At age eighteen, Kendrick Perkins left his grandparents' run-down yellow house in Beaumont, Texas for the last time. Sure, he'd traveled the country for camps and tournaments. He'd banged and bruised with the biggest and most skilled players the amateur basketball world had to offer. But he'd always come back home. In this powerful and intimate memoir, readers follow Perkins on his journey from small-town Texas athlete to the NBA. Both on and off the court, Perk gained a reputation for his candor and conviction--his unabiding sense of right and wrong. Now he tells all, offering the sports insights for which he has become a stellar ESPN commentator, and for the first time ever, sharing frank opinions about racial justice, political consciousness, and fatherhood. Years spent playing against and alongside giants like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James helped shape Perk's athleticism, but this is a story all his own, the story of an education.