Adam Ware

Virgil Tibbs, The Barber

I would like to honor a childhood friend, and black entrepreneur, Virgil Tibbs. I remember like yesterday the day I met Virgil, his brother James, who I only knew as Tank for several years, and his cousin Poodge, or Eddie. It was a summer day, at the neighborhood hub, “The Rec”, or Lake View Terrace Recreation center, in Los Angeles CA. All the neighborhood boys gathered here each summer for basketball tryouts. These workouts weren’t technically a traditional tryout, as the recreation center would not turn away any kid whose parents had money to pay the registration fees. It was more like a talent observation for the coaches to get a taste of the boys and their varying skill sets so that they can go behind closed doors and spread the available talent “evenly”, an annual event that made one wonder how the same coaches had success every year, and others weren’t so lucky. Either they knew the talent very well, or they found a way to game the system.