John Wall writes powerful ‘A letter to my dad’ for The Undefeated

In an open letter for The Undefeated, a sports and pop culture website owned and operated by ESPN, Raleigh native and Washington Wizards guard John Wall, honors the memory of his late father, John Wall, Sr., who was in prison for much of the younger Wall’s life.

In the letter, titled, John Wall: A letter to my dad, the Wizards star talks about how he wishes he could bring his dad back to life to see him play in the NBA. Wall was 2 when his father went to prison for armed robbery, something Wall didn’t find out about until years later as he wrote in the letter. John Wall Sr. was released when the younger Wall was 8.

Wall wrote about growing up without his father present, and how that was the norm and all he knew.

“You were an inmate most of my life,’ Wall wrote. “But that didn’t matter because you were my father, and to me as a young boy, prison was just a place where you happened to live.”

Wall’s father became terminally ill with liver cancer while he was in prison. Shortly after his father’s release, Wall recounts a trip the family took to White Lake to celebrate his homecoming that led to the discovery that his father was sick.

“We had no clue that the time we spent playing in the water would lead to water getting into your wound, causing you to hemorrhage.”

John Wall Sr. died on Aug. 24, 1999, one month after he was released from prison. In the letter Wall writes about how he acted out after his father died, disappointing his mother every time he would get kicked out of school.

Wall started his prep career in 2005 at Garner High School, where he spent his 9th and 10th grade years. In the letter for The Undefeated, he wrote about having a bad attitude and how he would sit on the end of the bench during games and eat candy when the coaches wouldn’t put play him. In 2007, Wall transferred to Broughton High School, where he repeated the 10th grade and was cut from the basketball team. That led him to Word of God Christian Academy, where he became one of the top basketball players in the nation. Wall spent the 2009-10 season at Kentucky, before the Wizards picked him No.1 in the 2010 NBA draft.

Read Wall’s full story here: http://bit.ly/2E52eaY

This story was originally published January 28, 2018 at 7:01 PM with the headline "John Wall writes powerful ‘A letter to my dad’ for The Undefeated."