess basically that he would go to the he would go to the dope house and when or one of these after hours joints and when people would hear he was there more people would show up yeah so what happened big business exactly so they had the these places started giving having a girl pick him up and bring him there, give him his first fix when he was drunk. That's how they got him involved in it.

And they said then they would give him all the free heroin he wanted as long as he'd come shoot it there because then other people would come too to shoot heroin with Reggie. I guess that's a good business deal because there's only so much heroin you can take. But it's the same thing. It's paying while Bill Hickok to play poker here. Yeah. That's all. You're a draw.

Yeah. You know, instead of having a comic, they had him. That's all. They're not moving my ties. They're moving heroin. Yeah. It's the same same principle, though. Nadine said, quote, He came home one day with blood dripping down his arm.

I didn't know anything about dope. I was brought up real strict, and when Reggie said something about a blood test, I believed him. The next night, the other arm was bleeding. I didn't believe him after that, but I was afraid to ask him about it. I didn't want to know. He's doing so much heroin. He's coming home. He's still bleeding?

He's coming home with open wounds. Holy shit. Holy fuck, man. Either way, he gets the suspension lifted. The team lifts the suspension, and they're going to bring him back in. They said that he's going to have good behavior now. He's good now. Except for all the vomiting he's doing.

He's doing well. And then he gets arrested again this is all good he apologized put it all behind him and then he and 27 other people were arrested in a raid less than 8 hours before he was supposed to join his teammates for physical exams

prior to the first day of Piston's practice where'd they find him at a stink pig? yeah a blind pig he Yeah, a blind pig. Yeah. He's at a fucking, he's at a shooting gallery is what this is. He's at a shooting gallery the morning of the first day of Pistons practice of that year. Idiot. So he clearly didn't learn shit is what he did.

That's ridiculous. He was getting fucking high for that. People are freaking out at this point they're losing their fucking minds they're like he's a mess how do we even have this guy he's short charged with loitering and then he's released on a 25 bond because it's just loitering but uh it's adding up though and uh the pistons general manager then said he'll be on our suspended list and it could last forever or a year you've got to be so frustrated with him by that fuck yeah he said Reggie caused his

own suspension because on Friday he made apologies to everyone through his attorney and he was fined two thousand dollars which was an irrevocable fine he and his attorney said Reggie would never run into any trouble with the law or courts and if he did it would call for immediate suspension the length of the suspension was never discussed by myself our coach or our owner he just made the apology hours before this happened so this is a fucking disaster this is a mess Dave DeBuscher they're asking his teammates Dave DeBuscher who's the star here and also the player coach now he said I like him I really do he's a very coachable ball player he always did

what I told him to do but now I'm finished with him I don't know how Mr. Zollner feels who's the owner but as long as I coach the Pistons Reggie Harding will never play another game for this team well Jesus Dave only coached that one year, so that didn't matter really anymore. He said, quote, I mean, this is just ridiculous, to Buescher goes on. Just 36 hours after he gives us an apology, he's caught in a blind pig at 4.30 in the morning. They really love that term. That must have been just everywhere. You got to know what a blind pig is though be caught in a blind pig sounds like you're raping yeah at 4 30 in the morning raping a disabled pig at 4 30 a.m he got up early to the blind pig is kept in a small pen and he got up at 4 30 in the morning to go just have its way with

it while the other pigs squealed and howled because at 4 30 in the morning that pig thinks it's just being fed yeah it doesn't really it gets excited when you come and next thing you know boom he said so excited when you come when you isn't very much less excited than the bush said even if he wasn't doing anything even if he was just sitting there what kind of business is this to be out at that hour when you've got a report for a physical at 10.30 the next morning? He said, listen, I don't want to play warden. If my guys want to have a little fun, okay.

I like a few beers myself. I like a little fun, but you've also got to realize where your responsibilities are. What must the young kids think when they read all this stuff about Reggie? I'm sorry, but I'm through with him. What must the kids think? They must think the NBA is a party

weird right geez so yeah by the way when they finally resolved the gun with the bouncer thing he had one of those guns one of those lighters that looks exactly like a gun and then you pull the trigger and it fucking has a thing so yeah but they

still acquitted him of it because he didn't actually have a gun okay which is interesting um nadine says they start to grow apart at this point yeah i wonder why he's out all night he's on heroin he's got blood dripping out of his arms for no reason she said coming home rotating bleeding arms fuck man he'd go out to the pool halls or the streets and hang around with the guys that she didn't like. And then he'd come home at four in the morning and expect her to get up and cook him something. At four in the morning. Hey, baby, covering up his wounded, bleeding arms. Baby, wake up.

I'm hungry. Are you out of your fucking mind? She probably wouldn't have cared so much if you didn't wake her up. If you just went to sleep and got up the next morning, she probably wouldn't have cared. Holding a dirty sock to the middle of your arm baby her wedding dress just baby i'm just using it to sop up my my fucking junk blood here wake up i want waffles oh man holy shit baby wake up i I'm thinking about a Denver omelet. You know how to make one of those?

I heard other guys talking about it. She said, I was always supposed to be waiting for him regardless, and I got tired of him not being around. So what she did is she took their two small children, which are Reggie Jr. This is Reggie Jr. and their other child, and moved out while Reggie was on a road trip he went on the road and she just did that he found her somewhere yeah i don't know what he was just out he found her and in her words quote he just sat there and refused to leave until i promised to get back together with him he missed his plane and game and he was fine five hundred dollars he told them he fell asleep but he was here with us he's his plane and game and he was fine five hundred dollars he told them he fell asleep but he was here with us he's playing for somebody one thing you have to understand about

reggie this is bill or bill irvin here he loved his kids but he hated to admit that on the street he hated to admit on the streets that he loved a woman he loved nadine since he was in high school but in his words that was not cool to admit that to let other people know that what you were like soft considered you're yeah you're a pussy then if you're like some woman you love this woman we love this woman you're not supposed to love a woman you love a car jimmy you love a you love a woman that sounds kind of gay you love the you love the you love the way a fender bends you know what I mean you like that you don't like the curve of a woman's thigh and ass nobody wants that

Jesus Reggie what are you fucking gay or something this guy's super gay he's always talking about how he wants to fuck his wife what a complete fucking this guy's gay he doesn't even want to come hang out with all the rest of the guys till four in the morning he's talking about feeling his wife's tits like it's gay, right?

I think he wants. Yeah, he wants to blow guys. That must be what it is. That's bizarre. It's strange. It's a strange thing. Yeah. Feelings and shit.

So Irvin said he was in my barbershop one day and he found out Nadine said she was going to divorce him and he sat down and cried. He cried like a baby because he thought he wouldn't have his family anymore. So he kept going back to Bill Irvin and hanging out with him and asking him for advice. That's funny because a lot of these guys, like, separate once they're big time from anybody who thinks they're, you know, whatever. So 1965, Nadine has left him. She's not coming back for now. The article title in the paper here, the Detroit Free Press, is Reggie's in hot water. That's not good.

A circuit court judge orders the arrest of Reggie Harding because he is overdue in child support payments. He issued an attachment that when Reggie Harding failed to appear to explain why he was in arrears of $4,040, which is a shitload back then, in support payments, he was ordered to pay $40 a week for each of his two children after that. And that's what he said. A friend of the court here, a friend of the court records, showed Reggie paid $40 on January 13th but made no other payments. Under the attachment order, deputy sheriffs will be sent out to find Harding

and bring him before the court for an explanation. If the court is not in session when the order is served on Harding, he could spend a night in jail waiting for it. So, yeah, there you go. That's what Reggie's up to, fucking running from his wife for child support. He's suspended by the Pistonsons this season, so he gets a job at a tuxedo rental place. Broadway Clothes he gets a job at. Genius pun.

I like it. Yeah, it's pretty good stuff here. That's a pun on Broadway Joe, right? Or is it not? No, Broadway Clothes, 1965 Or is it not? Broadway clothes. 1965, Detroit. Maybe? No?

Maybe. It's probably just on Broadway, and they have clothes because they sell. I think it's an older place, too. Okay. So they said that they're trying to help Reggie get his life together by making him work at a clothes store. Not making him, but hiring him. The guy who owns it said when he first came here, he was impossible.

He'd show up late. He'd leave early. He'd spend hours on the phone. The other merchants told me I was crazy to hire him, but I've known Reggie a long time and I know he needs help. They want to help him. So they said they're going to help him. They're going to bring him in.

And they say that he does very well. He can't even afford his car at this point because he had to pay the child support. So he rides the bus to work every day. Oh, shit. He was playing for the Pistons like three months ago. Yeah. Now he's riding the bus to take, you know. Now he's Will Smith in the pursuit of happiness.

It's fucking wild. They said he's got everything else is gone. They said, you know, he shows up for work. He stays until 7 o'clock. He makes some good sales. One week he made $125. That's not bad. He was doing something.

Jarrett helped him. This is the owner of the store. He said he helped him do something new with his life too. The big thing is was get a bank account. He doesn't have a bank account. He doesn't have a bank account. No, he doesn't have shit. So every Friday, he

takes $12 out of Reggie's paycheck and puts it in the bank for him. So he's got like, he's making him a savings program here. Jared said it's not much, but it's the beginning. So Harding was there. He's in a, an olive suit and an open collar shirt.

And they said that, uh, Jared said, quote, I know Reggie's been in plenty of trouble and I know he said, sorry, over and over again, but now I think Reggie is beginning to see the light because he knows what it

is to be poor. He's good now. It's all it was. He's got a taste. That's it. It's a rough rough life this is what it's like you want to do this forever every fucking day chief every day he said let's face it back on the bus let's face it this will straighten him out more than anything else when he quit playing basketball he found out he could count his friends on one finger and he says that it's his middle finger too which makes it even worse god damn it that stings that

stings on one outstretched middle finger they said he still retains some arrogance but it's not offensive they said um they said you know it's just the way he is he does say he misses playing basketball reggie said it's a part of me i I've still got the ability, and they can't take that away from me. He's only 24 years old. You should still have the ability. Most guys aren't even in the fucking league until a year and a half ago. Right. This is a rookie year.

He's still at the beginning of his career. If you've already lost your ability, that's a big problem. That's fucking wild. So Reggie reggie said one conviction that's all one conviction that's all he got so far it's only been convicted once he said and the judge suspended the sentence what kind of conviction is that he's like that ain't even a real conviction right he says when i played for the pistons i didn't uh i didn't do the job for them on the floor get that on the floor uh my leisure time was my own. They didn't raise me. They didn't put me to bed at night.

