The Rat That Got Away: A Bronx Memoir

29. A New Life in Luxembourg

29 A New Life in Luxembourg Connie and I found Luxembourg’s culture to be different from France’s, and we liked it. The food was not prepared in the French style, with its delicate sauces poured over small portions of meat and poultry. Luxembourgers are country people at heart and eat heavy, strongly flavored meats like deer and wild boar. Their national dish is pig’s stomach, which bears a close resemblance to chitlins, a soul food dish loved by many black Americans. In more ways than one, we felt right at home. We also were glad to discover that Luxembourgers spoke English. Before World War I, Luxembourg’s borders stretched into parts of France, Germany, and Belgium, but after the war, when the borders of the European nations were redrawn, the country was smaller than it had been before. With a population of only 400,000 people and the farmbased economy shifting toward business, good relations with other nations were essential. To help ensure this, the people learned four languages : Luxembourgish, French, German, and English. It was much easier to adjust to life there than it was in France because we all spoke the same language. I was keeping my eyes and ears open to identify what kinds of opportunities might be available for me in this rich country. Everybody seemed to be wealthy, judging from the cars the people drove; new BMWs, Jaguars, and Bentleys were all over the streets, and even the taxis were Mercedes. The tiny national population practically doubled every day during business hours because so many people came into the country 173 174 A New Life in Luxembourg from France, Germany, and Belgium to work and do business. The country was very international, and its citizens enjoyed many more amenities and benefits than U.S. citizens did, including policies that promoted job security, a minimum of 25 working days for vacation with the opportunity to earn more, free health coverage, excellent pension plans, and family leave for women with children. I began to realize why people in Luxembourg lived longer than Americans: They had far lower levels of stress because these essentials of life were taken care of by the government and private business. Looking around me, I realized I was a big fish in a little pond and decided to make the best of it. I wanted to get a job in the private sector separate from basketball and make a career in Europe because I knew that, if I returned the United States empty-handed, I could not expect many opportunities awaiting me there as a black man with no degree and no business contacts. I would have to go back to school to finish my bachelor’s degree, then work my way up the ladder in one field or another. I feared that I wouldn’t have the patience to start at the bottom and would probably head for the streets if things didn’t go according to plan. For me, Europe was a better—and a safer—option. Playing and coaching with Amicale Steinsel was very different from playing and coaching in France. Most of the players on the team were amateurs; only the coach and the one American player got paid. Among our players were a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, and several people who worked for the government. The team had come in fifth out of 12 teams the year before in the Federation of Luxembourg Basketball, and my job was to take them to a championship. In addition to playing for and coaching this team, I had to coach a women’s team and a junior team in the village we were located in. I didn’t mind doing this because I enjoyed passing on the skills I had learned from people like Tiny, Mouse, and my other Bronx mentors, but the working conditions were not exactly NBA quality. The gym we played in had an asphalt floor, and playing there was just like playing in the school yard back home. If you fell, you definitely were going to get some serious cuts and scrapes. But I was making a good salary and managed to handle my player and coaching duties well. Although I had many aches and pains, I led my league in scoring, averaging 34 points a game, and led my team to a second-place finish. More important, I was popular with my teammates, with the fans, and with the women...