By ZETTLER CLAY IV
The UNITY News

Rousted from his slumber at the onset of dawn, Lacy Banks extends his seasoned hand, and gingerly cups an assortment of pills and tablets in his palm.

It’s 2008, and Banks – a pioneering columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, Baptist minister, mentor to a generation of black sportswriters – is battling prostate cancer, brain cancer and congestive heart failure. He has already survived a triple bypass.

But nothing can dampen his zeal for life, commentary and teaching. Banks will not let it. Capitulation is not an option.

“I have been preaching for years about pity parties and people crying ‘why me, why me’ when things happen to them,” said Banks, who first became a minister 55 years ago. “I would say to them ‘why not you?’ Now how would I look when the moment I am afflicted, I do the same thing? I can’t punk out now.”

For Banks, 64, the depth of his illnesses does not compare to the life he is fighting to protect: a marriage to his wife Joyce for 40 years, a father to three daughters and his being revered in a number of different circles, including journalism.

This Friday, Banks will receive the Sam Lacy Pioneer Award at the NABJ Hall of Fame banquet for his work at the Chicago Sun-Times.

Banks blogs a few times a week about his illnesses and healing processes, providing insights into his day-to-day grind and responding to every reader post without fail.

He begins every blog with the same three words: “God bless you.”

“This whole ordeal has definitely thrown me to my knees,” said Banks. “That’s why I decided to blog about this thing, to let folks know that this is what I have, and that God is going to heal me. And I want you to watch God heal me.”

Lacy Jimmerson Banks was born on Aug. 11, 1943, in Lyon, Miss., – a time and place marked by Jim Crow laws and open racial hostility. When Banks was 11, his mother died of terminal blood poisoning in an all-black hospital in an all-black town.

“This was a time of integration,” said Banks, who spent two years of his childhood sharecropping 15 acres of cotton from dusk to dawn. “If you had sense and wasn’t a criminal and was black, many opportunities opened up for you then.”

For Banks, those opportunities arose from happenstance and hard work.

After graduating from the University of Kansas in 1961, Banks became the first black sportswriter at the Kansas City Star.

On Aug. 7, 1972, after stints in the U.S. Navy and at Ebony magazine, Banks became the first black sportswriter at the Chicago Sun-Times and quickly gained traction within the ranks.

In 1975, however, Banks found himself fighting to keep his job when newly-hired Sun-Times sports editor Lewis Grizzard took his column and beat away.

After accusing Grizzard of racial discrimination, Banks was fired and offered a $2,700 severance check. He fought the firing, and an arbitrator eventually ordered the paper to return Banks to his beat covering the Chicago Bulls and writing a weekly column.

Instead, the Sun-Times consigned Banks to menial responsibilities. He sued the paper in federal court through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

He won, recovering his tenure in time to cover the nascent rise of a young Michael Jordan. Many took notice; others followed suit.

“Because of Wendell Smith  and Lacy Banks, I never grew up thinking that I couldn’t be a sportswriter because there was some racial barrier,” said Chicago native and ESPN analyst Michael Wilbon. Smith worked for the Chicago Defender and WGN Sports.

Mike Terry, a former Los Angeles Times sports reporter for 14 years, calls Banks one of the “godfathers of black columnists.”

“His writing style was very folksy, common sense. When you read it, it was like he was sitting next to you, sharing a beer,” said Terry. “You never had that feeling that he was being erudite just for erudite’s sake.”

Jack McCallum, a Sports Illustrated writer and friend of Banks, remembers an incident in Chicago, where he was covering a Bulls playoff game. He was up around 4 a.m., flipping through the television channels. Lo and behold, there was Banks. Preaching.

“I don’t think there is any sportswriter I have ever known who you can find on the local access channel preaching,” McCallum said.

Banks has preached at hundreds of churches in the Chicago area, averaging at least 30 engagements a year. These days, Banks’ routine consists of exercising, blogging on his life, meditating and spending time with his wife.

“I’ve always believed that you don’t measure true achievement by how high one ascends, but by how far one has come from where they have started,” Banks said. “I am a long way from those cotton fields now. That’s all I ever wanted most.”

topic: UNITY Convention
tags: awards, Chicago Sun-Times, Lacy Banks, pioneer award, Sam Lacy

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