Gil Scott-Heron was born in Chicago, Illinois. His mother, Bobbie Scott, was an opera singer who performed with the Oratorio Society of New York. Scott-Heron's father, Gil Heron, nicknamed "The Black Arrow", was a Jamaican soccer player who in the 1950s became the first black man to play for Celtic Football Club in Glasgow, Scotland. Gil's parents separated in his early childhood and he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother, Lillie Scott, in Jackson, Tennessee. When Scott-Heron was 12 years old, his grandmother died and he returned to live with his mother in The Bronx in New York City. He enrolled at DeWitt Clinton High School, but later transferred to The Fieldston School after impressing the head of the English department with one of his writings and earning a full scholarship. As one of five black students at the prestigious school, Scott-Heron was faced with alienation and a significant socioeconomic gap. During his admissions interview at Fieldston, an administrator asked him, "'How would you feel if you see one of your classmates go by in a limousine while you're walking up the hill from the subway?' And said, 'Same way as you. Y'all can't afford no limousine. How do you feel?'" This type of intractable boldness would become a hallmark of Scott-Heron's later recordings.