Kemba Walker wasn't any older than four when he started walking himself into the laundromat on University Avenue in the Bronx, the one that always spilled out reggae music in the summertime.
He'd go up to the first person he spied, tap their hip and then, as soon as their attention turned his way, he'd bust out dancing. Walker's mother Andrea laughingly remembers how people used to give him money.
Much has been written about how Walker, Connecticut's star point guard, forged his game on the courts of New York City. But what hasn't been discussed is how the city—and in particular the music of the Bronx—is embedded in the way he plays.
Walker's father, Kenya, says the skills his son has used to get to Saturday's NCAA tournament Final Four—the feet that can take him anywhere on the court in a flash, the body that nimbly contorts through a tangle of limbs, the devastating timing, even his megawatt smile, have a common origin. "That's where it all comes from," Kenya Walker says. "The dancing."
