Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 114

"Reggie skated by and looked at me and I was playing hard to get. I'll never forget his first words, look what the angels blew in I turned my head and skated away MOVADO FAMED "MUSEUM PIECE" TIMEPIECE Exclusive design that's part of the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. Now even more exciting with burgundy, blue or taupe dial. Yellow gold top, steel back, 17-jewel movement. His $110 and hers $95.

Wright Kay FINE JEWELERS SINCE 1861 DETROIT NORTHLAND BIRMINGHAM GROSSE POINTE 962-0500 354-3040 642-2025 885-55 1 5 CONVENIENT TERMS AVAILABLE: 90 Days Some As Cash Extended Payment Plan BankAmericard Master Chargs life whenever he was thinking about something or relaxing. Some of his friends called him "Baby Huey," and he hated that nickname. People who knew him well laughed about it. They didn't know what else to do when they saw the seven foot, tough, masculine, full-grown man sitting in a chair that always looked too small and showing his insecurity by sucking his thumb. Reggie grew taller and taller, and by the lime he entered junior high school, he was over Neighborhood basketball games weren't fun anymore.

Whatever team Reggie was on automatically won. By the time he got to Eastern High School Reggie was 6' 10" Bill Ervin took a special interest in the young man. He ran with him and worked out with him and he kept telling him he could be anything he wanted to be. Soon it all began to come true. Reggie led Eastern High School to three straight city championships.

He was chosen the best high school center in the nation by several sports magazines. His popularity grew as fast as he did. Wherever he went people would stop him and say, "Hey man, are you Reggie Harding?" He was the king of the basketball court and the king of the school and the king of the streets of the lower east side. But every once in a while he would stop by and see Bill Ervin and ask, "Do you really think I can be a pro?" and his fatherly neighbor would say, "Reggie, you can be whatever you want to be." It was during the years when he was a high school star that he met his future wife, Nadine. Her brother told her about Reggie, "that huge dude that plays basketball." He told her he hung out at the ice skating rink.

So one night in February of 1958 Nadine went skating to get a look at Reggie. "A lot of kids went down there just to look at him" she recalled, "just to get a close look at him. "Well, I was skating with my brother and Reggie came by and looked at me and I was playing hard to get. I'll never forget his first words, 'Look what the angels blew in I just kind of turned my head and skated away. "He came back and heard my brother asking me why I turned away after I came down especially to meet him.

Reggie acted mad and said he knew I wanted to meet him and asked me if I would skate with him. I said I would be happy to." Reggie started to make headlines in Detroit papers when he was in high school. There were a few stories about his basketball ability, but most of them were about the trouble he got into. His foster parents were worried that he was hanging around with the wrong crowd so they arranged for him to spend a summer up in Cadillac picking cherries. Reggie was the only black youth on the farm and he hated it.

He told his friends how the others made fun of his sie and color. He asked the farmer for his money. He said he wanted to go back to Detroit. The farmer refused so one night Reggie stole his pickup truck and drove it to the nearest town. He gave himself up the next day.

The papers wrote stories about the high school center getting arrested, but no one bothered to ask just what he was doing picking cherries or hy he stole the car. The next year, Reggie was arrested while participating in a school track meet on Belle Isle. A 15-year-old girl claimed she had intercourse with him. He was charged with statutory rape. Again the papers ran stories about the arrest, but when the charges were dropped there were no stories.

Years later, when Harding got into a lot more trouble, the newspapers dropped "statutory" from rape and simply said he had been arrested for rape in high school. REGGIE'S REAL MOTHER was 17 years old when she had him. She wanted to keep her baby, but she was not married at the time and her family forced her to give him up for adoption. Heekiah and Fannie Harding lived in the neighborhood and knew Reggie's mother. All of their lives they made their house a home for unwanted children.

They decided to adopt the infant and have a son of their ow n. Reggie found out he was adopted hen the story about his arrest on the statutory rapecharge hit the papers. His real mother, Mrs. Lillie Mae Thomas, kept a scrapbook of everything he did. She went to every one of his high school games and kept the programs.

She got his records from every school he attended. One day her son Robert came home from school and found her crying at the kitchen table. "I asked her why she was crying," he said, "and she showed me the story in the newspaper and told me Reggie was my brother. She also made me promise never to tell anyone else about it." "I was young," Robert recalled, "and I didn't understand what adopted meant. And she explained it over and over until I did." Later that evening Mrs.

Thomas called Mrs. Harding and Reggie overheard the conversation. "He was furious," his wife Nadine recalled. "He was very angry that Mrs. Continued on Page 19 WITH Hearing is believing! OPEN I AAV FM SHORT WAVE 1 I STEREO RADIO WITH 1 AUTO-RECORD CHANGER Perfect for a foyer Measures 67" across and makes any entrance both elegpnt and The best in European cabinetry combined with the moit advanced concept of sound engineer- tnO.

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