Ken Hunter – From Gangland Detroit to Paralysis to Leading Young Men in Last Chance U

A lot of basketball players grew up hard. But few could say that they saw their high school coach smoking crack with their father, had to pull a kitchen knife for self-defense, and saw the BMF crime organization decimate their neighborhood with drugs. That was the reality for Coach Ken Hunter growing up in the roughest part of Detroit.

His salvation, as it has been for many guests on The Basketball Strong Podcast, was basketball. He was always big for his age, to the point that his family and friends gave him the nickname Fatman. But it wasn’t like he was too heavy – think a young, powerful Charles Barkley running rampant on offense. Ken’s skills and size caught the attention of AAU coaches and enabled him to star at the same high school as future Fab Five member and NBA standout Jalen Rose, who was a few years his senior.

Crack, a Knife, and a Gun

But while he was blossoming on the court, Ken sometimes struggled off it through no fault of his own. “My father got hooked on crack when I was nine, and most of my friends’ dads were as well,” Ken said. “When drugs moved into our area, it changed everything.” While he remained close to both his parents and his mom worked to support the family, his dad’s substance abuse altered his personality and led to violent outbursts that reached a crescendo on one fateful night.

“My parents were fighting – which they did a lot in those days – and I pulled a kitchen knife on my dad to get him off my mom,” Ken said. “She called my uncle, and when he got there, he told my father, ‘I said you’re never going to put your hands on my sister or nephew again.’ They argued, and I watched my uncle shoot my dad in the head.”

An ambulance arrived and rushed the stricken man to the nearest ER. Miraculously, the bullet had not penetrated his brain but had gone in one side of his skull and out the other with minimal damage. And yet clearly, the family couldn’t continue living like this. So Ken and his mother moved out and went to live with his grandmother. Fortunately, the situation became more stable.

“I had a lot of strong, positive influences growing up,” Ken said. “As well as my mom, my grandmother was a great lady and one of my uncles had worked with Ray Charles. Two other relatives were ministers and had a great influence on me.”

Trouble with the Law

Yet with all the trauma, Ken had hit a wall. He continued to excel on the basketball court and football field, but he started cutting class with a few friends and his grades plummeted. Fortunately, he was about to get a lesson in accountability and tough love.

“When my football coach found out I was academically ineligible, he grabbed me, shoved me against a wall, and let me know he wasn’t going to let me fail anymore. Right then and there, everything changed, and I had at least a 3.5 GPA going forward.”

Though he had turned the corner in the classroom, some of Ken’s compadres were still stuck in bad habits. One night turned to trouble and Ken ended up in hot water with the cops. He was probably facing jail time, but then there was a Good Will Hunting-like intervention. A family friend was a high-ranking military officer and talked the judge into expunging Ken’s record in exchange for military service.

A Fresh Start

Though his time in the US Army saved Ken from prison and taught him skills like discipline and timeliness that he still relies on to this day, his service squashed his sporting play. When he decided not to re-up for another four years, he didn’t know what to do next. Many friends were either dead, in jail, or dealing drugs. Fortunately, another family friend knew the coaching staff at USC, and they arranged for Ken to fly out to California for a campus visit.

While Ken impressed Coach Henry Bibby (father of NBA legend Mike), he would’ve had to start with a few minutes off the bench. Or, Bibby suggested, he could probably start at a school just across town. Ken decided to choose the latter, and soon was enrolled at LA Trade Tech.

“I felt relieved, like I could breathe easy for the first time,” Ken said. “I could see the sun every day, it was warm, and there weren’t crack heads everywhere – it was a relief. I wanted to bring my family out and never leave that place.”

As he learned to live a different lifestyle within the safe confines of the SoCal college campus, Ken also rediscovered his form on the hardwood after not playing at all for several years while in the military.

“We’d started to turn the program around and get some good wins,” Ken said. “I was playing well, and the last game I remember was a victory against East LA College.” Let’s push pause on that telling detail in his story and come back to it in a moment. Because now came the pain.

An End and a Beginning

One day, Ken and his college buddies were hanging out doing undergrad stuff – snacking, playing video games, and talking smack on each other. Ken liked to roughhouse, and he picked up his roommate, who was a mountain of a man – almost seven feet and over 300 pounds. They re-enacted some pro wrestling moves and Ken shoved him onto the bed, intending to stop and get back to whatever the rest of his crew were doing in the living room. But his friend grabbed his head and drove it into the mattress. Despite the soft surface, Ken heard something snap.