They didn't own me. And what did I do to the NBA? Did I bet on games or something? No. He said, not at all. Bullshit. So he's really pissed off. He said he wrote to the commissioner of the league

asking him what steps he should take for reinstatement. And Reggie said he wrote back to me saying he needed more information, like a police record, if any. He said he said if any like he doesn't know that's what he said so then his boss breaks in and says let me say this for Reggie he's going to speak for him now Reggie's really good he's going off the path like uh let's keep him where we we had a good statement going he's not running for office anytime soon I hope no okay good he said let me say this for Reggie he's not running for office anytime soon i hope no okay good so let me say this for reggie he's really trying to do a job in the store he swabs the floors and washes the windows just like the rest of us last weekend i was really proud of the way he worked with the

customers he was a real champion except he made 125 and isn't famous anymore so goddamn champion yeah he said that harding also at Jarrett's suggestion will spend one night a week as a big brother taking some underprivileged kids out for the week out for an evening that's nice his boss says Reggie just got in with the wrong crowd he said that's all it is it's it man he said I

suggest oh that's right the phone rings Reggie answers it and Reggie he hears Reggie on the phone saying well I'd suggest to bring it back to us sir and we'll fix it i think it's better to show me what's wrong instead of telling me so he's like come on in and show us what it is so there you go that's what reggie's up to doesn't play at all in the 65 66 season because he's suspended everything he's fucked basically he's 20 fucking three years old and pretty much washed out at this point. The Pistons still have his contract, but what the fuck is he going to do? He doesn't know what to do with himself.

He goes to work. He comes home. His wife left him. He's got nothing. His outfits are looking good from work at that place. He's starting to look stylish and fashionable. But one day he's sitting at home. He's trying to figure it all out, Jimmy. He's starting to look stylish and fashionable. But one day he's sitting at home. He's trying to figure it all out, Jimmy.

He's trying to figure it out. He can't understand how to get his life back on track. How do I get my woman back? How do I get back in the league? How do I get my Thunderbird back on the road? What do I do? And what do you know? There's a knock on the door.

And it might be a man who has answers for everything. It's Dexter Man manly interior designer from new york city maybe he can help him with a design his life and he says how is it you've come to arrive here oh my god what is what is your problem seriously dude like you're you're a majestic You're a majestic man. I'm just going to say it. Look at you. You're tall.

You're striking. You have good clothes on. And you're taking it and you're ruining it. You're taking it. You've taken it. You've put it in the toilet bowl. And then you watched it for a minute. Just collect water and swell up like a sponge.

And then you flushed it. You gave it a chance to soak up just so you couldn't save it. And then flushed it your whole life. You're sad. You're sad. You're a sad man. And you know what else you are, sir? You're white trash.

I'm sorry. That's what it is. This is all white trash. It's happening. You're knocking hats off of policemen's heads. Little silly hats. That's crazy. Young girls. Might as well be your cousin. It's like West

Virginia over here. I can't even stop with this. It's crazy. I had to physically restrain Vince McMahon from coming in here and being in love with you. He loves you. Oh my God. When you're done with basketball, huge career. Huge. Oh my God. He loves you. Oh my God. When you're done with basketball, huge career. Huge. Oh my God. He loves you.

You're going to be the giant. It's going to be beautiful. Stop. Stop. Stop being white trash. Stop now, please. Poof. In a poof of boas and feathers and everything else. Reggie's very confused,

but he also liked the outfit that Dexter was wearing and he wanted to talk to him about it. He thinks he could have sold him something maybe that would have fit his taste a little more. So he wants a comeback come the offseason, Reggie. And they said, would you play outside the NBA? This is an interview with him. And he says, well, I might play if the price is right.

Basketball's my living. He said, would you play with the Harlem Globe Trotters? And he said, sure, but I would make that my last resort. Because that's not competitive. They said, what if you hear nothing from the Pistons or the league by the time the next season rolls around? He said, I'll probably go with the Trotters. They said, have you talked to the Trotters?

And he said, no. I'm going to just go over there and tell them I'm going to play. Go knock on the door, put a uniform on. He said, if the Pistons or the league don't reinstate you or you have your attorneys have any court action. And he said, I could take some legal action if it came to that. I would think I think I would have some grounds. You've been asking me questions. Let me ask you one.

questions let me ask you one do you think my being in a place of illegal occupation blind pig was bad enough to stop me from playing pro basketball for good and the reporter says no but don't you think that you've been involved with the police more times than any other basketball player and that should have some bearing on your case also like no one else gets in trouble like this but there's no jr rider in the league he the league. He is J.R. Ryder. You're it. He's everybody rolled up into one. He said, no, I haven't done any worse things than a lot of players. I've just been caught more times.

That's a fucking classic line right there. I haven't done any of the shit that everybody else doesn't. Everybody else does that. I've just been caught more times. I'm the dumbest is what he just said. Everybody else is inside these pigs, too. I'm just dumbest is what he just said. Everybody else is inside these pigs too. I'm just the least careful person in the NBA. That's all.

I just like to do it out in the open. He said, no, maybe that's not right. It's been publicized more. I have no criminal offenses except for one assaulting a police officer. Also rape and stealing a car. And then they said they didn't think that this was just. Sometimes I get involved in things. And if you did them,

the police wouldn't do anything. If you like you, the reporter. But he said that he said, but he spits on the sidewalk and there you go. He's fucked. That's how it works here. He said,

there's also football players in Detroit who've done a whole lot of things wrong, but they still play football. To me, they've done far worse things than I have. Yeah. So they said, since you've been in the NBA, what incidents have you been involved in? And he said, assaulting a police officer and the blind pig case. They said, was the blind pig incident the one that got you suspended from pro basketball? Reggie says, yes, but I don't think I did anything to hurt the ball club or the association because

this was on my own time. I wasn't supposed to be in training camp until the next morning. I had like six hours to go. Are you kidding me? Literally. He said, so I go out and had a drink, and now they say I broke the law like I was going to kill somebody. Understand, this is the way they try to treat me. When I'm playing basketball for those people, I play ball,

but when I'm not, I should be able to do what I want within reason. And they said, would you say you're trouble prone based on all the run-ins with the police? He said, quote, I just lead an average life. Average? Average. I'm not trouble prone. It's just me being who I am and I've been involved in a lot of things. Just your average seven foot tall kid raping, fuck up, fucking police assaulting, idiot, career blowing dipshit. Just me.

They said, do you mean because of your prominence? And he said, yes. Other guys know I've been in just as much trouble. Other guys I know have been in just as much trouble, but it's not. It's just not as publicized. They said, do you think you've had unfair treatment in the press? He said to a degree, why is it that every time my main name is mentioned, the press reaches back five, 10 years to get something out of my past? It's not 10 years, by the way, you were 13, 10 years ago. Um, things I did when I was a kid, it would be

different if I had to serve 10 years in the penitentiary for murder or something like that. And they said, do you think Detroit police keep an eye out for you? He said, well, let me put it like this. I'm sort of conspicuous. I can't hide. They know me when they see me. That's probably true. It's a great point. And at that size and when you know that with that self-awareness, why would you do anything? Yeah. And be anywhere that's bad then the guy said since most of your trouble has occurred on the east side do you think it would be it would help if you stayed away from that part of detroit great question that's a good he said i think it might in a way but all my friends are on the east side i was raised on the east side i was just one of the neighborhood fellas well

you're gonna continue to be one of the neighborhood fellas instead of an nba fucking superstar if you keep hanging out there. He said, because I had talent to play basketball, this is supposed to take the rest of my life from me? This is supposed to make a new man of me? It's a choice you have to make. Yeah. Yes. Concentrate on this or you can get with this or you can get with that, is the song fucking said.

So there you go. Yeah, that's what it is. I mean, that's it. He said like it i like it i like living good i like money in my pocket driving nice cars but that's not going to make me tell you to heck with you you're not in my category anymore i feel this makes more enemies than friends i feel this way if i can make a success out of my life and still be able to reach my friends who didn't make it, that's good. The only way I can do this is to be back with them, which means going back to the east side, I'm respected there. They said, do you live on the east side now?

He said, no, I live in a downtown hotel. Oh, my God. They said, will it hurt you to sit out a year? He said, I think it'd be better. I've actually lost some weight. And they said, how much did it cost you? And he said, quite a bit in the neighborhood of $18,000 a year. What do you do now?

I sell clothes a couple days a week. It hurt me quite a bit financially and a lot of other ways too. They said, what do you do with your spare time? Oh, shoot heroin, hang out. He said, nothing much. I get out and do some calisthenics to try and stay in shape. And they said, are there centers better than you in the NBA? And he said, well, I don't want to rank the centers,

but Wilt Chamberlain quite naturally. And then they said, and Bill Russell? And he said, only to a degree. I could use my weight against Russell, but not against Chamberlain. There's nobody like him. They said, do you think that this year you sat out, the year you sat out is penalty enough? And he said, yes, everything must have discipline, but I accepted it. And there you go.

He said, if I get the chance to play basketball again, I'm going to show everybody what's up. There you go. So he tells everybody that he's trying to get his rhythm back. He's off heroin now. He's trying to get his rhythm back. He's off heroin now. He's trying to get his rhythm back, as you say, and trying to get into it. And for the next season, Detroit's going to let him come back. Nadine said he had a lot of those white pills around.

I didn't know they were methadone until years later. Oh, he's trying to clean up. Yeah, he's on methadone. He was taking methadone while he's playing for the Pistons. I believe he was taking some heroin, too. Yeah, he's chipping. He's He was taking methadone while he's playing for the Pistons. I believe he was taking some heroin, too. Yeah, he's chipping. He's definitely fucking chipping, probably. But I can't be sure.

So they said, yeah, 66, 67. He played in 74 games. Only 18.5 minutes a game. So basically cut in half from 64, 65. 5.5 points, 6.1 rebounds. So he's getting worse now. so october 2nd 1967 the beginning of the before the next season he's traded by the pistons to the bulls oh the new chicago bulls for a third round draft pick so that's what he's worth now a third round draft pick yeah um yeah he won't play well for Chicago.

He will fly back to Detroit two or three times a week to buy heroin. Cause he doesn't know where to get it in Chicago. So he just flies back to Detroit. Just goes home, flies back. During this time, he's playing in Chicago. Fannie Harding,

his adoptive mother dies of a heart attack. Oh no. Yup. He goes to, he's granted a leave's granted a leave to go to her funeral, and he overstays his leave, doesn't come back, and is suspended. Literally ties one on. Yep, is suspended by the Bulls and then eventually just dropped by the Bulls midseason. And then on January 19, 1968, he signs a contract with the Indiana Pacers of the ABA. Is that right?

Absolutely. If you don't know anything about the ABA, the Pacers are, they were the gold standard franchise of the ABA. They were known as the Celtics of the ABA. Just because they were so consistent. They were well run. A lot of these teams were run

very shittily by people that never were involved in basketball or people that were very undercapitalized that didn't know how to do things. This was like the best run organization in basketball in the ABA for the whole existence of the ABA. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, absolutely. They were huge. That's why they were one of the teams that came in, them and the Spurs and all that.

