For years after his father’s death in 1999, Ahmad Aliyy (formerly known as Skip Young) contemplated a way to honor his father, Edward Young’s legacy as a father and mentor, and his influence on Aliyy. “I once asked my father what goals he had in life, and he replied, raising a family,” Aliyy recalls.  

With this intense focus on family, Aliyy’s recent self-published children’s book, Bring Me My Hush Puppies: My Dad Is A Superhero emphasizes the importance of a father-figure in an African American family through its story and colorful graphics. “The family experience is vital to our children in showing that they are centric to our well-being as a society,” explained Aliyy. “This cannot be stressed enough. The message is about the importance of establishing a functionally cohesive family with children who are shown love and guidance on how to navigate the maze we call life.”

For Aliyy, this book encapsulates the lessons his father imparted to him, particularly the significance of hard work and perseverance through difficult circumstances. Like his own father, the father in the book is a superhero.

The book got its name from a childhood memory of Aliyy’s that he recollects as the turning point in his life towards his interest in basketball. He remembers that as a young man, he told his father, who was a semi-professional baseball player, that he wanted to concentrate on his sport of choice – basketball.

Rather than question his son’s interest in basketball, Young instructed his son to retrieve his basketball and to bring him his Hush Puppies shoes that his father wore when he was not at work. In an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat, Aliyy laughs when remembering their first time playing one-on-one basketball together at an outdoor court, his father demonstrating two-handed set shots and how to dribble a basketball between his legs.

Throughout his youth, Aliyy maintained a strong dedication to basketball despite small setbacks like getting cut from his middle school team. He became one of the top high school players in Ohio. He would become one of the first black athletes at Florida State in 1967. During his career at FSU, the Seminoles went 58-20. He became the FSU men’s basketball all-time assist leader (320) and averaged 15.0 points per game. He also played one season with the Boston Celtics, taking a small hiatus from Florida State before returning to complete his degree in criminology and social work.

He was initially drawn to the major based on several influences, including motivation from Dr. Alexander Bassett, a former FSU professor and advisor for Aliyy. Bassett developed a youth halfway facility in Tallahassee that Aliyy was able to assist with, gaining experience working with youths. “I like interacting with people, particularly youth, and helping to make peoples’ lives better,” expressed Aliyy.

After graduation, Aliyy worked in several human service positions in Tallahassee, including his first job as a drug abuse counselor/educator at the Frenchtown Drug Abuse Prevention Center. Later, he also worked at Apalachee Mental Health (now the Apalachee Center) and the Florida Center for Children and Youth, a youth advocacy agency. He also spearheaded a program serving incarcerated people in Florida detention facilities. He would retire from his final role as the head of investigations at the Commission on Human Relations, which handled employment discrimination cases for the state of Florida.

Along with a fulfilling career serving others, Aliyy maintained a steadfast interest in basketball. “I coached and trained boys for numerous years, but I always like the way that girls approached the game of basketball,” said Aliyy. In 2001, he joined the coaching staff for the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) Developmental Research School (DRS) as an assistant coach for the girls’ basketball team. He then became head coach for the FAMU DRS girls basketball team for the 2003-2004 season and won the state title that year. He coached until 2014, leading them to three state championships, two state final four runner-up titles, and seven final four appearances.

“Jane Addams, Nobel Laureate, in social welfare stated, ‘The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secure for all of us and incorporating into our common life,” advocated Aliyy. “As in basketball, you have to learn to work with others in a meaningful way to achieve a common objective.”

He learned from his father the importance of a role model and how to be an impactful one. Aliyy noted that “mentoring is vital to the mental, physical and spiritual growth for teens and young adults in our community” and that the best way to mentor is to understand your commitment, and the more you involve yourself in the mentoring process, the better a mentor you become. Aliyy has come to embody the values lived by his father, being respectful, humble, and hardworking and through his career, and now his children’s book hopes to pass on these simple but lasting principles.

To purchase a copy of the book ($10), contact Ahmad Aliyy at aliyy.ahmad@comcast.net or 850-528-3422.