Allen Iverson Story -
going to jail - college
Allen grew up in the projects as the son of a 15-year
old single mother. Their house in Hampton, Virginia lay on top of the city's
sewers. Whenever they burst, the floor would be coated with sewage. Iverson's
biological father who stayed in Connecticut (where the family lived before
Allen was born), never played any role in his life, and earlier this year,
pledged guilty to stabbing a former girlfriend. Shortly after being born
his maternal grandmother - often the pillar in an inner-city family - passed
away as well. Mom Ann had a hard time making ends meet, and the house was
often without water  or
electricity because of unpaid bills. "She did whatever she had to do,"
Allen explains, while refusing to elaborate on that cryptic statement.
Growing up, Iverson was often responsible for taking care of his younger
sisters Brandy (born 1979) and Iiesha (1991), which was especially difficult
with the toddler, who suffered frequent seizures. Mounting medical bills
pushed the family further in debt. Ann's boyfriend, Allen's de facto father,
Michael Freeman has been in and out of jail all of his life. After a car
accident got him unemployed once again in 1991, desperate for money Freeman
was caught and convicted for drug possesion with intent to distribute.
"I didn't buy cadillacs and diamond rings," Freeman explains, "I was payin'
bills." Iverson used to blame the man who taught him how to play basketball
and pushed him to excel at it. Today he's proud of Freeman. "He never robbed
nobody," said Allen. "He was just tryin' to feed his family. It would kill
him to come from jail and find out how his family was living. One time
he came home and just sat down and cried." Today he's serving time in the
same Virginia jail where Allen was sent in 1993. Allen said one time he
went to visit Freeman in Newport News Correctional Facilities, the same
prison he was incarcerated at,And Freeman Shoes were so damaged that Allen
took the shoes off his feet and gave them to Micheal and Allen went home
barefooted that day. Iverson's mom early saw Allen's basketball skills
as a ticket to get out of the projects and live a normal life. She encouraged
Allen to keep playing the game he loved so much.. Every time his mother
saw him to lose heart she told him "go till the end every time u see the
chance". Despite his rather short and slim body, Allen was never afraid
of challenging bigger guys on the court. At first, when Iverson started
playing ball he was about 9-10 years old. He never wanted to play ball-he
thought it was too soft. One day, his mum waited for Allen to come home
from school - she had bought a pair of Jordan sneakers. "You're going to
basketball practise today", she said. Iverson cried and didn't want to
go, but his mom made him go. Finally at the court, Allen met some of his
football-teammates and enjoyed the new game. Iverson recalls from his childhood:"Coming
home, no lights, no food, sometimes no water. Then when there was water,
no hot water. Living in a house where the sewer was busted under the house
and having to watch my sister walk around in her socks all day because
the floor was wet from the sewage. The smell was making my sister sick."
Many NBA players grew up in broken homes and tough neighbourhoods and were
driven to play basketball with one hope: escape the ghetto. Few had it
as bad as him, though. Being young Iverson had two role models. His mom
and Tony Clark. Here's what Allen has to say about his relationship to
Tony: "There was this guy, Tony Clark, and he meant everything to me. He
inspired me, somewhat like my mom. He was someone who always told me I
could do something with my life. He made me believe I could do it and,
see, I never had a role model in my life. I never looked up to no one but
my mom. She always told me I could be somebody and I could do something
with my life with the talent God gave me, and I always believed it. It
was the same with Tony. See, when I skipped school, I'd come hang out with
him. He was six, seven years older than me. He'd tell my mom what was going
on and my mom would come get me, and I used to cry and scream at him and
tell him I hated him. But he was always doing it because he loved me and
cared about me. And then to lose him, it was wild. I was like his little
man and he used to look out for me, and he even stayed with us for like
two years, off and on. He was just going through a lot of things with his
family and his girlfriend. And then his girlfriend killed him. I was 15,
and I had no more role model, man. Who replaced Tony? One of the guys I
deal with right now. Andre Steele. Andre's 27 or 28 right now, and he really
looked out for me back then."
