Rayford Tillis continually struggles to break through.
It’s like trying to keep your head above water and not being swept away by the tide. Sayyid Abdal-Rahman is in control, and it isn’t easy to circumvent his mind or his 350 pounds.
“Rayford Tillis comes through all the time,” Abdal-Rahman said in describing the competition. “They’re like two different human beings. Both have their skeletons.”
Tillis was an accomplished athlete at Denver East High School and is scheduled for induction April 12 into East’s Hall of Fame. Abdal-Rahman was an accomplished basketball coach at Montbello High School, winning the state championship in 1984, but lost his way in the murky world of drugs and bright lights. He now lives in Bakersfield, Calif., with his mother, Derosette Cole, and is trying to mesh the best from Tillis and Abdal-Rahman into a person with inner contentment.
“A lot of people at East liked me,” Abdal-Rahman continued. “It was like living in a fairy tale. There were no limits. I always was laughing. Everybody called me Big T. Sayyid became a hardened person because of what I was seeing at the time. I’ve always been a very giving person, but people saw me differently.”
The transformation of Tillis to Abdal-Rahman began when he left Denver after high school to attend junior college in Washington. He found that his fairy-tale world at East High School wasn’t the norm.
“I never had any kind of boundaries, and I didn’t understand the hatred I encountered,” Abdal-Rahman said. “The racism was so blatant that it knocked me for a loop.”
He returned to Colorado and enrolled at Trinidad State Junior College, where he was a teammate of Spencer Haywood, who went on to Olympic, ABA (with the Denver Rockets) and NBA fame.
Abdal-Rahman needed a solution.
“I couldn’t stay a Christian because I was so angry,” he said. “I didn’t treat people very well, and I looked for something else. I studied Islam. Some people don’t recognize my choice of religion. It can be a tough jacket to carry, but I can deal with that.”
But Abdal-Rahman had another side.
“I’ve always been a free spirit,” Abdal-Rahman said. “I’d be in the clubs. I always was carousing the streets with my partners. I was hanging around in the wrong places and doing things I shouldn’t have been doing. Maybe that’s a stigma on kids who don’t have a father. But I stayed at the party too long.”
In April 1992, while he was raising two young daughters and coaching at Montbello, Abdal-Rahman went down the wrong path. He said he delivered a substance to a buyer for a friend, and he was caught. He served time until March 1993, wore an ankle bracelet for four months and served three years of probation.
“That devastated my mother,” Abdal-Rahman said. “I didn’t break my bond with my players. I was able to keep that part of my life away from them. I let them down in some aspects, but none of them were unforgiving.”
Abdal-Rahman paid his debt to society, but some interest payments remained. He was unable to return to the Denver Public Schools system and was put on a “no hire” list. He drove a taxicab to help make ends meet. He worked at youth centers and coached basketball. He wound up in California and filled his life with time for the needy and underprivileged.
“I remember what was the worst day of my life,” Abdal-Rahman said. “You don’t see me in the clubs anymore. I don’t hang out there. I think about the old times in Denver. That helps me stay straight and eliminate the temptation.”
Abdal-Rahman faces other problems. Doctors have urged him to lose weight. He would like to drop 110 pounds to 240. He also thinks of returning to Denver. He clutches to the memory of mentors such as Alex Burl, Pat Panek and Paul Coleman and teammates Rudy Carey, the basketball coach at Denver East, and the late Art Levy, who introduced him to Islam.
“There was some shock and surprise when he converted to Islam,” Carey said. “It was his choice and the thing for him to do. But none of his friends look at him as an outcast. Everybody has things in their past that they regret. We’re supposed to be forgiving people.”
A coaching record of 273-68, a state championship and six Denver Prep League titles are remainders of Abdal-Rahman’s days gone by. Rayford Tillis fights to break through.
“Rayford Tillis still is part of me,” Abdal-Rahman said.
Abdal-Rahman bio
Born: Feb. 16, 1948, Los Angeles; High school: Denver East, 1963-66
Advanced education: Grays Harbor College, Aberdeen, Wash.; Trinidad State Junior College; Colorado State
Family: Daughters Shahada Saultheis and Jasmine Saultheis
Hobbies: A jazz and blues music bug, played saxophone, avid reader.
Ambitions: Visit Mecca, the pyramids in Egypt and the Taj Mahal in India.
