Jerome Kersey: Overcoming the Odds

Chapter One

The Beginning

JEROME KERSEY came into the world on June 26, 1962, in the rural town of Clarksville, Va., just a few miles from the North Carolina state line. He was born to Deloris Kersey, the oldest of the seven children of Herman and Mary Kersey.

Deloris had just turned 18 years of age. The father, John Hargrove, was 20. Neither would play a major role in Jerome’s life.

Jerome was raised by his maternal grandparents, alongside his aunts and uncles. Deloris is the oldest, followed by Lawrence, Mary, Jean, Joyce, Calvin— known as Buck — and Brenda.

Deloris would soon move to Richmond, Va., and would mostly see Jerome for a few weeks each summer until he turned 18. Soon after Jerome’s birth, she yielded her parental rights to her own parents. Through his life, Jerome regarded Deloris like an aunt.

John, who had recently been released from the Army when Jerome was born, says he was living in Philadelphia and was married to another woman when he learned he was Jerome’s father.

The de facto parents were Herman and Mary, the latter called May since her childhood by most of those who knew her. The couple raised Jerome as if he were their son.

I don’t call Jerome my grandson, May Kersey said in an interview with Hoke Currie in 1998. I feel like Jerome is mine because I raised him from a baby.

Jerome felt the same way.

I called them ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ Jerome told Currie. I owe everything to them.

He called his grandmother ‘Mama,’ says a cousin, Clifton Kersey Jr., who was always known as Junnie. He called his mother ‘Deloris.’

Herman was born on January 3, 1923. He died from a heart condition in May 1993 at the age of 70. May, still alive and living in Clarksville, was born on June 29, 1928. They were married for 49 years.

Until the age of nine, Jerome lived in a two-bedroom house outside of town on a tobacco farm owned by a man named Charlie Parker. Jerome’s earliest memory was that there were five of us living there — my grandparents, me, my aunt Brenda and uncle Calvin.

Brenda, the youngest of the seven offspring of Herman and May, was only three years older than Jerome. Calvin was six years Jerome’s senior. He looked at them as if they were a sister and brother.

Along with her parents, a sister and two brothers, May grew up in Soudan, Va., about five miles south of Clarksville. Her father raised hogs, grew vegetables and got milk by tending to a neighbor’s cows. Her mother worked cleaning houses for neighbors. They were members of the Second Baptist Church.

May was born during the Great Depression. My parents never owned a home, May said during an interview with the author in November 2020. We stayed on different farms.

May has a seventh-grade education. She was 16 when she got married to Herman, who was 21. Through the years, Herman worked at a sawmill, as a truck driver and at a factory. May did domestic work, worked at the Russell Stover Candy factory and at the Burlington Industries woolen plant. With seven children of their own, money was tight.

They were very poor, says Jerome Watson, Jerome Kersey’s basketball coach for two years at Bluestone High. But they made it work.

In 1966, when Jerome was four, Deloris married Thomas Florence. They would have three children together.

My grandfather was my father, but Thomas was like a step-father, Jerome said. He was always good to me. He treated me like a son.

His grandfather, though, was whom he considered his real dad.

He was a real solid person, Jerome said in 1998. "He didn’t say a lot except on the weekends, when he had a few drinks. He had selective hearing. I didn’t really start to enjoy my grandfather until I was in college.

"He liked kids a lot. He wouldn’t outwardly show it, but when all the little cousins were born, he’d be like, ‘Bring that child over here!’ They’d wind up on his lap. It was a side of him most people didn’t see. He had a rough, rugged side. Every day he’d come home from work at the sawmill and it was like, ‘I’m ready to eat. Then I’ll be ready to take a nap.’ He had to get up at 5 the next morning to be to work again. It wasn’t like he wanted to get into a lot of horseplay in between.

My grandmother did most of the discipline, and my aunts. Every once in a while he would give you the overflow whipping for being hard-headed with my grandmother. I could never understand it. My grandmother had already whipped me; then she would tell him what I’d done, and he would whip me, too. That only happened once in a while, but the ones he would give you would last.

