It Gets to a Point Where You Don’t Want to Repeat-Write About a Different Circumstance
The story of Raekwon Drake is rare but not drastically dissimilar to the stories of so many others who’ve been raised on these Chicago concrete magnets that hold us in ways a quantum entanglement physicist couldn’t even figure out. A young brotha who did everything he could to detach himself from the pull of the blocks that surrounded his upbringing. One of many who used basketball as his pre-RIP resurrection.
The Paradox of Basketball and Gun Violence
The paradox of how the former Orr star and two-time state champion ended up being convicted in July of second-degree murder — down from the first-degree murder he originally was charged with in 2021) and sentenced Dec. 3 to an additional 14 years (on top of three already served in the Cook County Department of Corrections) is just the most recent example of Chicago basketball’s too-personal relationship with guns.
A Life of Basketball and Guns
For Raekwon Drake, it gets to a point where you don’t want to repeat-write about a different circumstance but a very similar theme. Basketball and bullets. The two always seem to find one another, no matter how far, distant, obscure or painful the reach. The story of Raekwon Drake is just the latest chapter in this never-ending tangle of basketball, gun violence.
The Ties That Bind
There’s a connecting of dots between Drake’s story and the survival of former DePaul Prep and De La Salle players TY Johnson and TaKiya “TK” Howard and Marshall coach Shawn Harrington, about whom author Rus Bradburd wrote “All The Dreams We’ve Dreamed: A Story of Hoops and Handguns on Chicago’s West Side.”
More Stories of Basketball and Guns
There are stories on the other side of the relationship: Danville’s Keon Clark, who, at 38 years old in 2013, after playing for the Suns and the Jazz, found himself in a Colorado courtroom being handed an eight-year prison sentence on weapons and DUI charges. Former Corliss High School and Celtics player Nathan “Grave” Driggers found himself convicted in 2017 of selling stolen guns, reportedly 30 of them. As with Clark, the system got eight years of his life.
Conclusion
For Raekwon Drake, its harrowing. Stark. For his victim, it’s sorrowing. Dark. In Drake’s case, everything he has learned and been taught and experienced, everything the game give him, is now gone. Even as basketball really had nothing to do with what happened in that moment, it, the game — like with so many of us — seemed to be Drake’s life, his incomplete story, making everything that happened, sadly, a part of our lives.
FAQs
Q: What is the story of Raekwon Drake?
A: Raekwon Drake is a former Orr star and two-time state champion who was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to an additional 14 years in prison.
Q: What is the relationship between basketball and gun violence?
A: The two seem to find each other, no matter how far, distant, or painful the reach.
Q: What is the main theme of this article?
A: The main theme is the never-ending tangle of basketball, gun violence, and the cyclical nature of these stories.
Q: What is the conclusion of the article?
A: The conclusion is that for Raekwon Drake, its harrowing. Stark. For his victim, it’s sorrowing. Dark. The game of basketball, which was meant to be a source of redemption and escape, ultimately led to his downfall.
