Morning

The text was written some five years ago when this unchallenged fighter ended his career without fail. By all expectations and statistics for children growing up without parents, Zo has become a top basketball player and an even better man.

Someone who has managed to find the right time during youth and later on with their engagement and finances helps the thousands of poor and sick.
"Above this, there is only a paradise," said legendary coach Nolan Richardson after he and Alonzo Mourning got to the House of Fame on Monday. Nolan has suffered the greatest parental pain over the past couple of years, and his son and daughter died.

He could not share them with the honor that the basketball world has shown to the rare. There was no joy on his face. Alonzo has replaced a parent's home with orphanage since his 10 years. Some 11 years ago, he almost died.
Today he is a member of the Georgetown University board of directors, where he never missed a sports scholarship. Today he is a member of the House of Fame and how I say someone who, during his lifetime, "progressed more like a man than a basketball player and I was not bad in the hoops ..."

I never really enjoyed watching the centers. I realized the importance of a quality center for every team that wants a good result, but I did not sympathize with their game. Like someone who played a boss and who had a good shot, I always watched and worshiped good spells and mostly foreign players. I was very much respected by Jabbar, Parish, Olajuwon, Ewing, Robinson, Neal and others.

I just wanted one - Alonzo Mourning.

Heart is not a statistical category. You can not measure the amount of heart and bravery in one person. If there were such an apparatus, I think it would be enough to measure Alonzo Mourning. I've been watching basketball for a long time and I have not seen a player I can say I have more hearts than Zo.

If you play against the team that Zo plays and if somehow you can do a racket you can be sure that Alonzo will be in the racket ready to unlock your shot or to make you try something that only looks at the recreation of the programmer. There is probably no center over which it was dunked several times. There is also no center that has unblocked opponents of dumbbells several times. Why?

Because in relation to some other Mourning centers, there was no choice. He went out to every penetration. It did not matter. Fines or strength. Dropping or laying. Alonzo always, but always trying to close the racket. That's how it is learned.

For the first time, I watched him while performing for Georgetown University in 1990. Georgetown was fond of dark shirts and those huge sweatshirts that Patrick Ewing first introduced. The match was against a group of stingy whites (from this perspective it was probably one of the Ivy League schools), and in the G'towna racket Dikembe Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning stood and literally wiped off the opponents' silence. The shock of any team that has Mutomba and Mourning in the racket is normal.

(Later, I read that Georgetown fans set up the "Rejection Row" section and left the drawings for each blockade on the chairs below the knife).

Two people marked Alonz's life. Fannie Threet and John Thompson. Imagine a boy who is 10 years old and who after knowing that his parents divorce decides he wants to be adopted. Alonzo Sr. and his wife Julia were constantly fighting. Attention to the son was always present, but divorce was inevitable. The boy, angry at the fact that his parents divorced, decided not to live with them because he could not only live with a mom or dad. He testified in court that he wanted to be adopted.

"I had to go through a complete court process," Mourning said 20 years later. "I did not want to favor either mom or dad. I simply said my wish to the court and they continued to act in accordance with the law. I would rather leave our home than to continue such a life."

For the first year, Alonzo lived in orphanage. The court committed to give him a family to receive it. Several pairs came to the interview before Fannie Threet appeared. Former English language teacher and mathematician has adopted and raised over 40 children during their lifetime. Alonzo was one of them.

"I'll always remember the red brick house and the school billboard in the living room," Zo says. "She is the woman I still call Mom today." At school, Alonz was regularly mocked for short clothing because money for new things in his new family was not there. He was 13 years old and was 192 cm high. Up to 15 years it grew to 204 cm. His long sleeves pulled him to half the forearm, and his legs were like a subtle trainer.

Children, malevolent as they always talked to him was "dirty", "strange" and "Frankenstein." He was shot several times, but he mostly stayed silent. Alonz's great desire was to play American football. As he did not have the right footwear for that, he played in deep-fitting pharmacies.