In an article in the Mecklenburg Sun, Jerome said this about May Kersey:

She was my hero, my inspiration. She was the rock of the family. She set a great foundation for me. When she was waking up before her 11 p.m. shift at Russell Stover, tired from cleaning the machines the previous night and silently feeling the aches and pains, I would watch her and tell myself there isn’t anything I can do to compare to her.

To Currie, Jerome added this: My grandmother never complained about anything. Even if she didn’t feel good or her legs were hurting, she still went to work. She endured all the pain and hardship and continued to, along with my grandfather, provide for the family. I would see that and think, ‘Well, if she can do all this, there’s nothing I can’t endure.’ It instilled in me that I can go out there and work hard. I can be the guy who works just a little bit harder. That’s something that comes from deep inside, and they can’t take that away from you.

For nine years, May also did housecleaning twice a week for a Clarksville resident named Harriet Overstreet. This was while May worked the night shift at Russell Stover.

In 1998, Harriet told Currie that May was one of the finest people I knew. My children were small then. They loved her. She was 1,000 percent honest and loyal — one of the most pleasant people. One of my friends described her as like having your best friend come to see you, but she cleaned the house while she was there. I attribute Jerome’s success and his staying out of trouble to his grandmother’s influence.

Jerome recalled going to the Overstreets at times when his grandmother provided housework. At other times, he’d visit his great grandmother, Channie Kersey.

When my grandmother worked at Russell Stover, (Channie) would keep me during the day, Jerome said. She loved going fishing every morning. I would go to her house at 8 o’clock. She was probably 60 then. She’d get her straw hat and her bucket, and we would go fishing for perch for two to three hours. She would come back and cook the fish we caught on an old wood stove. I was so bored fishing.

Jerome said he could be difficult as a child.

I got real hardheaded at times, he said. I was stubborn. I wanted to do things my way. I bitched and moaned. I cursed. I wasn’t a saint. I talked back and sassed. My grandma took it in stride. She knew when to get on me, though.

May was three days short of her 34th birthday when Jerome was born. Though she had her hands full with her own offspring, she was young enough to handle having another one.

It wasn’t hard, she says today. Jerome was always a lovable person. He was a good student. He mostly behaved himself. He just enjoyed life.

Jerome Watson and his wife, Pat, were members of the Second Baptist Church in downtown Clarksville along with May.

We were in the same missionary group, Pat says. Lovely family. She’s a sweet person. She dearly loved Jerome.

All of the Kerseys attended Second Baptist Church during Jerome’s childhood.

Jerome and I went to church every Sunday when we were kids, Junnie says. It wasn’t just expected of us. It was expected of the whole community.

Those who knew the Kerseys held Herman and May in high esteem.

The most loving people in the world, cousin Junnie Kersey says. I was at their place a lot growing up. Whatever they ate, I ate. They treated me like I was their son. That’s the way our families grew up. Everybody took care of everybody else.

I called them ‘Miss May’ and ‘Mr. Herman,’ says Tracy Roberts, who lived on the same block as the Kerseys. To this day, Miss May is very sweet. Mr. Herman was quiet, but he was a disciplinarian. He believed in doing the right thing. They were good people.

I used to see Jerome’s granddaddy every morning at the post office, says Dale Hite, who owns a clothing store in town and is the same age as Jerome’s uncle Buck. Herman was a hardworking man, a good person. I knew him pretty well. I knew May better. One of the sweetest ladies you’ll ever meet. A lot of Jerome’s personality was the result of those two. They were such good family people.

May instilled a lot in Jerome — the attitude, the work ethic, his general approach to things, says Bill Bowles, who was Jerome’s football and basketball coach as a senior at Bluestone High. In that respect, he had things a lot of other kids didn’t have. She did a great job with him. As a coach, you try to bring those things out, if they’re already there. She was the one who put them there.

Tommy Hargrove is the nephew of John Hargrove, Jerome’s birth father, and was 17 years Jerome’s senior. Tommy’s mother, Susie, was Herman Kersey’s twin.

Jerome was at our house more than at his own mother’s house, Tommy says. His grandparents were exceptional people. Jerome was a very reserved young man coming up. As an adult, he never forgot where he came from. His upbringing made him what he ended up being — a great individual. His grandparents really nurtured him through his formative years.

