“There were some kids who just didn’t like that at all,’’ said Gretchen Patti of Chicago, Chamberlain’s classmate at the time. Some students at Lutheran considered minority recruits outsiders. There were times when we had kids living with us that had nothing to do with athletics.’’ Jon Visscher, now a financial planner in Florida, said of his father, “He was aware that people would sometimes consider him, quote unquote, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. “Essentially, when racism is a factor, folks who are in power enjoy the status quo.’’ “A lot of boosters and people out there in the community thought he was doing a bad thing,’’ Chamberlain said. “A lot of people were very touchy about us being there,’’ Chamberlain said.Ĭriticism was leveled against Visscher for recruiting players, and to Chamberlain, it had racial overtones. “We weren’t out and about all over the area,’’ he said. OutsidersĬhamberlain and Bobby Cabbagestalk, a black player from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who also lived with Visscher’s family, “I thought most people had 6-foot-6 older brothers,’’ said Jon Visscher, whose father died in 1999. Visscher had five children, but there was always room for one more. Visscher’s residence was on school grounds, not far from Tam O’Shanter golf course. Ed Visscher, the school’s headmaster and basketball coach. While attending LuHi, Chamberlain stayed with the family of Rev. ![]() This is happening 45 miles from where I was born?’ It opened my eyes to the fact that there was a whole other world very close to where I thought the whole world was concrete and steel.’’Ĭhamberlain, now an emergency management training officer for the state of North Carolina, soon would learn that other world wasn’t quite so perfect. I was like, ‘What is this?’ It was awesome to see kids my age driving cars. ![]() I’m from a concrete-and-steel neighborhood out there was a 36-acre campus with rolling grass fields.
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