I don't know where they got their name pacer the pacers yeah i i think it's the indiana 500 pace car oh yeah i bet you're right yeah yeah it has to do with the race i'm pretty sure yep so here is from terry pluto's loose balls book here is the description of getting reggie harding on the ABA. It's fucking incredible. It's one of the greatest stories ever. So Mike Storen is the guy who's, he's like the team executive who's signing people. He says this, quote,

with about 30 games left in that first season, we were desperate for size. Our starting center was Bob Nedalicki, who was really more of a forward, but it didn't matter what he was best suited to play because Nedal wasn't playing at all. He had the mumps. We sign a guy and he gets a child's disease. The what?

The mumps. He had the mumps. He had giant cheeks. Yeah. I've only seen that. Yeah. I've only seen it in cartoon books. Yeah, because they had shots for it, so it didn't exist the entire time that we were children.

It was nothing. It was a joke. It existed before that, and now because people are fucking stupid. So... Fucking dummies. He had the mumps. He gets a child's disease. His backup was George Peoples, one of the all-time great guys,

but his shooting range was about three inches, and he only shot 40% from there. That's a terrible review. That's not good. That hurts. Earlier he was saying he could jump over the rim, but he'd miss these giant dunks and the ball would fly off. And he was so afraid the first game of the ABA season, it would be an embarrassment because it would just be george people's missing dunks all game and he's like oh god no one's gonna come watch this hilarious i'd watch that sounds like way better than a game where everybody's doing

well one guy who plays above the rim and just misses dunks all game that'd be awesome when was the last time you got to go to a professional game and laugh for four quarters oh that'd be the best give it to give it to him come on give it to people's he said so we had to do something i heard about reggie harding you don't think about signing a guy like reggie harding unless you're desperate and we were harding had been with several nba teams and kept getting cut or traded because the guy was a big problem. One GM told me he was seven feet of trouble. But I needed a seven-footer, and he was the only one available, and that was because he'd just gotten out of jail. So that's how this starts.

Like the replacements or something. Like, you gotta go get him. He said, we contacted Reggie, and we were supposed to meet him at the Indianapolis airport at 5 a.m. Dick Tinkham and I were waiting for him. That's another executive from the team. And when he got off the plane, Reggie was wearing a long black coat that was about six sizes too small.

He had a pair of tennis shoes slung over his shoulder, tied together by the laces. He thinks he's going to play at the Sandlot right now. Like, yeah, I'm just going to go hop on the court. Tinkham and I were sitting there in our coats and ties all proper. And Reggie was looking like a guy who just got out of jail. She was,

he was this huge creature. And at five in the morning, it seemed like we were the only people in the airport. Our team was leaving on a road trip at 9.30 that morning, so we wanted to get Reggie signed fast and get him on that plane with the team. Dick Tinkham says, quote, Reggie Harding was the biggest guy I'd ever seen. Most of our guys were 6'8 or under. Maybe one or two guys in the league were really 7'. Getting off the plane, Reggie looked awful,

as if he had just had to run the obstacle course at Parris Island. We sat down in a booth at the airport coffee shop. Storen was going on and on about what a great franchise we had and what great basketball town Indianapolis is and how great the ABA was going to be. You know, you've heard it before. Everything is great. Reggie was paying absolutely no attention.

He was looking at the ceiling, staring at his fingernails, doing anything he could so he wouldn't have to listen to Storen. Reggie said, man, when you get to the money, let me know, all right? Don't give a fuck. I'm going to sit here and let you guys bullshit, and when we want to talk dollars, holler at me. I don't give a fuck how good the league is. Can you pay me or not? Yeah, let me know when we get to that point.

I'm going to be over here. Tinkham said, Mike, I think he wants to hear the offer. Mike said, half the season is over. We're prepared to give you $10,000 for the rest of the year, 30 games. So Reggie said, my man, if you wanted to buy a Cadillac, would you just take enough money to buy a Chevy? You buying an Impala or a Coupe de Ville? Come on, man.

He said, Reggie said he had a plane ticket back to Detroit and he was going to get on it. I knew we had to do something. Meanwhile, he's got nothing going for him. He goes back to Detroit. He's going to work at the clothes shop. So they had no idea how much leverage they actually had. Trying to buy a Versace or a Hugo.

Let's talk. What you want, man? Not even polo. Not even polo. It's polo club. It's Beverly Hills polo club. They sell that shit. No, I ain't polo.

Reggie said he had a plane ticket back to Detroit. He's doing that. We had to do something. Nettleick said he had a plane ticket back to Detroit. He's doing that. We had to do something. That'll like he had the mumps. We were getting our brains beaten out every night. And if Reggie walked out, it was just going to get worse. I said,

Mike, why don't you go see if you can hold Reggie's plane for a few minutes? Mike took the clue and left. I said, Reggie, take this pen and piece of paper and write down what you want for the rest of the year. Okay. He took the paper and pen and he wrote paper and write down what you want for the rest of the year. Okay?

He took the paper and pen and he wrote down $15,000. Okay. I said, quote, okay, here's how you can get that money. By the way, that's when you know you're getting fucked when someone says that. Here's how it's possible. When you got off that plane, you said we'd win the ABA title if we signed you, right? And Reggie said, piece of cake, man. Just no problem.

I'll dominate. I said, well, here is what we'll do. We had 30 regular season games left and about 20 in the playoffs if we were to win the title. I said, that's 50 games, okay? We'll pay you $300 a game. Okay. We'll pay you $300 a game. Okay. And if the Pacers win it all, that's 50 games and you'll get your $15,000. If we win it all, if, if, if, if, if. A lot of ifs tied to that. We'll pay you $300 a game, win or lose, if we win. Yes. $300 a game no matter what. But if we win it all, like you say we're going to, you'll make the money you say you want. So you got to do what you got to do. Reggie said, does that add up?

And I assure, I assured him that he did and he signed it. He didn't do three times five very well. Is that the right math? Remember? He's a brat. He's always spoiled. Does that add up?

And then he signed it. I assured him that up? And then he signed it. I assured him that it did, and he signed it. That is fantastic. I love that more than anything. So funny. So he signs this contract for $300 a game. Mike Storen says, quote, The contract Tinkham gave Reggie was unbelievable. It was all incentives based on how many games we played, how far we went in the playoffs.

Nobody should ever agree to a contract like that. He should have just taken the 10 grand we offered him. So we got the deal done, and then I sent Reggie out with our trainer. Our team all wore suits and ties on the road. Reggie said he didn't have one, so I sent our trainer out to buy him one. We got Reggie some clothes, got him on the road reggie said he didn't have one so i sent our trainer out to buy him one we got reggie some clothes got him on the plane i told larry staverman which is the coach um he was remember he was drafted too yeah he was earlier yeah now he's a coach by now uh if reggie that was fast

if reggie doesn't comply with the rules he doesn't play that's what they said that night about six the phone rang in my kitchen it was staverman saying that Reggie refused to wear a coat and tie to the game. Remember what the wife said, too? He told Reggie that he wasn't going to play, but Reggie just put on his game uniform and said he was playing. I said, Larry, tell that son of a bitch that he's not playing. Go back in there and tell him that. I could see that Staverman was scared to death of Reggie Harding. I'm not telling him.

You tell him. You fucking tell him that. It was just one problem after another with the guy. He wouldn't go to practice. He was late for team flights. Once he said he had to leave the team to go to his daughter's funeral, which we fell for, hook, line, and sinker. Of course, he didn't have a daughter. He actually did have a daughter. Her name's rachel but she's definitely not dead not dead he said that i have

to go to my daughter's funeral that was his lie that he told not a bad lie uh poor little poor little regina yeah if you're looking people just to blind faith believe you, there it is. I mean, they can't say you're full of shit. It actually is true. But, yeah, poor little Regina. She had to go down. On the road, this is a crazy story. On the road, we had a roving roommate system so clicks wouldn't form on the team.

So you have different roommates all the time. The Pacers were playing in New Orleans and one of our best shooters, Jim Ryle, Ryle, R-A-Y-L, went one for 14 from the field. Oh, shit. I told my wife, that damn Ryle was probably out all night in the French Quarter. When he gets home from this trip, I'm going to kill him. So they were pissed off. The team's

pissed off. Ryle was one of those high-energy guys who never stood still. The players called him Tweety Bird. That was his name. That was the equivalent of being like, you know, meth tweaker. Like that was 60s tweaker, Tweety Bird. The guy that's everywhere. Rail told me, you know, they yelled at him and Rail told me it was midnight.

I was in bed and the lights were out. I heard Reggie come in because they said he called him into his office and he said, Mike, you don't understand. I was rooming with Reggie. And he's like, what the fuck does that have to do with anything? And he said it was midnight. I was in bed. The lights were out. I heard Reggie come in and I heard him going around the room.

It was still dark. Then I heard him close to me. He turned on the light and there was Reggie standing by my bed holding a gun to my head. He said, Tweety Bird, I hear you hate N-words, but obviously he said it. Oh, my God. Yeah, midnight, you wake up to a seven-foot-tall lunatic Reggie Harding on God knows what. Only God accusing you of being a horrible racist. Rel said he didn't.

Oh, no, no. Yeah. Au contraire,'t. Oh, no, no. Au contraire, sir. Oh, somebody lied to you. Oh, boy, did they lie hard. And he kept talking to Reggie and finally got Reggie to hand over the gun. When Reggie did,

Rail took all of the bullets out and said, Reggie, let's go to bed now. We've got a game tomorrow. What do you say? Let's just fucking not shoot each other, how about that rail turned out the lights and then he heard reggie getting up and moving around the room rail turned the

lights back on and there was reggie pointing the gun at him again reggie said you don't think i only had six shells did you oh my god jesus christ let me ask you what do you do at that moment in time? After I shit. Oh, you clean the shit up from your pants somewhere else, but you get your shit and get out of there, right? Yeah, I'll take my shit with me, yeah. He said, Rell grabbed some clothes, walked out of the room, and spent the rest of the night sitting up in the hotel lobby. He said, quote, and that's why I was one for 14, Rael told me.

It was always something, and by the end of the regular season, Reggie had been fined so much that he actually owed us about $4,000. He didn't even, he just never made a dime. We had suspended him for the playoffs.

The final straw came down to when he was interviewed on television and he said that the pacers would have won if he played reggie also said and if i had a gun i'd shoot mike starren oh my god who's the guy who's fucking signed him right um there's a lot of people that say they probably would have won the championship that year if reggie harding wasn't suspended because he actually will talk about he is a force on the court um store and said man that got to me i started thinking that that guy really did want to shoot me he could i knew damn well that he did have a gun yeah um he said but he just disappeared and never played pro ball again which is the absolute absolute fact um dick tinkham said when the season was over, Mike and I sat down

and said we had to get a center, a real center, not Reggie Harding. What the fuck? He just threw it all away? The Pacers lost to the Pittsburgh Pipers. They were swept in the first round of the playoffs that year, and they said they had the squad. They thought they could have done it. He averaged in 25 games with the Pacers, 33.6 minutes.