Jerome Watson was Kersey’s basketball coach at Bluestone when he was a sophomore and junior.

His grandmother was just super, Watson says today. She would never worry about him as long as I’d go pick him up. I said, ‘Mrs. Kersey, I want to carry Jerome down to Winston-Salem for a clinic.’ She said, ‘That’s fine, as long as he’s with you.’ She is a beautiful lady. Herman did an excellent job with Jerome, too. He was crazy about Jerome. He talked about Jerome all the time.

DRIVE WEST ON U.S. Route 58 from Norfolk to Clarksville across southern Virginia today and you’ll see roads lined with pine trees that wind through small towns and old farmhouses, and dwellings located precariously close to the highway. In March 2021, there were still plenty of Trump/Pence signs along the way, and even a Confederate flag or two waving on a pole.

It is conservative country, not unlike it was in the 1960s and ’70s when Jerome Kersey was raised there. It is still a rural area. Clarksville’s population in 1962 was about 1,500; today it has dipped to about 1,100. In 1962, Mecklenburg County had about 31,000 residents, about the same as it is today.

In one way, Clarksville has changed dramatically since Jerome grew up there.

We were a blue-collar industrial town, says Dale Hite, whose family has owned a clothing store in town for decades. Those things are gone. Russell Stover is gone. Burlington Industries is gone. It’s all about tourism and outdoor activities now. The lake sucks people in from everywhere.

Those were two huge employers, says Mike Mosely, sports editor of the Mecklenburg Sun and a Bluestone High grad. When Clarksville didn’t bring in any businesses to replace them, people just could not stay here. They had to pull up stakes and move to live somewhere else.

Clarksville sits just above the North Carolina state line, located along the Roanoke River and along Buggs Island Lake, the state’s largest aquatic playground. Kerr Reservoir straddles the North Carolina/Virginia border and is home to Occoneechee State Park.

The lake was about five or 10 minutes from our houses, Junnie Kersey says. Us kids could walk through the woods to get there. We’d play cowboys and Indians, run around the edge of the water, fish just about every day.

We’d go there to have picnic and family reunions, says Jerome’s cousin, Mary Jones. My dad would go fishing. We’d walk down the hill to the lake. Jerome would come sometimes. It’s still a popular place for people to go.

Jones, who is Tommy Hargrove’s sister, was almost a year older than Jerome.

We grew up together, says Mary, who everyone called Meme (as in Mimi). "I have very good memories of our childhood. Jerome and Junnie came to our house every morning to catch the school bus. My grandmother, who is their great grandmother (Channie Kersey), would fix us hot biscuits. My mother raised Junnie’s father, Clifton, from the time he was three months old. My brother, Kenny Christmas, taught Jerome how to play basketball.

We played together every day. We’d eat together. We’d run up and down the court. We played baseball, softball, basketball — all kinds of sports. Jerome was such a kind, sweet, loving, good-hearted person. We got along very well — all of us.

Mary says blacks experienced a lot of racism in Clarksville during those years.

Sometimes you’d go in stores, they’d follow you around because you were African-American, she says. But the kids — we got along good with the ones we went to school with. We became good friends with a lot of them.

In the early 1960s, schools were integrated in Clarksville. By the late ‘70s and ‘80s, race relations had changed considerably there.

Sports helped that, says Jerome Watson, who coached the Kerseys at Bluestone High. When I got over there, the athletes banded together, black and white. They walked to class together. They were just real close. That carried over to the rest of the kids in school. When West End kids started going to the high school at Bluestone, that’s when things changed. Sports was a big factor in all of that.

It wasn’t as bad for us coming up as it had been for the previous generation, Junnie Kersey says. Things were breaking by the time we got into our childhood. We were fortunate that way. We grew up with a lot of white friends. We had a lot of support from the community, both white and black people. It was a good place to grow up.

Dale Hite, who is white, was six years older than Jerome.

I’m not saying we didn’t have race issues, but it was probably not as bad as it was in the cities, Hite says. "With the kids, we all knew each other. We grew up together. We played sports together. White guys had black friends and black guys had white friends. I lived on a farm. I worked with black kids my age picking tobacco. We rode bicycles together. We went to the creek together. Everybody got along.

