Cartwright Remembers

James William “Bill” Cartwright, arguably the best basketball player to come out of Sacramento, was born 67 years ago in Lodi to parents who came west during the Great Migration. They bought the 1,600-acre Bean farm in Walnut Grove in the Delta. Bill and his five sisters got up at dawn to pick tomatoes and walnuts for up to eight hours a day. He later hoed and weeded sugar beets with Mexican migrant workers. “For me, moving to Sacramento was like getting out of jail,” he writes in his new memoir, “Living Life at the Center.”& In the Valley Hi neighborhood, he mowed lawns, helped his dad paint houses and dodged black widow spiders while cutting grapes and picking blackberries. Basketball proved to be his salvation; in 1974, the junior led the Elk Grove High Thundering Herd to a 30-0 record. He once scored 62 points in three quarters against Sac High. His senior year, the now 7-foot-1 Cartwright averaged 39 points a game and led his team to a state championship.& He played college ball at the University of San Francisco, where he went on to get his master’s degree in human resources and organizational management. He currently serves...