Life—as Clarence Shuler knows it—began in 1968, in the midst of the turbulence of the Civil Rights Movement, and with a good amount of unrest in his own young heart. He remembers being a part of church and Sunday school until about the age of 14, when he decided to start making his own decisions. As soon as he had his own say in the matter, he stopped attending completely. At the time it was an easy decision for him, one without much bearing on his life, since there were so many other things to occupy his young mind.
Basketball, for instance.
Everyone worships something, and for young Clarence, basketball was it. He ate, drank and slept the game. Around the same time he made a new best friend by the name of Russell Harper. While Clarence attended an all-black school, Russell’s was integrated, and one night Russell’s white friends invited him to an event at their church. Not wanting to be the only African-American going, Russell talked Clarence into coming along by assuring him that they would just be in the church gym playing ball. “I didn’t care who was going to be there if we were going to play basketball!” Shuler recalled. 