Sorry if I'm going off topic here, guys, but it got me thinking, what exactly did happen in the "8-year-gap" that CG mentioned?
I assume he probably did as much help as he could to other people before coming to Foster's, much like he did in the film on the way back to meet Larry for his rematch. And during that time, he would probably have been cemented as a sort of legend, like that judge mentioned.
This idea of Wilt becoming a sort of urban legend during that time reminds me of a book I once read called "Maniac Magee". It was about a boy called Jeffrey Magee, who, after his parents die in a trestle accident, is sent to his loathsome aunt and uncle who, because they are Catholic, can't divorce, and try to split the house in two (two toasters, two TV's, etc.) and try to have Jeffrey for themselves. During a school play eight years later, he runs away (after which we are told that noone knows what happened to him during a year-long gap).
After this period, he arrives in the town of Two Mills, a town so racially segrigated that one side of the town, called the West Side, is reserved entirly for White people and the opposite side, the East Side, reserved for Black people. He meets up with a black family, and moves in with them, much to their supprise. During their time with them, he performs amazing feats such as running on a rail and untieing a knot that noone else in the town could untie, causing him to become an urban legend and be known as "Maniac Magee".
I'll continue the story if you guys want, but what I'm saying is that during the time after he left Jordan and before the time he came to Foster's, maybe he helped out people so much that too became an urban legend?
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