And I can tell you, Jerome was so easygoing and well-liked. If you couldn’t get along with Jerome Kersey, something was wrong.

Says Mosely, who is black: You knew (racism) was out there, but Jerome never let it affect him. He had as many white friends as he did black friends.

Today, Clarksville’s racial makeup is 71 percent white and 27 percent black.

It’s been a good place to live, says Mosely. I know white people who can’t stand black people. I know black people who can’t stand white people. But the majority of people around here now do try to respect each other.

JEROME ENJOYED outdoor pursuits as a child, especially after his family moved into town and onto Eighth Street, a few houses down from relatives. The Kerseys moved from the Parker farm, May Kersey says, because the landlord said they wanted the house.

The home they rented on Eighth Street was bigger, with six rooms. There were fewer of the Kersey kids still at home, so there was more space for Jerome to maneuver. Cousin Junnie — seven months older and in the same grade in school — provided companionship and competition. Junnie lived on the same block with his parents, Clifton Sr. and Jo-ann Kersey. Clifton — the son of Fannie Mitchell, who was the sister of Herman Kersey — ran his upholstery shop next door to the house.

We started fighting more, Jerome said. I fought everybody. I was stubborn and always wanted to do things everybody else was doing. I wanted to stay out longer. I wanted to stay on the court longer. Sometimes you’d fight the kid two years older than you just to prove yourself. Me and Junnie fought more than anybody. I guess we were alike in certain aspects. But we were probably closer than both of us realized.

At the time, it was a fair fight. They were roughly the same size. That wasn’t the case later. Jerome grew to 6 foot, 7 inches tall. Junnie topped out at 5-6.

We fought every day, Junnie says of the childhood years. Fistfights. Kids would egg us on and we’d fight. I’d say it was pretty even. We were competitive in everything. We were competitive in sports. We were competitive in school, too.

Even before that, though, the boys were competing.

When we were four or five, we’d put a clothes hamper in the corner of a room and make it a hoop, and make a basketball out of socks, Junnie says. That’s when it started.

The fights ended in their teenage years, though a competition between the two continued on the athletic fields.

They’d fight some, but they were just being kids, both of them trying to be the best in the sport that they were playing, says Jones. They loved each other. We were all tight. We couldn’t go a day without seeing each other — none of us.

Jerome and Junnie were cousins, Mike Mosely says. But really, they were like brothers.

While May and Herman were Jerome’s parents, they didn’t have to go it alone.

Junnie’s father, Clifton Kersey Sr., was like a father to me, too, Jerome said. Clifton was one of my heroes. He was very influential in my life. I was a little jealous of Junnie because his dad owned an upholstery shop. Junnie used to get just about anything he wanted. But really, anything he gave Junnie, he gave me.

Says Junnie: If Jerome was jealous, it was probably that I had a father in my life. But Dad helped him, too.

Jerome had some good mentors growing up, says Jerome Watson, who coached Jerome in basketball during his sophomore and junior seasons at Bluestone. Clifton Kersey was one. He took the boys around to basketball camps and games when they were small.

It wasn’t just Jerome whom Clifton Kersey looked after.

My dad took care of a lot of family members, Junnie says. A lot of them didn’t have their own father. He rented out tobacco fields and helped support the rest of the family by giving them all summer work. All us kids worked in them.

When Jerome and Junnie were six or seven they started picking tobacco for Clifton Sr., along with Jerome’s uncles, Buck and Lawrence. Jerome and Junnie continued working in the fields every summer through high school.

We’d start about 6 in the morning, Junnie says. "We’d come home for lunch and Dad would work in his upholstery shop from about noon to four o’clock. We’d go back and work from maybe 5 to 8 p.m. through high school. It was hard work. Sometimes I didn’t want to get up in the mornings, but Dad kept on calling me.

My mom went to work at 4 p.m. We’d go to my aunt’s house and walk all the way from there to the farm about a mile away. As soon as we got there, we’d get pails of water from the well in back of the house. Jerome and I would each get two buckets of water. We’d see who could take it longer before he had to set it down.

IN HIS 1998 interview with Hoke Currie, Jerome recalled his years attending Hillcrest Elementary School in first grade, then Clarksville Elementary from second to sixth grade.

