Full Name: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Born as: Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor (Known As: Lew Alcindor)
Changed Name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 1971
Born: April 16, 1947 (New York)
High School: Power Memorial (NY)
College: UCLA
Drafted by: Milwaukee Bucks (1969)
Transactions: Traded to Los Angeles Lakers June 16, 1975)
Height: 7-2
Weight: 267 lbs.
See Kareem's Career Stats

Basketball Career
Kareem was born on April 16th, 1947 as Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor in Harlem, New York. His parents were Cora Lillian, a price checker at a department store, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Sr., who was a police officer and jazz musician. Kareem weighed 12 pounds and 10 ounces and measured 22.5 inches in length! He was raised Catholic and and attended St. Jude School. His basketball dominance began in high school, even though he admits to this day that he wanted to play baseball, when he led Power Memorial High School to a 72 game winning streak and an overall record of 96 and 6. As a sophomore at Power Memorial, he averaged 19 points and 18 rebounds as the team went undefeated that year. It was unbeaten again in Kareem's junior season. The next year, for the first time in 72 games, Power lost to DeMatha Catholic High School (of Maryland), 46-43. It was the only los for Power in 3 years. Abdul-Jabbar finished his high school career with 2,067 points and 2,002 rebounds (both New York City records) in 1965.

Kareem was simply the greatest high school basketball player of his time, and he was an A student, quiet, reserved, and intellectual. He was a model citizen. Needless to say, college recruiters all over America were salivating at the chance to convince Kareem to attend their school, and observers were waiting for the melee to begin. It never developed. In selecting his college choice, Kareem was sheltered by his high school coach, Jack Donahue, who took over the entire recruiting situation. He started by making Kareem incommunicado. Nobody could speak to him or interview him. Each and every visitation, phone call, and letter would be monitored. Any violation of any of these rules would call for immediate excommunication for the offending school. Read the rest of the story about Kareem's basketball career - his dominance of the college and NBA game, his career accomplishments, and more.

After Basketball
Coaching
Kareem has always had an interest in coaching, but he has found it difficult to break into the coaching ranks. Since 2005, he has served as a special assistant coach to the Los Angeles Lakers primarily working with their big men. Kareem thought that with his career and his influence over the NBA that a coaching the opportunity would eventually find its way to him. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. During his playing days, Kareem developed a reputation of being introverted and sullen. He would not speak to the press, and this lead the press to portray him as difficult since they believed that he did not like them. Kareem froze out reporters who gave him a too enthusiastic handshake or even hugged him, or refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Many basketball observers believe that Kareem's reticence with the press has contributed to the lack of coaching opportunities offered to Kareem by the NBA. Read the rest of the story about Kareem's attempts to gain a basketball coaching position.

Acting / Television
Playing in Los Angeles was the perfect entree into Kareem trying his hand at acting. He made his film/movie debut in Bruce Lee's posthumous film Game of Death, in which he played a villainous character, Hakim, that fights Lee's character, Billy Lo. Kareem's character was the last and most dangerous guardian that Billy Lo (Bruce Lee) has to face. Abdul-Jabbar and Lee fight on the highest level of a pagoda, where Lee's character has to fight his way up. Check out the YouTube video clip of the fight scene.

In 1980, Kareem played co-pilot Roger Murdock in the spoof movie Airplane. He has a very memorable scene where a young boy looks at him and says something along the lines like "Hey, you're Kareem Abdul-Jabbar." Kareem's character states that the young boy is mistaken and that he is simply Roger Murdock, an airline co-pilot. The boy continues to insist that he is "Kareem", but according to his father, he doesn't work hard on defense and doesn't really try, except during the playoffs. This causes Kareem's character to just lose it, and then he grabs the kid and says something like "I've been listening to that garbage since UCLA. Tell your old man to go out and bust his buns every night dragging Chamberlain and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes". When his character, Murdock, faints in the movie, he is carried out on a stretcher wearing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's goggles and yellow Lakers' shorts.

Abdul-Jabbar has had other numerous TV film appearances, often times playing himself, including appearances in the movie Fletch, a Chevy Chase film, The Stand, a Stephen King TV movie, Slam-Dunk Ernest, The Might Ducks II, and BASEketball. He has appeared in television shows of Full House, Diff'rent Strokes, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Scrubs. Kareem also was a co-executive producer of a TV movie, The Vernon Johns Story (1994).

Kareem has appeared twice on Celebrity Jeopardy (winning both times by the way!), once on the game show Identity, on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with David Letterman, etc. See a complete list of shows that Kareem has appeared on.

Personal Life
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was married to Habiba Abdul-Jabbar (aka Janice Brown), and they had three children together. Two girls who are Habiba and Sultana and, two sons who are Kareem and Adam. The couple divorced in 1978. Kareem also has a son, Amir, with Cheryl Pistono.

During an interview with Playboy magazine and discussing the decision behind his legal name change when he converted to Islam, Kareem was quoted as saying "latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th Century. My people were Yoruba, and their culture survived slavery... My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that's a terrible burden on black people, because they don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted."

Writing
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is also a best selling author. He has written a number of well respected books including: