Ben

im goin 2 give u a piece of my life from 1 of my websites......Ben Wallace was born September 10, 1974, in White Hall, Alabama. The 10th of 11 children, and the youngest of eight brothers, he spent his early childhood in nearby Benton, which was declared the smallest town in America back in the 1960s. Later, the family moved to White Hall. Ben’s mother, Mama Sadie, was the family matriarch—her word was law, and none of the Wallace boys dared to defy her. She raised food and a small cotton crop near the house, and made all the clothes for her family. Resourcefulness and hard work were a way of life, lessons which Ben took to heart.There was not a lot of extra cash in the Wallace home (they never had a car and were the last family in the area to get electricity), so all the kids had to pitch in. When Ben and his brothers wanted spending money, they picked pecans or bailed hay for local farmers.Ben spent a lot of time with his siblings fishing and playing basketball. They had put up a rim on the side of their tiny, three-bedroom house, and with so many kids around, it was easy to get together games of three-on-three and four-on-four. The battles could get mighty fierce. Because he was usually the smallest kid on the court, the only way Ben ever got his hands on the rock was by rebounding it, stealing it, or saving it from going out of bounds. Incredibly, he is still the smallest boy in the family all these years later.Ben—who would eventually grow to 6-7 and 240 pounds (he’s listed at 6-9, but that’s counting his hair)—was a strong, wiry kid who excelled at baseball, football and basketball. By the time he graduated from Central High School in Hayneville, he would earn All-State honors in each of these sports. He also ran track. As a teenager, Ben liked to handle the basketball. He fancied himself as a new-age hybrid, blending the skills required by each different position. Sometimes he would take over games and actually play every position, much to the chagrin of his teammates and the annoyance of his coaches. Although Ben liked to boast he could shoot like Isiah, pass like Magic and dunk like Michael, the reality was something short of that.