On June 6, 2022, Darvin Ham became the 28th head coach in the history of the Los Angeles Lakers. Ham was born on July 23, 1973, and he grew up in a blue-collar family in Saginaw, Michigan. The Lakers coach is also married and has three children.
Here’s what you need to know about Darvin Ham’s family:
1. Darvin Ham’s Parents Are Wilmer Jones Ham McZee, a Teacher Who Became Mayor of Saginaw, & Howard Ham, an Air Force Veteran
Ham’s father, Howard Ham, worked on the General Motors assembly line, he told the Coastal Courier, and the future NBA coach grew up in a “blue-collar family.” While the youngster was passionate about playing sports, he told the NBA in an interview that his father was insistent on his son getting a good education.
“I was losing focus in the classroom, and my dad said I couldn’t play until I got my grades back up until they were way above average,” Ham confessed. He said that was around the time he made the switch from football to basketball. “I’d lost the appetite for football based on seeing other guys that were getting bigger by lifting weights, but I was just a lanky kid.”
In fact, Ham said he nearly joined the military but it was his father who encouraged him to go to college instead. Howard Ham and his two brothers, Ham’s uncles, all served in the United States Air Force while Ham’s uncle on his mother’s side served as a military police during the Vietnam War, he told Andscape.
“I had verbally committed to the Air Force and my dad was like, ‘Nah, I want you to try college, man. If college doesn’t work out, then you can go to the armed forces,’” he revealed. Ham shared in an interview with MLive that his father Howard Ham died in a car accident in 1992 when Ham was 19 years old.
Ham’s mother, Wilmer Jones Ham McZee, was a schoolteacher and adult educator, Ham told Coastal Courier, and she previously shared in an interview with Mid-Michigan Now that it was so important for her children to get degrees and she was very proud of Ham for getting his bachelor’s degree.
Ham McZee is an accomplished woman herself and was elected …read more
Source:: Heavy.com