Going to Jail - was it injustice?
- In a life that hadn't been a "sunshine story", Iverson was
left standing in the middle of a brawl between black and white students
in a bowling alley. One Valenite's Day, Iverson and some friends - all
jocks and black - walked into a Hampton Bowling Alley. Allen was already
a locar sports hero, having quarterbacked Bethel High School's football
team to the state championship only two months earlier, and in the process
of leading the basketball squad to the same trophy. He was probably the
best known person in the city that night. Iverson's crowd was loud and
had to be asked to quiet down several times, and eventually something of
a shouting duel began with another group of youths. The only undisputable
fact is that shortly thereafter a huge fight erupted, pitting the local
white kids against the blacks. 17-year old Iverson was tried as an adult,
convicted of maiming by mob, and sentenced to five years for throwing a
chair at a girl. Virginia's first black Governor, Doug Wilder, granted
him conditional release after four months behind bars. The trial and the
verdict set off an national debate on race politics. Iverson and his supporters
maintain his innocence. Allen cannot be seen on an amateur video if the
incident, and he claims he left the alley as soon as the trouble began.
"For me to be in a bowling alley where everybody in the whole place know
who I am and be crackin' people upside the head with chairs and think nothin'
gonna happen?" asks Iverson. "That's crazy! And what kind of a man would
I be to hit a girl in the head with a damn chair? I wish at least they'd
said I hit some damn man." Allen's supporters were enraged that only four
people got charged after the fight - all four were blacks They were upset
with the media's allegedly blased coverage of the incident. And they claim
the whole thing started when one of the white boys called Iverson a nigger.
"It's strange enough that police waded through a huge mob of fighting people
and came out with only blacks and the one black that everybody knew," said
Golden Frinks, crisis co-ordinator for the National Association for Advancement
of Coloured People. "People thought they'd get a slap on the wrist and
that would be the end of it. Instead, prosecutors used a Civil War-era
statute designed to protect blacks from lynching to charge a group of black
teens with mob violence. And the judge, who was friends with one of the
victims family, first denied them bail and then sentenced them all four
to 15 years on prison."
"A Fight!" said Newport News minister Marcellus Harris.
"They were given long prison sentences because they got in a fight in a
bowling alley. On the other hand, numerous witnesses un-aligned with either
of the two crowds bowling that night testified Allen threw a chair at the
girl. No-one else heard the racial epithet. "During a break in the fight,
the girl went up to one of the black guys and said: ' Why do you have to
make this racial?'" explained Kristi Alligood, one of the witnesses. "He
just pressed two fingers against her face and pushed her away. The young
man was Iverson." And a bowling centre employee testified that Iverson
used a different chair to hit him over the head as well. The prosecutor,
a life-long member of NAACP himself, insists that none of the blacks in
the fight wanted to pursue charges, and points out that several black witnesses
also identified Iverson as the main culprit. What really happened that
night in Hampton will perhaps never be known. Two things matter more: based
on his personality and behaviour, everyone agrees that it is at least plausible
that Iverson was indeed guilty. "He's one of the most competitive kids
I've ever seen," said Bo Williams, who runs a summer camp where Iverson
used to play. "He's not one to back down, but that doesn't mean he's violent
either, just cocky." And perhaps at least partly because of his attitude,
he was sent to jail, an experience that would profoundly affect the way
he views the world, and to a large extent the way the world identifies
him. Allen says about going to jail:"I'll always remember what those people
did to me in Hampton. And I think about it because that's one of the reasons
I'm here right now. It just made me stronger. I don't know if I would be
as strong without that incident. When I was incarcerated, I prayed and
I learned from other guys in there. That's what I did mostly -- I just
listened. A lot of the inmates in there knew me before I got there, and
when I came there, all of them were just standing around quiet, just looking
at me. And I was scared. I was only 18 years old, and all of them were
staring at me. And all the older inmates were like, "We're going to take
care of you." And whenever I got around the younger inmates, the older
inmates would tell me, "Leave them alone. They're bad news, man." And they
would tell the younger inmates to leave me alone, too. And they'd always
tell me I was going to get out, and I was going to do something. And I
tried to keep my head straight. I remember right before I got locked up,
I asked my grandma, "If God knows I didn't do what they accused me of doing,
why is he letting this happen to me?" And I'll never forget it. She said,
"Never question what God does." And after that, I never did again. " Iverson
explained how life in prison was when talking to The Source Sports this
year: "We had one part of the jail called The Jungle - that's for all the
kids that was my age", he says. "The old heads didn't want me to be in
The Jungle, so I was in the part where people was on work-release. My dad
spent 15, damn near 20 years in jail, so he had made the Iverson-name famous
even before me. I had to walk through the jungle in order to get to the
mess hall. On that side of the jail, it was just crazy: everybody screamin',
shit thrown down from here to there, motherfuckas settin' shit on fire,
all kinds of shit. Real shit. When I got there, I was like,'Damn, I know
ain't nothin' pussy about me. I know I can handle myself,' but I never
felt I was ever in danger." While in jail, Iverson's friends took care
of his family. That's why he doesn't want to get rid of them, that's why
he'll never let them down. They took care of them financially and physically.