“I fractured my C5 vertebrae in three places and bruised my spinal cord, and it paralyzed me instantly,” Ken said. “I said, ‘Hey, I think I'm paralyzed.’ They were like, ‘Quit playing,’ but I told them I was serious. We had two home phones, and I said, ‘Call my father on one and an ambulance on the other.’ I told him I could barely breathe, and my body was shutting down. You know that feeling when your arm goes to sleep? That’s how it felt from my neck down. My pops told me to stay calm, but I said, ‘I don’t think I’m gonna make it.’ My eyes wanted to close, but he kept me talking. That night, I coded blue twice. But God spared me.”

Now in a wheelchair, Ken’s promising playing career was over. He moved back to Detroit, and while he got a job and tried to stay out of the bad habits that had sucked in so many of his friends, he sank into a deep depression, made worse by his now-limited mobility and being in constant pain.

“I called my wife one day and told her, ‘I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to kill myself,’” Ken said.

Fortunately, she and an uncle talked him off the ledge, but he was still teetering on the edge between life and death, working an honest job and living a life of crime, feeling the pull of the old neighborhood toward the darkness. A visit from his old college coach pivoted him back toward the light, and within days, Ken was back on the West Coast in the comforting atmosphere at LA Trade Tech. He stayed for 13 years, growing as a husband and father while he developed the coaching skills needed to guide young men like him on and off the court.

A Coaching Mission

Now back to that East LA College connection. When Ken’s squad faced ELAC, he had never heard of John Mosley, who grew up in similar circumstances in South Central LA and also felt God had called him to coaching. But as he advanced his skills on the sideline and became an excellent recruiter with connections all over the greater Los Angeles metroplex, Ken heard the name Mosley over and over again. When an assistant coaching role popped up at ELAC, he knew they’d make a dynamic team – one providing the drill sergeant-like discipline kids often lacked in their turbulent home lives and the other providing a kind word right when it was needed.

“I talk to people in ways that make them feel part of the conversation and help them open up,” Ken said. “I know they’re afraid to ask for help in front of their peers, and that’s what Coach Mosley, me, and our entire staff is here for. We spend a lot of time with them in the offseason and invite them into our homes to show that we’re normal people, and they come to see that we’ve lived the same struggles they’re going through, so they come to trust us.”

Filling a Leadership Gap and Changing Lives

With that firm foundation laid, Ken and John are better able to reach their players, whether it’s putting in more effort during basketball drills or classroom assignments, showing up when they say they’re going to, or starting to make positive changes in their personal lives. In one touching scene of Last Chance U: Basketball season one, Ken asked ELAC’s team manager to wheel him back into the locker room after Joe Hampton lost it and stormed out of practice. He felt like Coach Mosley was singling him out, despite him putting in maximum effort, and wanted to quit. But not before he’d cussed up a storm and smashed some lockers.

But now here came Coach Ken, as everyone calls him. “Joe, I understand you to a point, but you’re better than this,” he told his talented but temperamental star player. “We need you to be a leader. You’re gonna see adversity in the playoffs, and you have to lead. Come back out here.”

You can see Joe go from a white-hot rage to calm in a matter of moments, with the basketball whisperer Ken talking him down like his uncles and coaches used to do with him during his own struggles. The scene ends with a recommitted Joe pushing Ken’s wheelchair back to practice, where he rejoins his teammates. Joe is now starring in Ecuador, winning a title and Finals MVP honors for Riobamba. After Ken was paralyzed, he almost took his own life, but his mission drove him to save himself and so many others. When he’s not serving at ELAC or with his family, Ken is giving back to charities that help young people stay off the streets of LA and Detroit.

“God had a bigger plan and purpose for me,” he said. “If a guy is able-bodied, I want him to look at me and say, ‘I’ve got no excuse because look at him in his wheelchair – he’s here every day even when he’s in horrible pain.’ Then I hope he stops making excuses and feels sorry for himself. Coach Mosley and I are going to do our part to help him, but he has to do his part. Then he can turn his life around and have a great story, no matter what situation he finds himself in. He can see that I’m real, I’m genuine, and I’m trying to help him get back right. That’s the gift God gave me, and I’m going to keep sharing it every day until He calls me home.”

Hear the rest of Ken’s story on his episode of The Basketball Strong Podcast and follow him on Instagram @coach_ken_last_chance_u .