And he averaged 13.4 points and 13.4 rebounds. Oh, my God. That's fucking good. Yeah. That's the type of thing that's the difference between winning and losing. Yeah. 13 point fucking 13 and a half rebounds a goddamn game. Why did he do that?

That's crazy. He's on drugs. He's a fuck up. Can't get out of his own way. Nope. He's crazy he just he's on drugs he's a fuck up get out of his own way nope he's just on you know what he is he's a crime and sports subject that's why how many times we said why are they doing this this whole show is because why the fuck are they doing this everybody listening would love to be a seven foot tall person that everybody wants to watch play in the nba and you can move bill Bill Russell out of the way and fucking dunk on people everybody wants that and they get paid money and everybody loves you women want to fuck you and all

this you have it you go no absolutely not like it's a bad waffle house fucking hash brown you send it back right I'm annoyed that none of these shoes match the belts it's fuck yeah it's that old I don't know which one to eat first Right. I'm annoyed that none of these shoes match the belts.

Yeah. It's that old, I don't know which one to eat first, fucking old Louis C.K. joke. I don't understand it. So that's what's going on. So 1968, he has to go back to Detroit. Yeah. Indianapolis, Indiana is done with him, and he's got some problems here. Let's introduce Robert Stodgehill. He's a 21-year-old person.

He tells police that he and a companion were walking on Belvedere near Verner at about 1225 a.m. when a man approached them with a revolver and said, this is a holdup. Okay. approached them with a revolver and said, this is a holdup. Okay. The gunman took $28 from Stodge Hill and $4 from his companion, Anthony Shellman. Stodge Hill said the gunman was black

and about seven feet tall. I wonder who it was. So, not a lot of seven-foot-tall guys running around here. So, the police picked Harding up about 45 minutes later. They went, ooh, there's a really tall guy. I bet that's the one. And they grabbed him. I wonder if he has $32 in his pocket.

Holy fuck, yeah. I wonder if he's $32 worth of shit-faced by now. So we'll find out. So they said that, obviously, Harding has all these arrests and everything like that. So he is arrested here for this this for armed robbery, obviously. He's got a real problem with this. We'll talk about what led up to this is when he goes back to when he goes back to Detroit, it's just all heroin, which was his problem in Indianapolis as well, obviously. And Chicago was all this heroin so

he goes back there he's there this is an article from the Detroit Free Press uh quote Reggie went back to the dope dealers who supported his habit for a while but uh he ran up to ran it up to about a hundred dollars a day and they dropped him so he was going all these places before that would give him free dope for hanging out but now he's he does too much and they're like nah you ain't worth it motherfucker get out of here so now they won't support his habit anymore so he built up this big free habit a hundred dollars a day which is huge pay for it and he can't pay for it anymore so now he's fucked um one of the dope dealers i love how a dope dealer is quoted in the fucking Detroit free press. He said,

I supported Reggie's habit for a couple months. I was working out of a motel room, but it got too hot with the big man around. The police followed that man around. And sure enough, they tried to bust me when they saw him coming around all the time. I had to cut him loose, but we still hung around together.

You dig? We still were. We're still tight. He's like, I didn's like i didn't i didn't ditch my friend i just said you're making my shit too hot you dig you dig i love that are you digging or not because i can yeah you dig reggie was too tall to rob ordinary people to support his habit he was the only one in the city who fit his description they said this is from the paper literally uh so he robbed dope dealers that's what he would do and whenever he found out they were after him he would find

them first and try to settle the thing so he tried to settle the beef because everybody liked reggie because he's the big famous neighborhood guy everywhere reggie went people were willing to give him a second chance but one day it caught up with him reggie ran into a dope dealer uh he had robbed a week before. The dealer told him he was all right, that he understood Reggie's problem. Then the dealer invited Reggie over to his house for some free heroin. Oh, God. As soon as Reggie knocked on the door, the dealer fired two shots through the door.

The bullets went through his left thigh and lodged in his right leg. His height saved his life. The bullets would have struck a normal-sized man in his right leg. His height saved his life. The bullets would have struck a normal-sized man in the stomach, it says. Right in the neck. Yeah, he's lucky. He took the top of his head right off. So he goes to the hospital, okay? While in the hospital, suffering from gunshot wounds in both fucking legs,

he's arrested and held for investigation of armed robbery for another fucking thing that he did. So once he's in the hospital, they go and find him and arrest him, which is very interesting. Now, the way this goes down, a man identified as Morris Williams, he's the one being held on charges of

assault and attempted murder for shooting Reggie. Williams told authorities that he answered his door and he saw Reggie, Williams told authorities that he answered his door and he saw Reggie Harding at the door holding a pistol. He said he fired several times through the door and several times as Harding fled in his automobile. Meanwhile, a 39-year-old woman neighbor

was sent to the hospital suffering from a wound inflicted by a stray bullet as well. So he's got a lot of fucking problems, right? Yeah, he does. People are shooting at him. The cops want him. But there is still some fun and games around this time. Before he gets shot and everything,

his brother Robert has some fun stories here of Reggie. He says, When I was with Reggie, I felt as big as he was. When he was drinking, he was always in a good mood one time i was going to nam vietnam he's fucking one time one time i was going to nam jesus and there was a party for me but i didn't have a date reggie took me to this bar on the east side where there was five or six sharp girls there he says to me take your pick i pointed to a short pretty girl well reggie just walked over picked her up and threw her at me just threw her he was

something else yeah he was she didn't even know why she was being thrown she's just talking to her friend and he just picks her up like here take that like that's so wild one time i was going to nam and my brother threw me a girl and i had sex with her threw a woman at me literally threw a woman at me a stranger and then i went to vietnam so only the 60s that story could come out of by the way that's not a story you could tell now right he's the worst storyteller of all time and then this chick threw something at me and then he's something else he said though there was bad times also robert told of a time with reggie that wasn't pleasant a time that a down and out reggie stole robert's gun and robbed a man took his gun my gun and robbed a man with it yeah reggie called robert one winter evening and asked him to come up to the east side and pick him up.

Reggie was unshaven and dirty, and all he had on were a couple of old pistons, T-shirts, and some old pants. Robert picked up his brother, took him back to his apartment, gave him a sweater and some food. Then they went out together. Reggie asked him to stop for a minute. Reggie walked into a bar, walked out with a man, then came back to the car and gave his brother some money. This is the robbery. His brother said, quote, he stole my Roscoe, which is old school term for a gun or a pistol. He stole my Roscoe from my apartment and ripped off the guy. That really freaked me out. Okay.

That really freaked me out. Okay. Before he knew it, Reggie Harding was in the Wayne County Jail waiting to serve because he'll get sentenced for these robberies, for the robbery of those two guys. Two years in Jackson Prison he's going to get. The courts gave him a break, and after the break and suspended sentence, they gave him a break basically for that. He ended up violating probation before so they yeah so they said a couple years this is what you're going to get

they said that you know once he gets to jail he does all the things he's supposed to do he was without heroin for months and then he wanted to play basketball again he's only 27 wow he's got the prime of his athletic prowess. And it's all going away?

Yeah. He wrote ministers and drug centers telling them that the problems with drugs were in a man's mind more than his body. He's got theories on this here. So, yeah, he said that he was holding people up because he was having withdrawals from heroin, and that's why he did it. And so he is sentenced to two and a half years on probation violations. So there you go. 1970, he's in jail. He wrote a letter to the Michigan Chronicle after he watched the 1970 NBA championship game between the Lakers and Knicks on TV.

After New York won, Reggie wrote, quote, game between the Lakers and Knicks on TV. After New York won, Reggie wrote, quote, after seeing L.A.'s fiasco, I know that I still have what a pro team can use, the will to win. Yeah. So, because L.A. didn't do very well that year. In their own words, he says this. Let's do, I think we should definitely give this to him. Yeah.

Let's give him a nice one here. Yeah. Let's do it in their own words here. In their own words, quote, being in prison has opened my eyes to a lot of things. Maybe that's why I can recognize when a man gets so big he feels that he can coast, give up, stop trying. What he doesn't realize, however, is that during the process, he loses his pride. I still have my pride, something I'll never lose. And somewhere, I believe that there's a team that needs a pro center this is

what I am because I haven't given up and I still have my pride I would like to return to the NBA as a pro all I need is for someone to give me a chance if that team were to lose then I can guarantee that it won't be from their center's lackadaisicalness yeah there you go

so give me a chance I'm a fucking heroin addict but i'm on because i'm really good but i still have my pride yeah all they need all you need is pride all you need is pride all you need is everything all you need is love he's got it all here for you for the taking heroin as a love pride and. That's the name of this episode, I think. All you need is love, pride, and heroin. All you need is love and heroin. So a letter to the Pistons as well that he writes here.

Okay. He writes them a letter that says, quote, I know you are aware of my unfortunate encounters with the law. However, I would like to assure you that I'm working diligently to correct these mistakes. From now on, when people look at me, they will be looking upon a new Reggie Harding. What's that? I'm good now. You betcha.

Absolutely. Holy shit. March of 1970, there's an article in the Detroit Free Press about him being in jail. And he said he was sitting in jail and he said, quote, I kept saying to myself, man, all you have to do is walk out that door into the fog and they'll never find you because it's foggy outside. He said, but I'm a trustee now,

so I've got a little more freedom, like the door staying open all day. But nowhere, no how do I walk out that door. I make that move and it's five more years for the big man and I come up for parole in September. So I'm not doing that. So he's almost there. He also says, sorry for not shaving. He says, I wasn't expecting any company today. I was just lying around reading a magazine. My new job assignment hasn't come in yet, so I've got nothing to do.

It's tough trying to get through the day. got nothing to do it's tough trying to get through the day um he said that uh he also would like to he wants to learn a useful trade like meat cutting okay he said he tried to do that for a minute but he said i had to give that up because it might be detrimental to my hands a lot of guys slice their thumbs and fingers off while they're learning i don't need any of that because he's used the fucking cut proof gloves i don't know if they had those back the but learning i don't need any of that because he's used the fucking cut proof gloves i don't know if they had those back the butchers don't put that shit on butchers just fuck no they don't they just do it they just hack that shit up they gotta be missing fingers a vast majority of them most of them are yeah yeah i'm surprised people don't ask you if you're a meat

cutter yeah well cutting meat i mean they might put it on now um but he's uh you know he's still out there. He said, he said, all I think about is getting out, man. That's all I think about. I still got basketball. I played on the prison team and we won the tournament last year. I'd fucking hope so. I'd hope that in the prison, no one's better at you than basketball.

