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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Basketball player, six-time NBA champion and author

Born 1947

Photo: Yahoo from Sunnyvale, California, USA · CC BY 2.0

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar held the record for most points scored in the NBA for nearly forty years, built on a hook shot nobody could block. Since retiring he has written more than a dozen books on history and race.

Key achievements

  • Three consecutive national championships with UCLA
  • Six NBA championships and six most valuable player awards
  • Author of many books on history and culture

Universities

  • University of California, Los AngelesGraduate1965–1969

    Los Angeles, California

    Played under John Wooden from 1966 and won three consecutive national championships, graduating in history in 1969.

Facts

  • The college game banned dunking in 1967 largely because of how dominant he was; the rule was reversed after he left.
  • He studied martial arts with Bruce Lee and appeared opposite him in Game of Death.
  • He was named a US cultural ambassador and awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work on education and civil rights.

Photographs

Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences; the author and licence are shown on each image.

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