By Rupert Howell

Once again he towered above those around him in the same spot he stood tall 44 years ago when he last played center for the North Panola High School basketball team.

Otis Sanford told about 50 campers at the Let’s Talk It Out Basketball Camp last Saturday that life is like the game of basketball—giving and taking assists and passing the ball to the open man—making people around you successful.

The Como native has been successful in his career in journalism. He currently teaches journalism at the University of Memphis, has a daily commentary on Memphis News Channel 3 and a weekly column in The Commercial Appeal, a newspaper he ran as managing editor prior to his teaching career. He also had stops at newspapers in Jackson, Miss., Pittsburgh and Detroit.  

“I was a good ball player, I was a center,” he told the young campers while quietly palming a basketball.

A bum knee caused him to give up his dream of playing college ball, but it didn’t stop him from doing something else he loved.

When he was in the seventh grade, he said he wasn’t good enough to make the junior high basketball team. But he did write an article about the game and the high school newspaper ran it.

“Lo and behold, they did and I decided right then and there I wanted to be a journalist,” he said, noting that he would go on to be the school newspaper’s editor.

He said that although journalism is not a high paying career, “You can speak for people who have no voice. You can make a big difference.”

The veteran journalist encouraged campers to write.

“I encourage you while you are in school to just write. Write all the time like I did,” he said, adding, “Writing can carry you to places that you never thought possible. . . poets, lawyers, doctors. . . judges, they all have to write,” he said.

Sanford appeared at the request of Let’s Talk It Out founders Billy Brown and Rosemary Brown McKinney who have managed the organization since 2003.

The basketball camp is one of several activities sponsored by the organization and volunteers to steer youngsters in positive directions using church and community to reach their goals.