The Education of Kendrick Perkins

A Memoir

By: Kendrick Perkins, Seth Rogoff

Narrated by: JD Jackson

Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

"Kendrick Perkins is the bold and educational voice we need today. Every single word he speaks will challenge, enlighten and encourage you to become a better version of yourself and see a better version of the world. Perkins' riveting stories about the NBA, his upbringing and social justice will make this ... impossible to put down."—Emmanuel Acho, New York Times bestselling author of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man

Kendrick “Perk” Perkins is known for his blunt, opinionated, “carry the hell on” commentary on ESPN’s most popular shows. As a fourteen-year NBA player and starting center for the 2008 NBA champion Boston Celtics, Perk earned a reputation as an enforcer, a fierce defender, and a great teammate. Now, In The Education of Kendrick Perkins, he opens a different side of himself: a powerful and intimate memoir that goes beyond basketball to discuss the reality of being Black in America.

Abandoned by his father, then orphaned after the murder of his mother, Perk was raised by his grandparents in a small Texas town. He left their home at age eighteen, drafted out of high school by the legendary Celtics. For a country boy, Boston was a completely new world, and the NBA a league of legends: Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Kevin Garnett, James Harden, Shaquille O’Neal, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Durant, and more. Perk had to learn how to play with and against these stars, while adjusting to life on the road as a professional athlete.

But his education went beyond basketball. In this audiobook, Perk reveals his awakening consciousness of larger issues that affected him, his fellow players, and Black Americans:

-How many NBA players grow up in broken families and difficult circumstances

-The history of slavery and how that trauma affects generations of Black life

-The truths told by writers including James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and others

-The myths about the Black family and fatherhood

-Why George Floyd’s murder forced a reckoning about race in America

Honest, fearless, dramatic, filled with stories about life on and off the court, The Education of Kendrick Perkins is a unique memoir that shows how he and we all can “carry the hell on.”

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

©2023 Kendrick Perkins, Seth Rogoff (P)2023 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"It makes sense that the most exciting, authentic and knowledgeable basketball analyst in the world would create a stunning, revealing memoir. But I was still shocked at the wonder of this memoir. After reading The Education of Kendrick Perkins, you will understand why none of us should ever doubt the mind, nor the gumption of Kendrick Perkins ever again. It's hard to make a layered classic memoir and that's exactly what Kendrick Perkins has done. Though the book moves from region to region, Kendrick carries his south with him, and consistently interrogates himself, and the NBA. The book is flat out brilliant. Now carry the hell on."--Kiese Laymon, MacArthur award-winning author of Heavy

"From Beaumont to Boston and beyond, The Education of Kendrick Perkins takes the reader on a journey through Black history and Black social thought to give a unique perspective of what it is like for a Black man to make it in the NBA." --Louis Moore, author of We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality

"The Education of Kendrick Perkins makes clear our own miseducation. On the hardwood, Big Perk did what great Big Men do, he cleaned the glass. But in these pages, he does what great point guards do, he drops dimes, dishing highlight reel insights into the Black experience on and off the court. He leads us to truths too often obscured by racism. Truths about Jim Crow and the Great Migration; about training camp and game sevens; about fatherhood and fatherless sons; about teams and players we love and love to hate; about Black Power and Black Lives Matter; about the era of Jordan and the Age of Lebron. This is the book you need to carry on!" --Hasan Kwame Jeffries, author of Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt and host of the podcast Teaching Hard History

New Perspective on Perk

Very impressed by Perks recollections on his life, basketball and the NBA. Was hard to not listen to a couple insightful chapters over and over.

409

I’m from the 409 also. Some of the things Perk talk about bring back old Memory. I’m a retired former Beaumont ISD School Administrator. Clifton Guillory. Old friend of Coach Andre Boutte.

Well done biography

This was a great surprise of a listen. I have following Kendrick’s basketball and media career, but his eloquence and breadth of thinking on a vast array of personal and social issues was interesting and inspiring.

Very good read

Outstanding book
Very interesting story
I enjoyed book very much
Thank you for sharing your story

Well Done

Great job, Kendrick. I enjoyed the basketball stories, and hearing the challenges you overcame to play in the NBA. Thank you for providing your perspective. I am forever changed.

Nice book

Wow things you don’t know looking from the outside! Good knowledge, great history, great book!

Kendrick had a good education.

this is a great read for young basketball players, and young men looking to play basketball in any arena. thank you Kendrick for a good book a great story of your life.

Carry the hell on