Early Life
Although born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Fortson grew up in Altoona, Pennsylvania in a difficult home environment. He did not get along well with his father, who spent some time in jail, while his mother spent some time in the hospital. Fortson had grown up in the same neighborhood as Doug West and began high school at the same school West attended, Altoona Area High School. Before starting there, he became friends with a family, whose son played on his AAU basketball team. He spent two summers living with the family in the middle-class Pittsburgh suburb of Shaler Township, eighty five mile west of Altoona.
After his sophomore year, he and his mother moved to Shaler and Fortson transferred to Shaler Area High School for his final two years in high school (1992–1994). He was ruled ineligible his junior year for all but two games and averaged 30 points per game his senior year. He was a member of the prestigious JOTS squads for pre-college basketball prospects.
Read more about this topic: Danny Fortson
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Probably more than youngsters at any age, early adolescents expect the adults they care about to demonstrate the virtues they want demonstrated. They also tend to expect adults they admire to be absolutely perfect. When adults disappoint them, they can be critical and intolerant.”
—The Lions Clubs International and the Quest Nation. The Surprising Years, I, ch.4 (1985)
“They had both noticed that a life of dissipation sometimes gave to a face the look of gaunt suffering spirituality that a life of asceticism was supposed to give and quite often did not.”
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)