Let's be honest here. As much as we've done on this show show there might be a hell of a basketball team out there in prison that's well if they're that good they won't get sent to prison though that's what that's it takes a lot you gotta be completely washed out before they'll actually sentence anybody to prison you gotta you gotta really care more about heroin than basketball yeah he might be the only one they said well what were you averaging points wise like they have a statistician at the prison yeah and he's like's like, I don't know, 72? He said, my average, I don't know.

I wasn't concentrating on that. It was something to do with the time I had. Now I just get to play intramural ball because I'm a trustee. That's no challenge at all. But basketball, this is my gift, man, the talent I was born with. And if the Pistons are willing to give me the chance, I'll play for them. If you've got the bread to pay me, I'll play for you. The bread.

The bread. If you got the bread, I got the ball. He said, let's face facts. I'm a better center right now than anyone the Pistons have. I need them more than they need me, but I've got something to offer them. I'm what you might call a gate attraction. Really? Come one, come all.

See the rapist, junkie, armed robber play basketball. Maybe that's saying something about how bad the centers are there. Maybe. He said, your paper sent you here to do a story on me. They haven't forgotten the big man. People know I'm here. I'm from Detroit and I'm liked here. Yeah, but this is to see how far you've fallen. This is the opposite of a fluff piece. Right. This is not good. He said,

given proper adjustments and the proper chance, I know I can make it back with them. So he said, this, I've learned my lesson this time though. He goes, I concentrate. I keep my mind on basketball. He said, give me the chance, man, and I'll make it. He said, I can do it. He said, this time it's different. This place here, man, it does something to you. This is no place for no man. I never knew what the consequences were before. I'm man enough to realize the mistakes I've made. I can't undo what's been done. I'm paying the price for it. You understand? You dig? I dig. I dig it. Jimmy, do you dig or do you not dig? I can dig it. You understand? You dig? I dig. Jimmy, do you dig or do you not dig?

I can dig it. Okay. I'm just saying. Just making sure you're digging. He said that this is two and a half years I can never get back. You understand? You dig? Years I can't spend with my family. It would make

any sensible man wake up. I owe myself a chance. Not so much for myself as for my family it would make uh it would make any sensible man wake up i owe myself a chance and not so much for myself as for my family and friends this is a setback i'm having right now just a setback he said i'm not the type of man who gives up everyone judges me by my past but really what did i do well a lot of things let's talk about it start with let's start with the rape and we'll go down the list. What do you say? Explain the rape first, and then we'll go down there.

But really, what did I do? The only person I ever hurt was Reggie Harding and my family. You were fucking armed robbing people. You were holding people up at gunpoint. For $32. That hurts people. That fucks people up. They don't want to leave the house after that.

You fuck people up when you do that. You almost the supremes you son of a bitch you almost didn't made the supremes not exist you know we almost had stop in the name of nothing because we don't fucking exist stop in the name of that seven foot rapist who's trying to assault you outside of a sock hop that's a way different song. Not as good. Nobody likes that song as much at all. So he said that. Then he goes into a little whataboutism also. He said, somebody like Denny McClain,

who we've also done an episode on, he's a total asshole. We're aware he's bad. Yeah, he's a bad man. Somebody like Denny McClain gets in trouble and they're taking up collections to help him meet his house payments. Nobody once said, hey, Reggie's in trouble. Maybe we can help him out.

I had a family too, but no one seemed to think about that. What McClain did hurt all of baseball. I never hurt the NBA. Okay? The big thing on me was my narcotics habit. How did that hurt that and this didn't hurt that? It's the same thing on me was my narcotics habit you how how did that hurt that and this didn't hurt that you possibly cost the pacers the championship you peckerhead there's that mclean was a 30 game winner and a big star but reggie for detroit was also he hurt the nba it doesn't look good

i mean if we're talking about unequal footing they both hurt their prospective sports there so uh yeah he said that hurt all of baseball. The big thing on me was my narcotics habit, but I was never convicted for it. Any information that came out about it was offered by me. Now I'm anxious to see what happens in his case, how your so-called justice will operate. Do I get the same chance he'll get? So is Denny going to be put in prison? I've seen a lot of things in the time I've been here.

I've had a broader outlook, a respect for life. This is a new guy you're seeing, a resurrection. Oh. Wow, he's going all for resurrection. I'm back in school now, and I'm ready to graduate any day. And you usually have a time when you know you're going to graduate, but okay. Any day now. In the middle of class, he's going to answer a question.

Correct, Reggie. You know what? Here you go. And they wing a fucking one of those hats at him like a Frisbee. Pop that on, big guy. You're graduated. Don't worry about it. Oh, God.

He says that there might be some problems catching on with the Pistons when he gets out. He said maybe a new chance would work out. The team's got a new general manager. Maybe the guy will say maybe we should give it to him. I doubt it. He said, but there's still the matter of the rights to my contract. As far as I know, the Chicago team still has them. He said, if that part falls through, though, Harding has definite plans for life if he can't play basketball.

He'd like to help other drug addicts out. Really? He said, yeah, I have a deep concern for helping my own kind. I've gained a deep knowledge of me and can help the other brothers. Everybody now talks about dope fiends and addicts now. It's all over the papers, but they're treating it all wrong. Like with me, it started with the group I ran around with. You identify with your own kind and your own environment entices the things you may do.

I realize now that you can't hang out forever. I hung out too long. I wanted to stay with my old friends and finally got myself trapped. When you change your life, you've got to change all the way around. But when I played basketball, I just couldn't identify with other people. In my mind, all they were saying to me was, you're nothing but a ghetto kid who never went to college. That was his whole thing is he didn't go to college. So he felt like.

It really kicked his own ass. Well, everybody else, literally every single other person in the NBA went to college. So you are the one guy who's like, oh, this fucking idiot didn't even go to college. And not that these even go to college and not that not that they these guys went to class and got good grades and were smarter you just didn't play that level of college so you're not in with me we've got to step in between you so we're clearly more talented and better than you yeah and they felt like they worked their way from high school to college to the nba and this guy's just coming in so if he came in and proved

himself for two years no one would have given a shit if he went to college or not wouldn't have cared right but he did that and um there you get there you go he said but life ain't about college i could turn people around with what i know and i and i don't mean slang in that rap i mean real knowledge i can take the best scholars in the world and turn them around with a gun and tell them to turn around and give me all your money that's he left that part out he said all i ever did man was uh what a whole lot of people would like to have done would like to have done themselves if they only could be a junkie who threw up the threw away their whole fucking life no that's terrible he's a fucking he still he almost gets it. He gets it. He knows what his downfall is.

He knows what he has to say now, I think, is mainly what it is. He knows that he has to say, I was on drugs and it's all drugs and now it's not drugs anymore. But he takes it a step too far with a lot of this shit where you're like, bro, we're not going to feel sorry for you. No. a lot of this shit where you're like bro we're not going to feel sorry for you no because everybody tried to get you to stop doing this destructive thing and you all you told all of them including your wife to go fuck themselves while you did it because you knew better so and and you continued to do it with with on credit with these places and then built your you knew you knew what you were doing the fuck you were doing so i mean you almost feel bad for this guy. You really do. I mean, you almost do, but not nearly as bad as you'd feel for Reggie Harding, a truck driver at Total Quality Logistics in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Oh, shit. There we go. Reggie Harding, material management for some company in the greater Richmond area. Reggie Harding, payroll manager at mark monitor in boise ohio i wouldn't trust this guy with the payroll um reggie harding private tutor math english computer science physics chemistry biology well the guy said he'll take any scholar and spin him around so don't listen to him he's never been to college he's never been to college reggie harding professional engineer at Ontario Power Generation in Ontario, Canada.

So we're talking about that smart guy who just went to school. He did go to college probably. So June 1971, he gets out of prison and he says he's done quite a bit of studying in prison, took refresher courses in math, psychology, and speed reading. What? Okay. He said that was a big deal back then for some reason. He said he also worked as a trustee in the recreation department and also for the highway

department. And he said, quote, hey, I've paid my debt. I'm a rookie starting all over again. I've got more savvy now. I never complained about anything. I never blamed anyone else for what I did. I did what I did and i paid for it myself my family paid too and i'm sorry for that but i'm back with my wife now my wife and two kids and

we're gonna try to make a go of it nadine came back to him after he got out of prison yeah he talked about the game he was talking in prison he fucking that was his whole game so she read that and was like yeah okay um he said uh when asked how this child what's different this time he said i never did two years before and a journalist asked him uh if you could still if he could still play and reggie said you find the place you bring the guys and i'll be there i know it's still there all i did in prison was stay in shape i can dunk i can drive i've got a left all of it but i know i've got a left. All of it. But I know I've got to prove it.

So, yeah, he knows he's got to prove it. He said, listen, I know talking isn't going to get anything done. I've got to show people. Take the drugs. Sure. I was on the needle. That was a fucking left turn. I know talking isn't going to get anything done.

I got to show people. Take the drugs. Sure. I was on the needle. What was that? Huh? So go down to the store, do this, kill your grandmother. Then when you're, huh? What?

What did he mean right there? Take the drugs. I was on the needle. But now I understand about drugs. People identify with drugs. It's a big thing today. Yeah. Drugs. Yeah. But hell, there's nothing to identify. understand about drugs people identify with drugs it's a big thing today yeah drugs yeah but hell

there's nothing to identify you take drugs and you don't even know your own identity identity this is what i'm going to try to tell the kids what they'll be so confused they'll go take drugs if you tell them that they'll be so confused they'll leave and look for drugs to try to make sense of the world understand what it's like to understand what the fuck you confused, they'll leave and look for drugs to try to make sense of the world. To understand what it's like. To understand what the fuck you're talking. They'll go, maybe you have to do heroin to understand it. I don't know. Who's got heroin?

He said, I know this. I can't go any lower than I've been in the past two years. I can only go higher, but I've got to get out of here to do it. And talking isn't enough. So once he's out of jail, yeah. He said, when he first, Dave Bing, who's a P out of jail, um, yeah, he said, uh, when he first, Dave Bing,

who's a Pistons player, uh, said quote, when he first got out of jail, he didn't want to go back to the East side, but he had no place else to go. He didn't want just an ordinary job. He was used to living well and doing the things he wanted to do,

but the job opportunities for the background and education he had weren't available. And it was hard for him to understand why he couldn't get a good job. This is one thing that made him go back to the east side. Everybody knew him, and wherever he went, and for him to take some kind of menial job, you know, it was bad for him. He didn't want anybody to talk bad about him. So, yeah, Nadine's waiting for him. The first three months when he gets out of prison prison though, the relationship gets worse and worse and worse

because he just goes right back to the street. Of course he does. That's what he does. Back on the street, back at the dope houses, he started to rob dope houses again, started to rob drug dealers again. Then one evening,

he's in an east side bar and five guys come in looking for him. Okay. The worst night before Christmas ever. You go five deep on, uh, to him. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, Reggie had a sawed off shotgun with him at the bar. Oh, Reggie. Yeah. This, he's not fucking around anymore. He's turning to Omar now for Christ's sake. Seven foot fucking Omar. He would have been a lot easier to get if he was seven feet uh he laid it on the bar and talked with the men can i talk to you gentlemen sure come on up pull up a chair when you're standing there with a

fucking sawed off in your hand you're ready to have any conversation what conversation you want to have yeah sure after 20 tense minutes they began to talk and joke, and it was all right. Reggie promised not to rob any more of the neighborhood dope houses. Okay. They're treating him like Omar, too. They have respect for him. They go up to him. Rather than just kill him, they're like, hey, can you stop robbing us, please?

