Hoops great signs books at college

COSTA MESA — Orange Coast College met Kareem Abdul-Jabbar again Wednesday — and this time, it didn’t come out on the losing end.

The sports legend and Los Angeles Lakers coach played against OCC once in 1965 while a young star on UCLA’s basketball team. That night at the Pauley Pavilion, Abdul-Jabbar’s squad drubbed the OCC team 119-43. Returning to town Wednesday for a book signing at the Robert B. Moore Theatre, Abdul-Jabbar admitted that he felt a little awkward.

“When I come here, I feel kind of like a gunslinger coming back to a town where I shot a lot of people,” he told the crowd that packed the theater at 2 p.m.

Abdul-Jabbar, the author of a half a dozen books, recently co-authored another one with OCC writing professor Raymond Obstfeld. The book, “On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance,” covers the years in the mid-20th century when the Harlem section of New York became the center for black American culture.

The co-authors, clad in suits and ties, sat in a pair of easy chairs on the theater stage and took questions from the audience before moving to a table to sign books. The patrons who lined up at the microphones directed most of their questions to Abdul-Jabbar, asking him about his writing career, his musical tastes and even his thoughts on the modern NBA.

At several points, Abdul-Jabbar talked about UCLA coach John Wooden, whom he identified as a major influence on him as an athlete, coach and father. Wooden, he said, was an expert at getting players to collaborate.

“Everybody thought that it focused on me,” he said about his legendary UCLA teams. “But everyone had to contribute to make the team happen.”

“On the Shoulders of Giants,” published by Simon and Schuster, came out early in February.

The book alternates historical chapters written by Obstfeld with personal recollections penned by Abdul-Jabbar. The authors said that the style was inspired by the call-and-response format of gospel music.

Stephen Harper, who teaches at Orange Coast Middle College High School on the OCC campus, invited his entire class to the signing and ended up bringing two students with him.

“It shows you how prestigious OCC is as a junior college,” he said. “You have professors helping five-star celebrities write books.”