Rufus’ post-high school plans were to join the Marine Corps but his father had refused to sign for him, had forced him to consider continuing his education as the only method of insuring a future. He wanted Rufus to become an attorney.
In September 1963 Rufus Brooks entered the University of San Francisco on a partial basketball scholarship. The sport became his ticket through school, his invitation to fraternities, his pass to parties and his introduction to girls, both black and white. Rufus was cool. He could play ball. To help finance his education Rufus joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps—one month after the North Vietnamese reprisal attack on the American destroyers C. Turner Joy and Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin.
In college Rufus maintained his quiet exterior yet he develop
