I always thought it was God’s sick joke to be the daughter of my Dad, who played and then coached Sixers Championships, when I couldn’t make a basket unless my eyes were closed.

When I was young, I asked my Dad to teach me how to play basketball. He must have been trying to get some point across–to practice, no doubt, and I took it like a Harlem Globe Trotter trick instead.

He closed his eyes and said, “Look, I can shoot with my eyes closed.”

So I was in college, and the guys were shooting hoops.

My friends egged them on and said, “Give her the ball. She can shoot with her eyes closed.”

It must have been the cockiness of being young (and a few beers didn’t hurt), but I made that shot.

After I stopped gloating about my one basketball accomplishment, I realized that the only part of my Dad’s basketball lesson that stuck with me over the ages wasn’t in the living but in the telling.

So Dad and I devised a new approach to “play ball” that suits us both better. He throws me a story, and I catch it.

That way, I can close my eyes, conjure up the tall tales and basketball legends of the good old days, and capture them on paper.

My Dad and I also have another similarity; neither of us likes sad stories, which works fine for us. We close our eyes for those parts.

So when Wali spoke to my Dad and mentioned his Pop celebrated 106 when the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve this year and was as sharp as ever, I got excited and eagerly caught the ball.

Dad said, “Why don’t you call Wali and see about talking to his Dad? He’s expecting your call.”

Of course, I’d call Wali.

Pop Jones and I share a critical moment in time–in 1967, two years before I was born and 50 years after Pop Jones was born, my Dad and Pop Jones’ son played on the Sixers championship team. Some argue it to be the most outstanding team of all time.

Being half his age, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to hear any story from a man whose family intersects mine through basketball.

But first, I contemplated the hardships Pop Jones must have endured to live 106 years and what he must have seen.

He’s lived through the heyday and the decline of West Philly, once a safe place to grow up and raise a family, and now shattered by gun violence.

As Wali said, “That’s my home, and people are afraid to go anywhere.”

To live 106 years inevitably means there’s been a lot of suffering. He’s outlived his wife and four of his eight children, lost one grandchild to gun violence, and who knows how many other countless friends and family members.

Whether or not I could handle the complex parts of Pop Jones’ life, Pop Jones wasn’t taking me there anyway. He led me where he wanted to take me.

And for that, he’s a treasure. (As expressed by my childhood friend with the camera who accompanied me, Tigre Hill).

Pop Jones said, “If I’m such a treasure, give me some money.”

He was in High School during the Great Depression, so you can’t pull anything over on him.

Pop Jones said it best in his own words: “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

And if we were judging by looks alone, he could be the same age as his 81-year-old son. The only giveaway was the walker.

He leads us through time to the parts he needs to take us.

He’s a living legend who rings in every birthday with the new year, while his son, Wali “Wonder,” holds the court on Valentine’s Day (yes, that’s Wali’s birthday).

They’ll celebrate Wali’s lifetime accomplishments as an Overbrook High School and Villanova graduate, a 1967 Sixers World Championship team basketball player who’s remained devoted to the West Philly kids and community ever since.

Mural Arts Philadelphia will unveil the Wali “Wonder” Jones mural on July 21st in West Philly–a block from where Wali’s wife lived when they were 15.

Wali had his Pop to teach him and every one of their siblings a thing or two about life. “Either go to work or go to school. Do something.”

For Wali, going to work meant playing professional basketball. It didn’t pay much back then, so the players always needed a summer job. Hence, Wali’s big Valentine’s heart led him to do clinics with the kids along with fellow teammates Hal Greer, Luke Jackson, and my Dad, Bill Cunningham.

This was my Dad and Ken Wilburn raising up this kid with Wali Jones looking on at one such clinic at Trenton’s Grant Park.

Today those clinics go by the name of “Shoot For The Stars” and involve a myriad of help from the West Philly community, and beyond.

Coach Alex Hannum made those teammates a tight family–a team family concept, where the wives were always together. And they were there for one another.

This mural will honor the West Philly community who work to silence the violence in their piece of the City of Brotherly Love–hoping to make it the ideal place to raise a family, as Pop Jones remembers it to be.

Wali remembers that the Jones’ house was like living in a recreation center. Friends were always over, and Pop Jones was father to them all.

Like his Pop, Wali can never stop giving and making a difference in the lives of those in West Philly.

Where my Dad and I would have to close our eyes to the impact of violence on kids who are so young, Wali and his Pop keep theirs wide open and do something about it.

Pop Jones may not have been born yesterday, but his actions speak louder than words. He’s always in the community. He’s stood behind West Philly. Heck, it’s the only thing still older than him.

Pop Jones is our ray of hope. He’s our reminder of the history we’ve overcome and the pride we can all share when we envision the dawn of a new day for the City of Brotherly Love.

As Wali said, “How our world is today, they need to know about our City of Brotherly love.”

Pop Jones and Wali bring new meaning to the West Philly community. They are carrying an old legacy along with them, bringing it into the new day.

As Wali said, “It’s not about me, but the reflection of brotherhood…How we respected each other as family.”

“Your father is my brother.” He’s a part of that family, too, as he came to Philadelphia and made it his own.

So when you have Pop Jones to unite family, friends, West Philly, 76ers teammates like Bill Cunningham and Wali “Wonder,” and a mural, the story is more significant than life–it’s epic.

It’s not a sad story at all. It’s a story of how being born on New Year’s Eve, 1916, could make a difference in today’s West Philly community.

It may all start with this mural. It brings the past together again with the present–it’s a tall tale and a basketball legend if I ever heard one, and like Pop Jones, it captures the heart of the City of Brotherly Love.

And don’t worry. There’s more to come with this story.

Because now, I know it was God’s great blessing to be the daughter of my Dad, a professional athlete who’s opened my eyes to a world I couldn’t play in but love to hear about.