By Patrick Hayes

There are many ways to make money playing basketball. Flint native Kendrick Cornelius and Detroit native Terry Littlejohn will have a chance to win a $20,000 prize after qualifying for the Redbull King of the Rock Streetball Tournament at Alcatraz Sept. 22. They are among about 60 individuals from all around the world who will play for the title.

Eric Woodyard of the Flint Journal wrote an interesting profile on Cornelius, but this part really stood out to me:

Cornelius is playing despite being mostly blind in his left eye. His lack of vision is the result of the five gunshot wounds he suffered in 2010 after an alleged armed robbery attempt on him and two of his close buddies in Flint. He claims he doesn’t notice the damage until he covers up his good eye and tries to read out of his left one — then everything becomes blurry.

“It took a few months for me to adjust to vision loss,” Cornelius said. “If two people were standing in front of me and I covered up my left eye I wouldn’t be able to tell who is who.”

I can’t imagine playing basketball only being able to see out of one eye, let alone being good enough to qualify for any kind of national tournament.

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