One time Allen came home from school, his good friend Andre Steele showed
Allen his beeper. He could only keep 16 messages on his beeper at a time,
and Allen's mom's phone number was up there on his beeper 16 times. That's
how much he meant to her while Allen was gone.
College prep and college
- Sitting in jail in the spring of 1993, he was justifiably worried about
his prospects. Although extremely bright, Iverson was never a good student
and was falling behind in school. The notoriety didn't help. "I'm sure
some colleges will stay away," Iverson said from his cell. "But it'll work
out. This has given me time to think about what I need to do to succeed
in the world." Iverson has made a name for himself the previous summer.
At the Nike Camp in Indianapolis, and at four others, he earned the MVP
trophy as a member of Bo Williams' team. In fact, Nike continued treating
him as a celebrity during the trial, sending an extra set of plane tickets
so that Iverson would not miss any camp activities while the trial was
in progress. (Prosecutors used this special privilege to urge jurors to
Just Do It to Iverson and Nike, which they did.) "He's almost an overnight
sensation," said Williams, who also coached NBA stars Alonzo Mourning and
JR Reid on his team. "With Alonzo and JR everyone knew they were going
to be great, so they could slowly be prepared for the pressures they were
going to face. With Allen, it happened so quickly that there was almost
no time to prepare him." Throughout the trial, college coaches were still
interested. "Unless he's behind bars, we're recruiting him," said George
Washington assistant coach Eddie Meyers. "It's as simple as that." Allen's
mom felt he needed a strong coach to help him if he got out of the situation
he was in. And Coach Thompson at Georgetown seemed like the perfect coach
for it. And she went up there and talked to him, and asked him, would he
take Allen under his wing, and he said yeah. And that's why he ended up
going to Georgetown. The football program wasn't too big at Georgetown,
so it was basketball from then on.Allen once asked coach John Thompson:
"What you think about me playing football?" And he didn't answer. He just
looked at Allen like he was crazy, so Allen never thought about playing
football again after that day. While sitting in jail, he lost a scholarship
offer from Kentucky. I'm sure that if Allen had ended up at Kentucky he
wouldn't have been the same player, the same person he is now. And in the
end John Thompson and Georgetown seemed the best bet, since the coach is
renowed for taking risks and giving urban kids with troubled pasts a shot
at division one basketball. 'Cause instead of giving up basketball, Allen
went to Georgetown, the prestigious catholic school that has found it's
position in the projects. There he found what he had been searching for
his whole life. A father. Coach John Thompson took care of Iverson who
needed a protective coach who could give him advice. After two great years
at Georgetown, Allen left "dad" and announced himself eligable for the
NBA draft. He probably did this to get his family out of the projects before
it was too late. Iverson says: "If I can leave this planet knowing that
my friends and family are alright, that's good enough for me. That's all
I need to know." The rest of the story remains to be seen.
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