NYC Rebel
...on the otherside of the pond
water to Flint residents. 
Former Syracuse basketball star Derrick Coleman going door-to-door, delivering water in Flint
Syracuse, N.Y. — When he travels those 65 miles north and west from his Detroit home to Flint and then knocks on random doors with cases of bottled water in his arms, Derrick Coleman so often draws a double-take.
"It's a shock for some people to see a 6-foot-10 guy standing there," Coleman said on Monday. "They say, 'Hey, man, you look like Derrick Coleman.' I tell them, 'Yeah, I get that a lot.' And then they thank me, and it's a blessing. And I move on."
He's 48 now and pretty much out of the basketball realm that he'd so dominated on both the college level (as a Syracuse University All-American) and the professional one (as an NBA All-Star) in those days gone by.
You remember. Equal parts talent and controversy, Coleman could so easily slide from rousing to exasperating, from charming to grating. Why, long before Manny was being Manny on the baseball side, Derrick was being Derrick on the basketball front.
But times change, and so has this fellow who has been long centered, but who finds himself very nearly heartbroken because of the water-contamination disaster that hit Flint 23 months ago and has staggered the wheezing city since.
"I'm seeing distress," Coleman said. "That's what I'm seeing. Distress. I'm seeing people who need help. I've seen the rust and everything that's in their water. Flint is like a ghost town, and it's sad. It's 2016. How can this happen here in America, here in the greatest country in the world?"
While the question is an ugly one, the inspiration for it is uglier yet.
Once a thriving burg when General Motors was riding high in the '70s, an eroding Flint switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River in April of 2014. That cost-cutting decision, coupled with an aging infrastructure, resulted in catastrophe. Specifically, in massive (some insist, deadly) amounts of lead and other contaminants seeping into the city's system.
Soon, very soon, folks began to notice that their water smelled different, looked different, tasted different. And now, 10 deaths that might yet be officially traced to the lead poison, hundreds of millions of exhausted relief dollars and heavy doses of panic and despair later … well, Flint staggers.
And so, if only metaphorically, does that tall former Orangeman out there on all those stoops — the one who believes that those responsible for Flint's pain should be in handcuffs … that this outrage is a kind of redux of the 40-year Tuskegee Experiment … that the word "genocide" may yet be an appropriate one.
"I don't see a live-happily-ever-after ending here because of the long-term effects," said Coleman, who left SU in 1990 to become the No. 1 choice in that year's NBA Draft. "This disaster is going to hurt Flint for generations to come because of all those babies who drank all that water. The effect on them (i.e., the diagnosed elevated lead count in their blood that can lead to all kinds of physical, mental and emotional troubles) will stick with those kids for the rest of their lives. How does the city come back from that?"
We'll not know that for a while, but there have been so many who've chosen not to wait for the answer. Cher and Sean Combs and Pearl Jam … the Detroit Pistons and Madonna and George Lopez … Ziggy Ansah, Jimmy Fallon and myriad national-brand companies (Walmart, Coca-Cola, Nestle, PepsiCo, etc.) … Aretha Franklin and Eminem and Wiz Khalifa. They and so many others have dug deep and/or have rolled up their sleeves.
And included in that number has been Derrick Coleman, the one-time Orange forward with the 2,143 points and the 1,537 rebounds who spent so many afternoons and evenings playing basketball in Flint against the Glen Rices and Roy Marbles of his youth and adolescence. Indeed, just a couple of weeks ago he helped gather and then helped deliver some 30,000 cases of bottled water to those in desperate need of it.
"But it it's gotten bigger than just water," Coleman said. "You need supplies. You need plastic knives and plastic forks and plastic cups. You need sanitation so that people can wash their hands. And what about that person who doesn't have the transportation to get to the water centers? What about the senior citizens stuck in their houses?
"OK, and then there is the water. People are only getting two cases of water a day. Well, if I've got a family of five, how's that going to last? And you're still not telling me how I'm taking a shower or a bath.
"And then there are all the businesses that are shutting down. Nobody's driving by Flint and saying, 'Hey, let's pull over and get something to eat.' So there are major, major issues. There are huge, huge, huge problems. And they're not going away anytime soon."
And neither, says Coleman, will he. He is, after all, a Michigan man — state, not school. And he plans, going forward, to continue working his Flint beat a couple of times a month.
But what if that means dealing with those major issues, those huge problems, for years? What if that means driving so many more of those 65 one-way miles and knocking on so many more of those doors? What if that means a commitment that could take him farther down his life's road that he once might have imagined?
"So be it," Derrick said.