That's fucking wild. I want to tell you what you're doing to our profits. Listen, our profits are sinking fast. I want to tell you what you're doing to our profits. Listen, our profits are sinking fast. Reggie went to an organization called We Care, which is run by ex-convicts to help other ex-convicts. He just walked into the office wearing some gym shorts and an old Detroit Pistons sweatshirt. That was all he owned in the world.

So they called Billy Rogers, who was the Pistons promotion and sales manager. Rogers said, quote, I came over and picked him up right away. I always felt close to Reggie. I've always tried to help him when I could. I couldn't believe it. There he was sitting with nothing but shorts and a sweatshirt on. He looks so big and so helpless. So Reggie told this guy he wanted to start over again and he was good now and he said he was getting off the heroin for good he named eight friends of his who had been killed in the last four months and he was afraid

his turn was coming soon he said so he didn't want that rogers took him out and bought him three hundred dollars worth of clothes and then the two of them picked up reggie's children and took them shopping oh so it looks like dad's buying you stuff good Good for you kids. Reggie was like a kid at Christmas. He was really happy. Then he got on methadone and he said once he was on methadone, he visited his wife more often. But he also visited another woman who he had written nearly every day since he was in prison. He found somebody. He's got a love after lockup situation going on as well, too. I wish this show existed then.

God damn it so she was uh in love with him and he told her that he loved her um but he also said he loved his children and all that type of shit so you know um she said quote this is the other woman we were planning on getting married we were going to make a new life together but i don't know he liked the people out there on the streets i didn't go there with him he said they were down-to-earth people people who respected him and loved him for what he was yeah people who didn't judge him because they were doing worse things that's what it is so um he went to see his old friend bill irvin and um uh reggie who called his son by the way he brought his son with him reggiegie Jr., who he calls Buster.

Buster, Buster Harding here. He said, if anything happens to me and Buster comes to you, I want you to treat him just like you treated me, he tells Irvin. He says, I could never understand you, Billy. You could make a lot more money. You could do a lot better. But here you are in this one chair barbershop. I know, I know you love your family and that's something i wanted more than anything so uh this guy said that reggie had a habit of adopting his street friends so tons of people would say they were like related to him when they really weren't and um his girlfriend said reggie's side piece here said you really want to know about reggie go out on uh kercheville that's the street and ask them at the family hour so yeah there's that all right so august 28th 1972 he stops in at bill irvin's barber shop and says do you think i

can make a comeback in the pros and he tells him reggie you can be anything you want to be yeah uh by the way uh the end of august his real mother is shot in a card game and killed. Shot during a card game and killed. What? Where is she playing cards at? That's what I'm saying. We're talking about a, you know, fucking, well, like a 45-year-old lady fucking being shot in a card game. That's crazy.

That's wild. So September 1st, 1972, Reggie Harding hanging out on the corner trying to get his life together. He's all fucked up, basically. He's trying to get back. Right now he's not doing heroin. He's been taking methadone for the last two months.

Yeah. Trying to get it back together. The next Monday he's supposed to start a job in a factory, so like a real job where he's got to go five days a week and do all that kind of shit. He's even going to church twice a week now. He told his friends he was going to get all the help and strength he could from every place he could because he needed it.

Clean it up. He just needed people to support him and have a bigger support system that weren't street people. So, yeah, Bill Irvin uh his friend here he was getting up at 6 a.m every day to run with reggie and throw the ball around reggie was riding a bicycle around to help him get in shape so he's reggie's trying to get in shape he's still only 29 crazy or 30 he's 30 now crazy so he could still play um everyone said people couldn't believe he was actually getting in shape but um yeah he was doing that this particular day.

He spent several hours on the morning trying to get some friends together to play basketball. He wanted to get a game going. He told his friends that he was going to show those big shots downtown that he could make a comeback. He said that he doubted anyone would ever sign him again. He'd tell his real friends. But he said he was going to give it a try. And at worst case scenario, he'll be he'll be in great shape. What are they going to tell me now?

All right. Well, now I can run. Now I can run. So he's trying to do this. He is, though, on this day standing on a street corner drinking from a bottle. So that's what he's doing right now. Hanging out, bullshitting with his friends. doing right now hanging out bullshitting with his friends um he'd been seeing a guy named carl scott a lot 26 year old guy for the last couple months here one of the guys who hangs

out in the corner with him basically he'd known him forever but never knew him really well um it says reggie's the type of person who would give anybody his last five dollars in the world like if he had good friends he'd buy a round of drinks for everybody with his last $5 in the world. If he had good friends, he'd buy a round of drinks for everybody with his last $5. That's how he was. In the past month or two, Scott had become one of his good friends. Scott's just a street guy. He spent a couple of assault bids he did in

jail, but nothing big, nothing crazy. They started hanging around together. Scott had just gotten out of jail about four months ago. Reggie got out the year before Reggie talked Scott into going to church with him the week before this

and also tried to get the younger guy here to go to the methadone clinic with him he's like come to church get some methadone and maybe you'll feel better whatever so Scott and Reggie and a group of other friends were standing and talking to a girl named motorcycle how do you think she got

that nickname because everybody gets a ride i'm sure that's how that came out somebody fucked her with a motorcycle somebody fucked her on a motorcycle or something like that so that afternoon they were all talking standing around talking to Later on, they said all of a sudden, Scott, Carl Scott, slapped Reggie in the face. What the fuck? Which seems like an insane thing to do. I don't think I would do that. Seems ballsy. It was sudden and unexpected, and no one could figure out why the fuck he did it.

Everyone was like, what the fuck was that about? They said that Reggie would rarely hit people unless he was robbing them or something like that. He wouldn't hit anybody um but reggie's favorite trick was when someone was fucking with him he'd pick the other person up basically pick them up hold them over his head and then just drop them that's what he'd do like a like a giant would do pick you up drop you and then say quote don't mess with the big fella that's what he would do so reggie turned to scott and said are you for real and uh scott said yeah i'm for real n word you know they're both black but he was throwing that yeah for real n word and then he slapped reggie again so reggie slapped scott back and um

fucking and was ready to hit him again and And Scott like kind of backed off and said, Whoa, you're going to fucking hurt me. You're going to hurt me if we get in a fight. So Scott is all embarrassed now. I don't know why he slapped him to begin with. What did you expect? Right?

The guy's big. Why are you going to slap the seven foot guy? So Reggie let him go and Scott ran away. And he was so upset that he just got slapped around and started it that he went on some porch steps and started crying. Just sat on somebody's porch and started crying. Reggie asked the other guys on the corner, did I do the right thing? Should I have like not hit him back? It was fine except for that crying part.

Yeah, well, they said, no, this guy's fucking crazy. Slapped you for no reason. What are you supposed to do? So Reggie said, yeah, I guess so. So he started walking to his friend's house, and he stopped at a street corner to talk to a couple of girls. Here, Reggie does. A car stops around the corner. Scott's in the car.

He gets out with a pistol and walks up to Reggie. Oh, boy. Reggie looked down at him, and he didn't think Scott would shoot him. So they're good friends, and there's nothing. This is crazy. What the fuck are you doing? So Reggie said to him, not in a mocking way, just saying because he didn't think he was serious. He said, hey, if you shoot me, shoot me in the head.

I don't want to feel the pain. You know what I mean, man? You dig? And Scott pointed the gun at Reggie's head and fucking fired. He shot him right in the head. Reggie looked down at him with a bullet in his head and said, why, why? Man, you shot me. What the fuck?

So after this, Scott raises the gun and fires and shoots him in the head again. Yeah, you have to. And then he ran to his car and hopped in the car and ran away. Scott will be charged. We'll talk about that later. So there's Reggie bleeding on this fucking sidewalk here. A bunch of the locals call the ambulance. The next day he dies in Detroit General Hospital.

At 30 years old. Unbelievable. Dies at 30. Two gunshots. Scott ended up being charged with first-degree murder. And, yeah, that was that. So he's buried. We'll talk about his funeral.

It was at Great Mount Carmel Baptist Church, which is down the street from the old Eastern High School building, which is now a burned-out nothing. It burned down. Yeah. Hundreds of people came for the funeral actually they know him a couple of the writers said that that the uh you know the sun's shining that's all nice a couple of mike store and said he went to the funeral the guy from indiana and he said yeah after he was shot i went to the funeral he goes i was one of only three white people there which yeah he's from fucking east side of detroit he's not really now you know how he felt on the farm exactly there you go so this is all happening um everybody's trying to figure out why scott killed him what the fuck

the super weird part is though two weeks before when reggie's real mother lily may thomas died she was shot to death in an argument with her husband during a card game. So that makes more sense. At her funeral. Couples night. Yeah. Jesus Christ. Don't make it men versus ladies, for Christ's sake.

They are on the same team. They didn't get along. So at her funeral, Reggie stood for 15 minutes over her coffin and instructed the funeral director how he wanted his own funeral. He was planning it at his mom's. So people thought he was drunk or something, but maybe not. The flowers on the altar were just what Reggie wanted. He asked for two special

floral arrangements, a basketball backboard and a Cadillac. They were on the altar, the symbols of the two lives that Reggie tried to lead. And, uh, there you go.

The backboard was made of red and yellow roses represented Reggie there. And the Cadillac was, uh, they don't say what it was all black and white flowers is all they say it was made out of. So that's what he got. Um, what's said about him.

This is somebody speaking at his funeral. What was so unique about Reggie is that he wasn't just seven foot tall. He had a great gift of playing the game. He was quick and graceful and coordinated. He was the only one to be signed out of high school. I don't believe that it's all over. We can say we gave him a fair chance. We owe him.

Reggie Harding is dead. We've lost a great, great man. They had a mile-long funeral procession so that's pretty cool um when they arrived at the cemetery they found out the cement vault was too small for the nine foot casket that he's buried in we didn't measure first so nadine became hysterical when the funeral director told her they'd have to leave you guys guys got to go. I'll take care of getting him in there. We'll wonder how that's going to happen. But cut him in half.

