Radio, still playing.

January 24, 2014 4:41 PM

The December 16, 1996 issue of Sports Illustrated featured Someone to Lean On, a longform article by Gary Smith [previously]: "We begin way over there, out on the margin. We begin with a dirty, disheveled 18-year-old boy roaring down a hill on a grocery cart, screaming like a banshee, holding a transistor radio to his ear. No one ever plays with him, for he can barely speak and never understands the rules. He can't read or write a word. He needs to be put away in some kind of institution, people keep telling his mother, because anything, anything at all, can happen out there on the margin," begins the article. It's the story of James Robert Kennedy, nicknamed Radio, popularized by Cuba Gooding Jr.'s portrayal in the 2003 movie of the same name. Want to know how Radio and Coach Harold Jones are doing these days? Check our their website for a brief update: Radio is 68 and still attending school and helping out with the athletic teams.

Also: How real is the reel Radio?

Radio and Coach Jones interviewed (2010).

posted by MoonOrb (3 comments total)

...Radio sounds kind of scary.
posted by maryr at 5:55 PM on January 24, 2014

(Based on the article. He seems perfectly sweet in the interview.)
posted by maryr at 5:57 PM on January 24, 2014

Loved the movie. Radio seems like a great guy. 67 and still going strong helping out at the school and still a "junior" so he does not graduate. I love his younger brother's nickname, "Cool Rock". Would love to hear how he got it. And his older brother Walter (and his wife Pat) must be special people too. Both Radio and Cool Rock live with them.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:36 PM on January 24, 2014