When it comes to sports movies, Hollywood sure churns out tear-jerkers, don’t they?
I cannot think of a single sports-related film (beside the comedies like Bull Durham, The Longest Yard, Major League, North Dallas Forty and their ilk) that has ever come out that wasn’t a human interest story.
Brian’s Song. Coach Carter. Field of Dreams. Hoosiers. The Natural. Radio. Remember the Titans. Rudy.
However, I have the script for the best, most unbelievable basketball movie ever shot.
Ladies and gentlemen of Bleacher Report, please pull up a chair. I’m about to tell you a tale about Lester “the Molester” Hudson, a basketball playground legend of the highest order here in Memphis, Tennessee.
A young man who never graduated from junior high, high school, or even his junior college.
A fellow who went to tiny University of Tennessee-Martin, straddling the border of the Bluegrass State and the Volunteer State. You know, up there in that roundball Nirvana (not).
An absolute basketball machine who is, to my eye, the best value in the 2009 NBA Draft.
Lester Hudson grew up in a hardscrabble area of South Memphis known as Glenview. Once upon a time—as recently as the 1970s—it abutted one of the most affluent and exclusive neighborhoods in the entire city. Though Glenview was a bit more modest, it was nonetheless a most desirable neighborhood to live in.
The area has fallen upon hard times since suburban flight took full effect. Once-manicured lawns are now overgrown and strewn with debris. Homes that I admired as a kid for their beauty and upkeep are mere eyesores.
This is where Hudson grew up.
On nearly every street, it would seem, you could find little boys shooting baskets at a goal tacked up beside a house, a garage, or affixed to a telephone pole.
It’s where legends are born.
Hudson showed great proficiency as a baller at an early age. By the time he was 11 or 12 years old, he was playing with men much older—and more than holding his own.
He was skinny, but had fantastic handles and hops—meaning he could dribble and jump, for the uninitiated—and his instincts on the court were uncanny. He could find ways to score that were virtually unimaginable.
That’s where the nickname “the Molester” came from—he would take your dignity away on the court so completely, it was if he were committing some savage crime.
(I once had the chance to play against Lester. I’m not going to lie to you; I begged off!)
There was one little problem:
Young Mr. Hudson wasn’t particularly fond of going to school.
And, really, who at that age is eager to go to class? Especially a playground legend who uses a basketball as an extension of his own body?
He never graduated from junior high school.
“I needed to take a summer school class (that was never taken),” he told Geoff Calkins of The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal.
Coach Andre Applewhite stumbled on Hudson quite by accident one day during Lester’s sophomore year at Central High School. While other kids were gushing over Hudson’s ability, coach Applewhite wondered why the young gunner hadn’t tried out for the team.
When he began to notice that Hudson only came to school two or three days a week, Coach began to figure it out: All Lester wanted to do was play basketball.
“I made him a proposal,” Applewhite said in an interview. “Come to school every day, and I’ll let you play basketball.”
This worked out fine during his junior year. However, Lester didn’t hold up his end of the bargain well enough to be eligible to play during his senior campaign.
He subsequently failed to graduate from Central High School.
Applewhite refused to give up on Hudson, though. The coach thought the young man played basketball well enough to at least get a college education out of the deal. Lester was incredulous.
“I’d talk to him about (getting a college degree),” said Applewhite. “He’d be like, ‘Graduate from college? That's impossible.’”
Hudson was like thousands of young Black males in the city of Memphis: A victim of domestic discord, socioeconomic disadvantages, and a general lack of solid parenting. Left to his own devices, he escaped the problems at home by taking out his aggression on the basketball court.
It was all he knew.
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