Oh, man. Two doors. That's it. They said, well, big fella isn't ready to leave us yet. Somebody said. So that's Reggie Harding. He's dead. Now we'll talk about Reggie Jr.

Oh, boy. June 1983. Okay. Jeff Dudley. June 1983. Okay. Jeff Dudley, he lives in Troy. He's 18 years old. He's a B-plus student at Oakland Community College. He has like a couple of jobs. He's like a well-dressed kind of a kid.

Yeah. All that sort of thing. Real studious kid. He started saving for college when he was 10. Started cutting lawns and raking leaves and all that kind of shit. I had a summer job at the parks and rec department, you know, sweeping shit up.

He had two years of a burger King also. Now he works at a clothes store and everything like that. So he's doing, he's doing great. He's doing great. He said, I like to see the new clothes before everyone else and see how the stores price them. See why my dad did this.

Got to slap my Cavariccis on before anybody else gets to them. You know what I'm saying? So he needed his own car, and he was splitting college expenses with his parents. So he went to work at a restaurant two days a week, and he's doing all that kind of shit. So he's working at a Troy shopping center and it's about, he comes up basically just before midnight on May 4th in the parking lot of the Somerset Mall.

He's trying to get his, he's got his keys going to unlock his door after his shift's over. One of those empty mall parking lots after everything. Just got off from his job as a dishwasher at alfred's restaurant a car screeches to a stop in front of him and a guy jumps out and sticks a gun in his face dudley said he told me to freeze he said that then he was forced into the car they demanded money and jewelry from him he said i had in my wallet and it had a dollar in it so then the guy said well give me the keys to your car and he it's a five month old 83 camaro that's brand new

so he loves this fucking car right he had saved up the money for years and he's all excited and they said give me the car i'll let you go so he gave them the car there. Two guys got out of the car and got into his car, into his Camaro. They argued over who was going to drive his car. That's got to sting. While they're arguing, Dudley sees the gun sitting on the seat.

They're not paying attention, so he grabs the gun. Now he's got the gun, and he thinks it's his only chance, so he bucks a shot off and shoots one of the guys in the gun. Now he's got the gun and he thinks it's his only chance. So he bucks a shot off and shoots one of the guys in the legs. Yeah. Leg. He says, I never held a loaded gun before in my life, Dudley.

So he didn't know what to do. He just pulled the trigger and it went off luckily for him. Luckily, I didn't have the fucking safety on because he wouldn't know how to take it off. So then the two other guys wrestled the gun away from Dudley and forced him into the back seat. Oh, God. Um, yeah. He said that the,

the injured man, the guy he shot told Dudley that they were going to kill him for sure. Now. So, uh, two of the men joined Dudley in the back seat. The driver had trouble with the ignition. Dudley said the injured man pointed the gun directly at my head and asked how

to get the car started. Probably a kill switch or something in there. As they left the parking lot and approached the ramp to I-75, they shot Dudley twice. Oh, Jesus. First bullet in his stomach tore through his small intestine. The second entered his chest, grazed his heart and damaged a main artery and lodged in his left lung. a main artery and lodged in his left lung. Uh-huh.

So the car traveled on the freeway, and one of the guys in the front seat told the other one, check and see if he's dead. The guy said, Dudley said, quote, he looked at me and said, yeah, he's dead. Then he heard them discussing where to dump him. Uh-huh. So they checked several sewer grates before they found one they could lift sewer so they found one they could lift at the uh 19 700 block of mckay between conant and outer drive dudley said they took off the grate and threw him in head first into the sewer shit replaced the grate and drove off.

So Dudley said after checking to see where he was bleeding, he climbed onto a pile of garbage or something and tried to push the grate off. He said he could lift it, but he couldn't move it. Oh, my God. He said, I got back down and prayed to God. He said then he tried to when he tried to free himself, he said he was basically had to give one last, like, okay, everything I got, one last oomph or else I'm fucked here. So I'm going to put it all into there. And he moved it out a little bit and he said he chinned himself up and pulled himself out of there and got himself out, right? Shot twice, center mass. Oh, yeah.

And it's stuck in his lungs, a bullet through his artery, stuck in his lung. So he's yelling for help. He saw lights on in a nearby house. He knocked on the door and the window, and the lights went off. Just then the police arrived. Someone probably called the cops on him because he was yelling in the street. And so he was happy to see them. He said he couldn't raise his arms when ordered to by police.

They said, put your hands up. And he couldn't put his hands up. He couldn't get his hands up. But they saw they said put your hands up and he couldn't put his hands up he couldn't get his hands up but they saw all the blood somebody put a flashlight on him they saw all the blood and they called ems took him to the hospital um so they said that shortly after they dumped dudley the men were stopped by state police for driving without headlights fucking idiots started who cares how do you turn the headlights on they were still in Dudley's car two of the men jumped out and took off

and they were chased Christopher Bush who was 25 of Chicago was arrested the other two men got away at that point Bush is charged with assault with intent to commit murder

and armed robbery and two felony gun counts he's being held on 360 000 bond uh this led to an arrest warrant for reggie harding 20 years old reggie harding jr reggie's kid um yeah that's fucking awful and then they have a information on a third suspect uh dudley says he wants another car but not a firebird or a camaro he said i don't want to see the camaro again there's too many bad memories. He said he would like to stop making payments and sell it, but it's tied up in the shop.

He's still making payments on this fucking car that he hates. Dude, you've got two bullets in you. What's wrong with that? Hey, fuck you, Chevy Finance. Eat my shit. I'm not paying you. He said, I'm lucky to be alive. That bullet was too close.

It was really traumatic. I'm sure the men wish they, I'm sure, I sure wish the men could all get caught and be put away before anything happens to anyone else. So his mom said, in a way it's brought us closer together, but there's a fear now. You know how bad crime is, but you can't understand it until it touches you. There's a lot of insecurity in this home. Also, a lot of money problems too because his mom hasn't been back to the job she worked in, a small plastics factory, since the abduction. Her husband is a laid-off electrician.

She said he may work today and then not again for six weeks because of the recession in construction in the early 80s. The early 80s were terrible financially for everybody. She says she's bitter. She's bitter at the system. She's bitter at everything. The repair shop took 40 days to fix an $1,100 in damage to the car. The restaurant that restaurant he works at won't pay workers compensation to her son as well. And the insurance company for the car won't compensate her son for loss of work because his injuries were not directly related to the operation of the vehicle.

Oh, for Christ's sake. He was carjacked for it. She said, I don't think any one of us will ever be the same. Not ever. Dudley underwent eight surgeries. Eight. What? And has to wear a pacemaker at 18.

He got a pacemaker put in. Poor kid. Eight surgeries in 1984. People don't know how bad getting shot really is if you don't die. Oh, it's fucking awful. It can ruin your fucking life forever. Just destroy everything. Yeah.

Oh, my God. It fucks you up so bad. The doctors told him his heart was as weak as that of an 85 year old man they told him in 1984 19 they warned him uh do not do anything strenuous don't do anything like that the doctors told him uh that playing basketball was uh you know tantamount to suicide for him like he could don't play basketball don't do anything like that yeah so 1983 christopher bush is convicted of the robbery and assault and is sentenced to life in prison yeah 1984 reggie harding jr is convicted sentenced to you jr

buster may fuck off 22 to 60 years in prison holy shit So there's a lot of there's leeway for parole. Problem is 1986 comes around here and they they acquit one of them here. They acquit where was Michael Odell Parker, I believe. Yes, they found Michael Odell Parker innocent during a bench trial. Michael Odell Parker innocent during a bench trial. Apparently, Jeff Dudley freaks out, tries to attack Michael Odell Parker in the court, yelling bullshit, bullshit at the judge. So, yeah, Parker was charged with assault with intent to murder, armed robbery, two counts of using a firearm during the commission of a felony. Dudley was crying, yelling threats.

Fucking, they had to hold him back. He was lunging at the guy, trying to attack him and everything like that. He was held back by deputies. And Dudley's mother said, that judge believed the murderer instead of my son. This is terrible. He's going to be allowed to go free. So what they did was, this guy here,

what's his name, the Parker guy here, he said that he told them that Dudley was dead in an effort to save his life. Because he said he thought if he wasn't dead, they would have shot him in the head. So he said, I told them he was already dead, even though I knew he wasn't. He said that he only went along with Bush and Harding because he was terrified of them. He said he knew Dudley was alive when he helped drop him into the sewer. And he said that it would appear this is the defense attorney.

It would appear to me that the defendant risked his life in an attempt to save Mr. Dudley's life. He's a real hero. The judge agreed with that during a bench trial and said, yes, he's acquitted. And Jesus Christ, the the county prosecutor said, that's our great criminal justice system at work. He said that Parker's defense lawyers had begged for a plea deal. We wouldn't give it to him. Now he's going to walk.

Should have given him the plea. July 1987, Jeff Dudley dies of a heart attack. Oh, shit. That's murder now. Jeff Dudley dies of a heart attack. Oh, shit. That's murder now. He collapsed and died during a basketball game on June 28, 1987, in Detroit after he tried to stop a fight between two other players.

No way. The prosecutor said he will seek murder charges against the two men who are in prison now. They said somehow it would be double jeopardy on the other guy who got acquitted so they can't try him for anything is every anything uh with that so the yeah michael odell parker will not be charged though but they said that the other two will they said that because of permanent damage uh to the heart he died after barely exerting himself on a basketball court in the same situation with a normal heart this This man would be alive today. They said that they're going to file all these murder charges. Now they the fact that Parker cannot be charged is an outrage.

I feel extremely sorry for the Dudley family. The prosecutor says Dudley's mother says the family's numb from this death. Maybe later we'll feel happy that these people might get what they deserve for killing my son. But right now all of us are consumed by grief and shock um so 1988 they are sentenced here they are they're already in prison they're found guilty they are sentenced to this is uh bush and harding you young men may fuck off life in prison mandatory for both of them. Holy shit. The one already got life. Can you imagine?

A hard life. Yeah. Fucked. Wow. Now, during the appeal in 1993, they said that it's fucking crazy. Basically, their whole defense is that Dudley did it to himself. He knew that his heart was fucked up and he shouldn't have been playing basketball. Okay. He said it's not our client's responsibilities.

Once he lived past that and recovered to a reasonable extent, that's the end of our responsibility. And then at that point, he's going to take responsibility for his own health. That's their general... That's a crazy way of saying things. You left him with an 84-year-old's heart. No shit.

Reggie Harding Jr. says in an interview, true enough, four years before his death, I was riding in a car in which he got shot. That's one way to put it, Reggie. But how can this be a felony murder when this man died four years later playing basketball? He said, I don't want to sound like

a movie script or nothing, but this is a travesty of justice. I didn kill him i can understand his father's bitterness his hate his anger but the fact still remains if his son had demonstrated just a little bit of discipline he may still be here what are you fucking kidding me a little bit of discipline you shot him how about that how about if you expressed enough discipline to not fucking carjack people and shoot them and put them head first in a fucking goddamn sewer are you insane wow he said i was being punished and rightfully so for my crime but i don't deserve to be here for the rest of my life now uh in dissenting opinions, two Supreme Court justices agreed with him.

