NBA star Chris Paul shared poignant and humorous stories Thursday night about his close relationship with his grandfather, the late Nathaniel “Papa Chili” Jones, and talked about his other family members and his basketball career.
Paul, 38, a Winston-Salem native, appeared at Wait Chapel at Wake Forest University to promote his book, “Sixty-One: Life Lessons From Papa, On and Off The Court.”
Paul grew up in Lewisville and starred in basketball at West Forsyth and then for two years at Wake Forest.
Paul is one of the best point guards in the NBA. The book doesn’t have many statistics or highlights of a career that will ultimately land him in the Hall of Fame.
Michael Wilbon, a sportswriter and an ESPN sports commentator who helped Paul put his life story into the book, made trips to Winston-Salem to research background for the book.
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Paul shared the stage at Wait Chapel Thursday night with Talitha Vickers, a former anchorwoman at WXII 12 News and a marketing and business development manager at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP of Winston-Salem.
Before he talked about his book, Paul confirmed that he had been traded to the Golden State Warriors.
“I’m excited,” Paul said to about 800 people who attended the event, An Evening with Chris Paul. “Obviously, you never know what’s going to happen in this league. There is always uncertainty.”
Paul then told the audience that he was raised amid a loving family that included his parents, uncles, aunts and cousins as well as his grandparents.
“I have always had the support of my family,” Paul said.
Vickers said that Paul’s grandfather made history as being the first Black man to own a Chevron gas station in North Carolina. Jones’ Chevron was located on New Walkertown Road near its intersection with Carver School Road.
“I learned a lot at the service station,” Paul said. “I learned how to deal with the heat. It would be hot.”
When he was 7- or 8-years-old, Paul would put a red rag in his rear pocket when he worked at the gas station, emulating what his grandfather would do, Paul said.
Paul used the rag to check some customers’ oil levels in their vehicles, he said, adding that his grandfather instructed him to correctly lift vehicles’ hoods.
“When your family owns a business, you learn it because you spend so much time there,” Paul said. “When I was working the cash register, you learn how to deal with people.”
Jones owned his service station for more than 30 years. Paul remembered an instance when he and his older brother, C.J., got into a fight at the station. His grandfather got angry with both boys, but he didn’t tell their mother about what happened.
Paul said he and his brother told their mother about their fight. He appreciated that his grandfather dealt with their bad behavior himself.
“We got two butt whippings,” Paul said as the crowd laughed.
Vickers read an excerpt from Paul’s book about when his mother took him and his brother to Jones’ gas station, arriving there at 6:30 a.m. on a weekday morning.
His grandfather was wearing his jumpsuit, “ready to get cracking,” Vickers said.
Jones would give the boys sips of sugary coffee, Paul said.
“As soon as we finished, we both went after the red rag,” Vickers said, quoting from the book. “The red rag was everything.”
“I don’t drink coffee to this day because of that,” Paul said. “We were way too young to be drinking coffee.”
Wearing the red rag made Paul and his brother feel “official,” he said. “It made us feel like we were one of the workers.”
Vickers then gave Paul what appeared to be a red rag.
“I appreciate it,” Paul said to Vickers. “This is a towel. If you had pulled that red rag out, I would have been all messed up.”
Paul said that his grandfather was proud to be his own boss.
“He would say, ‘I don’t have to go to work with someone telling me what to do,’” Paul said. “My granddad was a great man, but he ran his business. He was hard on people when he needed to be.”
Jones often closed his gas station to attend his grandsons’ games. On Sundays, Paul’s family members would drive their cars to Jones’s gas station to fill up their vehicles, Paul said.
“I wondered how much money my granddad would sacrifice to let us fill up with gas,” Paul said. “When we lost my granddad, we lost a service station. That was tough.”
Vickers and Paul also talked about his family’s ancestor, Peter Oliver, a potter, who was an enslaved man in the Moravian community of Old Salem who bought his freedom in 1802. Oliver leased a 4-acre farm in north Salem.
Paul said that his mother, Robin Paul, and his cousins are working to get a park named after Oliver near Salem Parkway.
“This is something that I did not know,” Paul said about Oliver’s life.
“Throughout the process of writing this book, we (his family) had a lot of different conversations,” Paul said. “My mom told me a lot of stuff.”
Paul was 17 when his grandfather was killed in November 2002. Working on the book, Paul learned where his parents were when they learned about Jones’ death, Paul said.
“This book was very therapeutic,” Paul said. “It gave me a very different kind of education about my family and different things.”
Four teenagers were convicted of killing Jones.
His grandfather attended many of Paul’s and his brother’s games when they were growing up. His father coached Paul’s football and basketball teams. His mother coached his basketball team when he was in eighth grade.
“My mom got a technical (foul) in the first game,” Paul said.
A day after Paul signed to play at Wake Forest in November 2002, Jones was killed at his home.
On Nov. 20, 2002, the day after his grandfather’s funeral, Paul decided to play in West Forsyth’s game against Parkland.
Paul took to the court and scored 61 points, one for every year of Jones’ life.
“It’s hard when you lose somebody,” Paul said. “I talk about it in the book — the closure of the casket — how final it is.”
Once Paul scored 61, he missed a free throw on purpose, took himself out of the game and fell into the arms of his father, Charles Paul, who was an assistant coach.
“The basketball court is my savior,” Paul said. “On the basketball court, I get to be me.”
During the game, Paul “felt like I couldn’t miss,” he said.
His grandfather’s spirit and legacy lives on, Paul said. When he comes home, people talk to Paul about they how they knew Nathaniel Jones and they often stopped at his gas station.
“I know my grandfather was bigger than anything I could do,” Paul said.
Paul also talked being coached by the late Skip Prosser at Wake Forest.
Paul said he remembered being recruited by Prosser when he was playing at West Forsyth. After Paul scored 40 points in a game, Prosser talked to Paul afterward.
“Coach Prosser gave it to me straight all of the time,” Paul said. “The first thing he would say to me. ‘Are you ever going to play defense?’”
Paul responded, “Don’t you want me to come to your school?”
Prosser told Paul what he wasn’t doing on the basketball court. Paul said that Prosser was the best coach he has worked with during his career.
Prosser wanted his players to become better men than they were as players, Paul said.
“Coach was always teaching,” Paul said.