His father divorced his mother when he was a baby, and his stepfather died when he was in grammar school. “We were poor,” says Barkley, who has spoken of eating mayonnaise sandwiches and government cheese as a child. He was one of 6,000 residents in a town that was previously best known for (perhaps) being the place where folk legend John Henry pounded railroad track faster than a man with a steam hammer. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)Ĭharles Wade Barkley was born in Leeds, Alabama, on February 20, 1963. “I said, I can live with that.”Ī young Charles Barkley soaring to the hoop with the Philadelphia 76ers.(Photo/Andrew D. So, then you have to make a decision: are you going to pander to a side or are you just going to look yourself in the mirror and be honest with your opinion? You got to realize when you’re being honest with yourself, some people aren’t going to like that.” He takes a long puff of the cigar. “It doesn’t matter what you say-half the people are going to like it and half the people are going to dislike it. Early in his playing career, he realized that it made no sense to bite his tongue. Long before he took to the mic, Barkley was known for his mouth. “I love Shaq, and he’s a great guy, but he gets mad.” Barkley smiles. The two competed on the court (Barkley once famously threw a basketball at the seven-footer’s head, a prelude to a brawl) and today they zing each other mercilessly on TV. “And you can buy one of those seats at the top and walk right down and sit at center court.”īarkley also goes after his fellow host Shaquille O’Neal.
“Oh, there’s plenty of parking,” he said, a jab at poor attendance. That’s how bad the Knicks have been lately.” Even the Phoenix Suns, for whom he played for four seasons, aren’t spared the Barkley treatment. “I left two tickets at the hotel for one of my family members, and when I got back to the hotel there were four tickets there. “Lonzo Ball had a triple-single,” Barkley said one night, after the Lakers player posted an unimpressive two points, eight rebounds and four assists. There are plenty of times when the other hosts are reduced to tears of laughter, heads down on the desks, processing the latest from Barkley. People watch him for his frank, no-nonsense insights and his frequent forays into the silly. (Photo/Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Turner Sports)īarkley’s playing days are over (he retired after the 2000 season) and for the past 20 years he has made his living with his voice as an analyst for TNT’s “Inside the NBA,” covering pro basketball and March Madness. When he lights up, he’ll smoke four cigars in a day, typically while on the golf course.īarkley (far right) talking basketball in 2018 on TNT with his fellow hosts (from left) Shaquille O’Neal, Ernie Johnson Jr. It’s a pretty big cigar, a Cuban Churchill, but he smokes a variety of shapes and sizes. Upmann Sir Winston-the perfect cigar for the man who was dubbed Sir Charles. Barkley was drafted by the 76ers, going number five in the legendary 1984 draft that would deliver four Hall of Famers, including himself. He spends part of the year here, the rest in Arizona. He’s sitting back on a leather couch at the cigar bar, near the window overlooking Walnut Street in Philadelphia, the city where he first played pro ball. His little man skills in a big man’s body led one scout to call him “a fat guy who can play like the wind.” “I had to play at the rec league where you had to pay to play.” He was originally a point guard, moving the ball up the court and feeding it to the bigger men, but a six-inch growth spurt in one year changed all that, and soon Barkley was starting as a power forward.īarkley never lost his instincts as a small man, and he moved around the court in a way that defied his new size-dribbling coast-to-coast and jumping sky high. “I always wanted to be a basketball player, but I just wasn’t good enough,” he says. At first, Barkley couldn’t even cut it on his high school team. Charles Barkley has entered the Ashton Cigar Bar.ĭespite all his accomplishments-11 times an All-Star, the 1993 MVP, a member of the Dream Team-the man who would grab 12,546 rebounds (19th all time) and score more than 23,000 points in the NBA wasn’t a star in his youth.
Soon, you see him as he climbs the stairs, a big man with a bald head, his lips curled in a comfortable smile. It’s his voice that you hear first, the warm, loud voice that has made him famous, and occasionally gotten him in trouble.