Actually, state Supreme Court here. Yeah. It's fucking wild. They said, this is Jacobs. This is a judge. I believe this is a judge. Oh, no, this is his lawyer. I believe Dudley caused his own death.

These men were tried and convicted of what they did, which was to assault him with the intent to murder him. They're paying for that. They all, they shouldn't have to pay for what he did to himself. Hoof. Um, one prosecutor said it's clearly an unusual situation. Usually people either cooperate and die or they don't. So that's it. He said, but we're trying to show through medical testing that there was a casual connection between his death and what happened. It's just a matter of making the punishment fit the crime. And the crime here we were eventually able to prove is murder. Now, in the dissenting opinion, they say this case is problematic because almost four and one half years has passed between the assault and the victim's death. During this time, Mr. Dudley returned to steady employment,

married, fathered a child who was five weeks old, by the way, when he died, and resumed a semi-normal life. Furthermore, Mr. Dudley's death followed his participation in 90 minutes of strenuous physical activity and a physical altercation, activities which Mr. Dudley knew were forbidden. So there you go. That's the dissent. One, Justice wrote, by participating in activities that would be taking to a healthy individual,

he caused his own demise. I can't agree with that. People are in comas for a decade, and then they die, and then people are tried for murder. That's the way it goes. So what if he was going up the stairs in his house and he dropped dead? Would it be different? I mean, what the fuck are we talking about?

He's 23 years old. He should be able to fucking talk to people and play a little basketball without having a fucking fatal heart attack and dying. And he would have if he wasn't shot in it. Five years ago, he was fine doing all of this. But since then, you've put him in a position. Yeah. Eight surgeries and a pacemaker put him in a position. Yeah.

Eight surgeries and a pacemaker later. That's what he had. It's fucked up. So there you go. Reggie Harding Jr. in for life. Reggie Harding Sr. been dead for 50 years. Literally been dead for 50 fucking years now. That's wild, man.

How crazy is that story? That's why we saved that story for uh one of the last few episodes here what a story that's a great story if you enjoyed that story tell the world about it get on whatever app you're listening on and i don't know say something nice about us i guess i don't know what the fuck you're doing here um one thing you certainly definitely want to do is you want to head over to shut up and give me murder.com and you absolutely want to check out the tickets for 2023 they're coming out uh full slate of live shows here coming for you we're very excited about this they go on sale november 28th these are all small town murder very quickly february

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You can see if there's like pre-codes or whatever. We are at Crime and Sports on Twitter and Facebook. At Small Town Murder on Instagram. Patreon is something you want to be involved in. If you like the show, you're going to love the bonus episodes. We give you at least, every other week you get two new bonus episodes,

which means for $5 a month or more you get the whole back catalog we've built up of bonus stuff and two new episodes every other week. This week, which you're going to get for Crime and Sports, you are going to get all of Ben Roethlisberger's accusations. Or I should say the accusations against him. I don't think he's accused anyone of anything. I don't know if he is or not.

All of those that were – there's a lot of them and they were really ignored hard by the NFL. Like really, really hard. Hardcore ignoring. So we'll talk about that. He's benefited from some silver for a guy with a black helmet. So Ben Roethlisberger. And then for Small Town Burger, it's the prisoner dating game, everybody. We're back.

All violent felon edition. I line up four of the worst men and four of the worst women up, and we let them describe themselves to Jimmy. And Jimmy's going to pick one of them, one of each. And then after that, we're going to find out what the fuck they did. He has no idea what they did to belong there, no idea what they look like, just how they sell themselves. Will he buy it? And we check all that out.

There's also a door number five in case he wants to bail out. You never know. And it's basically see if Jimmy picks the child molester because that's become the game of it. It's a lot of fun. It's a real full Monty of gross. Yeah. Three-car Monty. We call it seven murderers and a child molester.

That's what we call the game. So all violent felon edition. Get that right now. Patreon.com slash crime and sports. And, of course, you will obviously get a shout out, which we are about to do right now. Speaking of that, Jimmy, God damn it, do me a big, big favor. Hit me with the names of the people who would never, ever, ever stuff me into the backseat of my own car. Shoot me and dump me headfirst down a sewer.

Hit me with them now. This week's executive producers are JB and Yeti Shetty in Canada. Shannon Short, happy birthday. Tracy, oh boy, Plenus, I believe. I hope that's what it is. No, it's not. It's got Plianus. Plianus?

I think it's Plianus. Plianus? That's worse. It's like a play pad in a pool. I think it's Plianus. That's the Plianus area. And Sharon Lee Jones, thank you all so much you're amazing other producers this week are fat penguin and wooden stick adrian's asshole drunk brother uh paulie the maniac who hates the cans and jerk in the jerk why did i switch up those words the maniac who hates cans in the jerk james uh rabbi

shmulevich and Shitta Perlman. Jonathan Phipps. Corporal Carl Kirshner. Peyton Meadows. Ezra Taha in the Netherlands. Willie Howe Hard. Janice Hill. Happy Hour in Breckenridge.

Mary Kepseusley. J.W. May. Sharon Jones. Fake boyfriend Jake. Drake Blevins. Happy birthday, Drake. Happy birthday. DeLuca.

No relation to Frank. Kunioke, I think. Hannahinn's pop uh all right continuing uh dina dina dina fink i think wax a million maram maram maram i think uh amanda camino david with no last name shelly m miss claire terry alex pool brandon spencer joshua fisher guam missy chloe j, Shannon McKenzie, Emily Deal, Sam Crowell, Crowell maybe, Matt Myers, Craig Garcia, Matt Snelling, Tasha O'D Morgan, Catherine Kerr, Colleen Troiley, Christopher Britton, Rachel Swabe, I think. Oh boy, Whibkey, Whibkey Middleton, Brianna Exum, ML123, Annalise Alvarez, A. Lai, I think, Andrew with no last name, Courtney with no last name,

C. Lee, 13, Christina Kinney, Kaya maybe, Meloni, Melioni, Caitlin Peavy, Phil Knowles, Fallstream, 44850, Nicole Cluton, Suzanne Labelle, Abby Raymond, Brett Wright, Mark Save, abby raymond brett wright mark save save maybe uh jenny conover laurie madsen is that a person is that a real person like a famous person laurie madsen michael madsen that's no that's not what i was saying uh chandra blackburn daryl crowder casey benson uh nathaniel bolt abby with no last name ian evans uh hannah with no last name murder weapon daniel, Daniel W., Ben Scothern, Kyle Downs, Sue Haynes, Dolphin93, Jerry Mann, Lucky Point Wirehair, Christine Craft, Jason Mullenix, Brittany Wise, Zach H., Shastastic, Heather Massey, Anna Proshinsky, Joanne Lanagren, Gretchen Conson, Stephanie Bowen, Mark Mullenix, Kelly Waddell, Nicole Osborne, Samantha Rudenbacher, Rocky Encorvaya, Chris and Christine Lull, Lacey McKelvey, Anne-Christine Lull, Lacey McKelvey,

Nope, that's Mike Jameson, Nicole Frank, Randy Kavanaugh, Jamie Egoff, Max Wilson, Trisha Hall, Katie Garcia, Sarah Earwood, Jen Mortimer, Nyrin GQ, Aaron Midgett, Ah, that feels filthy to say. Shea Maria, Jessica Harden, Nicholas Talbot, Layla Reynes, Reynes, oh boy. Ashley Everett, Jared Blaylock, Rick Roman, Kevin with no last name, Kiki Hawkins, Rebecca Kason, Ashley Kloon, Jeremy Poland, Frida Turison, Chris McHenry, Ross Brown, Alan Stewart, Christy Bonson, Angel Fleming. What the fuck is happening? You sound like we were trying to get one past you, Christy. Bonson, you son of a bitch.

That's what it is. Kimberly Furbricker. Furbricker? I don't think it might be. Paul, Paulie Sipar, the second. Buddy Kummer, gross. Aiden Barnes, Olga Helmai. Heidi with no last name.

Penny Larson, Esther with no last name, Megan Williams, Ryan McWilliams, Taryn Filler, Filer, Monica Oliver, Melissa Belevance, Lindsay Hartnett, Katie Peterson, Steve Cartwright, Natasha DeGreedy, Sneha Holloway, Vladimir Felacio, suck me off. Are you happy? Oh, very nice. Sneha Holloway, Vladimir Felatio, suck me off. Are you happy? Megan, no last name. Tammy Steyer, Ava Stockton, Jeremy Danielson, Andrew Myers, Maddie Clay, Michelle with no last name, Emily Jung, Teezy with no last name, Emily Graves,

Ken Devereaux, Jordan Hajduk, Sharon Minton, Terrence Brandt, Amanda Rantham. Charlene Klangos. S.H. Christian. Pasca. Lori Simmons.

Angel Tarela. Lauren W. Rachel Freeze. Carrie Davison. Jared Chance. Anthony Padaleta. Padaleta? Padaletti.

Ryland L. Aidan Hartnett, Aubrey McDonald, Paige Ariana, Dennis with no last name, Josh Emerson, Brie Harry, Hair, Hooray, Dina F., Allison Allen, Camille Moore, Lori DeLuna, Zaryab, Rashid, Rebecca Davies, Eric with no last name, Angela Baker, Allison Salters, Jade McEnrod, Elizabeth Cook, Joni Pirneau, Bail Money, Caprice Abdul-Mudakabur, Jeff Stallings, Matthew G, Krista Prada, Lana Moeller, Robert Turner, Ross Hurst, Lauren with no last name, RubikGamer, Shala, Shannon, Courtney with no last name, Alice J, Alex Twight, Twitty, Leah Jarvis, Jane Adrucca, Kenny Linton, Mr. Vini, Drew fucking Peters, KJ with no last name, Kimberly Sker it uh daniel e uh b wags gerald respect uh boston and all of our patrons you guys are fantastic thank you thank you everybody so much for your wonderfulness uh your loveliness and uh quite frankly your your generosity and

your hanging time with us we appreciate that so. You're so good looking. Thank you. You are all very attractive people out there, just so you know that. Every last one of you. Thank you so much for all that you do for us. You want to follow us on social media, just head over to shutupandgivememurder.com. There's all the links right there to follow everything, us, the show, your ass, your mother. I don't care.

Follow whoever the fuck you want. Either way, you won't follow either of the Hardings, though. I'll tell you that much. Neither of them are on social media. But that said, keep coming back. Keep joining us. Remember, November 28th is when tickets go on sale. And live from the Crime and Sports Studios, we will see you next week.

Bye. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.