 Floyd Little was born July 4, 1942, in Waterbury,
Connecticut. His father died of cancer when Floyd was six, leaving Mrs. Little to raise
six children on meager welfare payments in a poor black section of town.
Floyd was a
homely, troubled child. For a long time he was afraid to go out of the house unless he
could cling to an older sister's skirt. Other children mocked him. He was so
self-conscious that after mispronouncing a word in the third grade and being laughed at by
his classmates, he refused to read aloud in school for years.
Floyd even went
through a period of hiding under his bed when he became convinced that his family hated
him because his skin was a darker shade than theirs.
"I just
couldn't stand to mix socially," Little admitted years later. "I stayed in the
house, hid under the bed, and watched television. I guess I watched every TV program they
ever put on the screen. That's why the neighborhood kids gave me the nickname, 'Television
Kid.'"
Ptomaine poisoning
forced Little to miss the fourth grade, then repeat it. When he regained his health, he
immediately went to work to help support his family. "I just hustled," he said.
"I sold papers, worked as a stockboy, and averaged around five dollars a day shining
shoes."
When Floyd was in
the seventh grade he started to play sandlot football. "I played in the line,"
he recalled. "I liked coming up to make the tackle. But I was still working after
school, and I had to watch that I didn't ruin my clothes. So I wasn't too tough in those
days."
When he was 13 his
mother moved to a run-down neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. There were 26 children
on three floors in one house in which the Littles lived. But by that time Floyd had found
an interest in life that allowed him to forget the grinding poverty and hopelessness of
ghetto life at least part of the time. He had discovered sports.
Floyd was one of
the best halfbacks in the history of Hillhouse High School. But unfortunately, he was far
from being one of the best students. So when his football eligibility ended after his
junior year when he turned 19 (because of the year he'd missed way back in the fourth
grade), Floyd had nothing. His grades weren't good enough to get him into college.
"In school they had me on a program of shop and physical education," he
recalled. "When I got through, I couldn't even read well."
Little tried to
get a job as a custodian but wasn't hired because he read so poorly that he couldn't even
fill out the application form. " All I was trying to be was a custodian," he
recalled, "and I couldn't even handle that. But I was smart enough to know that I
wasn't failing to get the job because I was black. I was failing because I couldn't read.
I walked out of there knowing I'd never get the job, but I also knew I was going to come
back and make it." Little was told he had an IQ of 85 and that he would never make it
in college. "I was told I was too dumb," he said. "But you try going
without eating for two days and see how well you do on tests." |
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· Floyd Little ·