Mrs. King was my first-grade teacher, he said. "She would spank us on the hand with a ruler if we were chewing gum, talking, acting up. She would tell you to put your hand out and spank you on the palm. If you jerked back, you got another one. Some days she used two rulers. She would get you early morning, too. We didn’t want to get the ruler from Mrs. King.

Me and a kid named Ricky Crow used to get in a fight all the time in fourth grade. I went to the office so many times for fighting that guy. He was a white kid. He was just nuts. I guess he thought I was nuts, too. One morning, I pushed him into the closet and locked the door and he couldn’t get out while the teacher was out of the room. She sent both of us to the office when she came back.

As he got into junior high, Jerome had a bit of puppy love with a neighbor two houses down.

We were kind of childhood crushes, Tracy Roberts says today. He was two years older than me. We lived so close. Junnie was right down the street. Mary was around the corner. It was a close-knit neighborhood. Everybody looked out for each other. That’s how we were as a community.

Tracy says the Roberts’ house was a gathering place for her friends.

We’d play records and dance around, she says. "We watched sports together. Normal stuff. Fun stuff. Innocent stuff. My mom would load us kids up in the car out in the country to collect soda bottles, and take that money to buy hot dogs and hamburgers for a cookout. Or we’d pick blackberries and she’d make pies. Or we’d all go to the drive-in together.

He was very quiet, very shy, but he was very competitive. We’d all play games. It didn’t matter whether you were a girl or a boy, if you did something, he’d defend himself. He didn’t let anybody take advantage of him. One time I hit him and I turned around and ran. He chased me and knocked the breath out of me. I remember telling his grandfather, ‘Mr. Herman, he hit me.’ Jerome got in trouble. He was punished for it. It didn’t happen again.

Tracy’s mother called Jerome Jeremiah.

I don’t know why, says Tracy, chuckling. "He’d come to my home and do things to help her. We had a Saint Bernard. He was the only one my mom could find to walk the dog. All the guys would tease him about it, but he didn’t care. He did it anyway, just to be helpful. He was just good that way.

"My brother is much younger. One time all of us went to see the movie ‘Friday the 13th.’ On the way home, Jerome had my brother in his lap. I don’t know if it was because the movie was scary or not, but he threw up all over Jerome. He just laughed it off.

He had a simplicity about him, a purity. An innocence about him. He was kind. In my life, there will never be a person who views me the same way he did when we were teenagers. It was an innocent, pure feeling. I can’t tell you how good of a person he was.

ONCE THE KERSEYS moved to the house on Eighth Street, Jerome began playing basketball. There was a court in a park across the street from where the Kerseys lived, next door to where Junnie lived. Clifton Sr. erected a hoop there. We played on what was a dirt court, with roots on the ground, Junnie says.

Jerome spent endless hours on that court, a lot of times alone just shooting and shooting, neighbor Tracy Roberts says.

One time when we were 12 or 13, it snowed, Junnie Kersey recalls. Jerome came knocking on the door and said, ‘Junnie, let’s play some basketball.’ I said, ‘I ain’t playing no basketball in that damn snow.’ I looked outside, you know what he was doing? He had a shovel out there digging the snow.

It became a ritual whenever it snowed in Clarksville.

He’d work for a long time just to get the snow out of the way; then he’d play basketball the rest of the day, says his grandmother, May Kersey.

Clifton Kersey Sr. and Perry Penn coached the youth basketball teams of Jerome and Junnie from fifth to seventh grade. They would practice on the outside asphalt court at the elementary school. Games were scheduled against school teams from neighboring towns, against YMCA teams and Boy Scout troops.

Cliff would drive us in his truck to games, and sometimes Perry, too, Jerome said. You’d get some money from your parents, but they basically paid the way for all of us. We got to play our games in high school gyms. It was my first taste of organized basketball.

Junnie recalls an English assignment in sixth grade. Each student had to write a paper on lifetime aspirations.

Says Junnie: Jerome wrote, ‘One day I’m going to play against Dr. J in the NBA.’ And everybody laughed at him. I know I did.

Even at 11 years of age, Jerome was all about setting goals — and reaching them.

Jerome, wearing a bow tie and a smile, at four years old. Courtesy Kersey