Maurice Hargrow moved from Springfield, Ohio, to St. Paul during a blizzard in the late winter of 1991, as a third-grader. The family found an apartment on Dale Street and the lad known as "Moe" discovered Oxford Playground and the Jimmy Lee Rec Center once the snow stopped.
The basketball team that was assembled when Moe was in the fourth grade included Joe Mauer.
"Joe was playing for Jimmy Lee before I got there," Hargrow said. "And I think he was the only white kid we had on our team until the eighth grade.
"Teams didn't like it when Jimmy Lee showed up for a tournament. We would run and press, steal the ball and shoot layups. The parents on the other team would complain, but we were just young kids, going as fast as we could."
Could the Caucasian lad keep up? Hargrow laughed and said:
"Joe was special, a natural. In the fourth grade, he had this Pistol Pete [Maravich] move. He would go hard with his right hand, fake left, then keep going righthanded, and he'd get you every time."
Moe and Joe became buddies. "Teresa, Joe's mom, would pick me up almost every day for practice," Hargrow said. "And I spent a lot of time hanging out at Joe's house."
Hargrow said there were so many first-place trophies, medals and ribbons from the Jimmy Lee days that there still are drawers full in unknown locations.