Flint, you've got a friend.
Former Syracuse basketball star Derrick Coleman going door-to-door, delivering water in Flint
Syracuse, N.Y. — When he travels those 65 miles north and west from his Detroit home to Flint and then knocks on random doors with cases of bottled water in his arms, Derrick Coleman so often draws a double-take.
"It's a shock for some people to see a 6-foot-10 guy standing there," Coleman said on Monday. "They say, 'Hey, man, you look like Derrick Coleman.' I tell them, 'Yeah, I get that a lot.' And then they thank me, and it's a blessing. And I move on."
He's 48 now and pretty much out of the basketball realm that he'd so dominated on both the college level (as a Syracuse University All-American) and the professional one (as an NBA All-Star) in those days gone by.
You remember. Equal parts talent and controversy, Coleman could so easily slide from rousing to exasperating, from charming to grating. Why, long before Manny was being Manny on the baseball side, Derrick was being Derrick on the basketball front.
But times change, and so has this fellow who has been long centered, but who finds himself very nearly heartbroken because of the water-contamination disaster that hit Flint 23 months ago and has staggered the wheezing city since.
"I'm seeing distress," Coleman said. "That's what I'm seeing. Distress. I'm seeing people who need help. I've seen the rust and everything that's in their water. Flint is like a ghost town, and it's sad. It's 2016. How can this happen here in America, here in the greatest country in the world?"
While the question is an ugly one, the inspiration for it is uglier yet.
Once a thriving burg when General Motors was riding high in the '70s, an eroding Flint switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River in April of 2014. That cost-cutting decision, coupled with an aging infrastructure, resulted in catastrophe. Specifically, in massive (some insist, deadly) amounts of lead and other contaminants seeping into the city's system.
Soon, very soon, folks began to notice that their water smelled different, looked different, tasted different. And now, 10 deaths that might yet be officially traced to the lead poison, hundreds of millions of exhausted relief dollars and heavy doses of panic and despair later … well, Flint staggers.
And so, if only metaphorically, does that tall former Orangeman out there on all those stoops — the one who believes that those responsible for Flint's pain should be in handcuffs … that this outrage is a kind of redux of the 40-year Tuskegee Experiment … that the word "genocide" may yet be an appropriate one.
"I don't see a live-happily-ever-after ending here because of the long-term effects," said Coleman, who left SU in 1990 to become the No. 1 choice in that year's NBA Draft. "This disaster is going to hurt Flint for generations to come because of all those babies who drank all that water. The effect on them (i.e., the diagnosed elevated lead count in their blood that can lead to all kinds of physical, mental and emotional troubles) will stick with those kids for the rest of their lives. How does the city come back from that?"
We'll not know that for a while, but there have been so many who've chosen not to wait for the answer. Cher and Sean Combs and Pearl Jam … the Detroit Pistons and Madonna and George Lopez … Ziggy Ansah, Jimmy Fallon and myriad national-brand companies (Walmart, Coca-Cola, Nestle, PepsiCo, etc.) … Aretha Franklin and Eminem and Wiz Khalifa. They and so many others have dug deep and/or have rolled up their sleeves.
And included in that number has been Derrick Coleman, the one-time Orange forward with the 2,143 points and the 1,537 rebounds who spent so many afternoons and evenings playing basketball in Flint against the Glen Rices and Roy Marbles of his youth and adolescence. Indeed, just a couple of weeks ago he helped gather and then helped deliver some 30,000 cases of bottled water to those in desperate need of it.
"But it it's gotten bigger than just water," Coleman said. "You need supplies. You need plastic knives and plastic forks and plastic cups. You need sanitation so that people can wash their hands. And what about that person who doesn't have the transportation to get to the water centers? What about the senior citizens stuck in their houses?
"OK, and then there is the water. People are only getting two cases of water a day. Well, if I've got a family of five, how's that going to last? And you're still not telling me how I'm taking a shower or a bath.
"And then there are all the businesses that are shutting down. Nobody's driving by Flint and saying, 'Hey, let's pull over and get something to eat.' So there are major, major issues. There are huge, huge, huge problems. And they're not going away anytime soon."
And neither, says Coleman, will he. He is, after all, a Michigan man — state, not school. And he plans, going forward, to continue working his Flint beat a couple of times a month.
But what if that means dealing with those major issues, those huge problems, for years? What if that means driving so many more of those 65 one-way miles and knocking on so many more of those doors? What if that means a commitment that could take him farther down his life's road that he once might have imagined?
"So be it," Derrick said.
Flint, you've got a friend.
..too soon