Kemba Walker’s play this season was truly remarkable, as was his admission that he read his first book this year, his last at the University of Connecticut.Remarkable too, and more than a little sad, is that so few — hardly a fan and only one or two reporters — seemed to notice or care. The thinking seems to be, “He’s going to earn about $2 million next year, so why be concerned with his reading habits?”Felicia Crump, Walker’s campus-assigned tutor, told Tim Layden of Sports Illustrated she had encouraged Walker to read “Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Black Athlete,” by New York Times columnist William Rhoden, during the season. The book, on the exploitation of black athletes, was part of an independent study course Walker was taking on racism in sports as Crump tried to help him graduate in three years by doing extra work. “Before the Final Four, Crump suggested that Rhoden’s book would be the first that Walker had ever made it through cover to cover,” Layden reported. “After the win over Kentucky, Walker confirmed this. ‘That’s true,’ he said, ‘You can write that. It is the first book I’ve ever read.’”I didn’t read the Sports Illustrated story but I saw Layden quoted in The Brooks File, NBC30 anchor Gerry Brooks’ website. “Everyone who follows UConn admires Walker for the season he had and for his effort to graduate in three years,” Brooks wrote. “But I’m wondering how you graduate from college (in three years no less) having read one book in your life. And I’m hoping Kemba’s quote reflects pride in that he actually finally read a book from cover to cover. And that he plans to read another one.“Because if he’s proud never to have read a book …” That was apparently enough to cause Walker to back off a bit, telling The Hartford Courant’s Jeff Jacobs, “I read a lot of books, but not just start to finish. I might have skipped some chapters.” Brooks and Jacobs were the only Connecticut journalists I found who thought Walker’s reading habits merited mention.Jacobs acknowledged, “Cynics undoubtedly will raise an eyebrow on how this could be at a major university.”Not only cynics. UConn, at 31 percent, had the third worst graduation rate of all the teams in the NCAA tournament, only superior to Arizona and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. First-round opponent Bucknell has a rate of 100 percent, as does Notre Dame and other big-time teams, which means graduating one’s athletes isn’t an impossible dream.Walker plans to “walk” in this spring’s commencement procession, but still has to “finish two or three online classes” and an internship, so he won’t be exactly graduating. But if he almost makes it in three years and actually does it in four, he’ll be an exception.“We’re talking about a young man who was an average high school student, at best, and who had always been more concerned with basketball” at Harlem’s Rice High School, academic counselor Crump told Sports Illustrated. It is disappointing that there wasn’t a teacher at Walker’s high school able or perhaps, willing, to inspire him to read a book all the way through as he worked to achieve the minimum results needed for a star athlete to gain admission to a basketball college like UConn. But it is dismaying that it took a one-on-one tutor to get him to read a book for the first time at our highly regarded state university. It makes you wonder how much reading other “scholar athletes” do as they pursue an education and work at a job as demanding as playing basketball for half of the school year. The problem isn’t new or just for athletes. More than 30 years ago, I did a TV documentary on kids getting into schools like UConn with reading skills that were mediocre and writing that was worse. I remember a UConn economics professor saying he stopped giving essay tests because reading them was so painful. I’m sure things haven’t gotten better.I hope Kemba Walker graduates soon and enjoys great success in the NBA, but mostly, I hope he’ll find more books worth reading all the way through. Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at dahles@hotmail.com.
Latest News
Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
Provided
Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
