On the evening of September 10, 2011, Taylonn Murphy took the subway to West Harlem to visit his eighteen-year-old daughter. He found her sitting on a bench, joking with her friends, in front of the building where she lived with her mother. “I need to talk to you,” he said, as he walked past her into the lobby. “When you get a chance, come upstairs.” It was a Saturday, two days after the start of her senior year, and she would likely stay out late, but he didn’t mind waiting. He had news that he knew she’d want to hear: a basketball scout from the University of Tennessee was coming to watch her play.
His daughter’s name was Tayshana—she had been named for him—but everybody knew her by her nickname, Chicken. She had hazel eyes, a contagious grin, a powerful build, and, on the inside of her right forearm, a tattoo of a basketball, with the words “It’s not a game, it’s my life.” She had missed the prior season, after tearing her A.C.L. and undergoing knee surgery. But she had begun playing again, and ESPN’s HoopGurlz had just named her the sixteenth-best female point guard in the nation. Now she was hoping to win a basketball scholarship and become the first member of her family to get a college degree.
[For more of this story, written by Jennifer Gonnerman, go to http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...05/a-daughters-death]
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