NYTimes on EG

Who says maturity and character shouldn't count when considering bringing in a player?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/19/sports/basketball/19GRIF.html?pagewanted=1&th

This Time, Griffin Vows to Make Adjustments That Last
By LEE JENKINS

Published: January 19, 2004


At the cathedral where the students of Roman Catholic High School congregate for religious services, a priest prays for Eddie Griffin.
Behind the gates of Seton Hall, where the class of 2004 completes its senior year, Griffin's former roommates remind one another to leave him tickets at the will call window.

And in the executive offices of the Houston Rockets, where the team president and chief executive calculate just how much one misguided 21-year-old cost the organization, an 8-year-old boy asks how his friend is feeling these days.

The prognosis, for now and perhaps forever, is uncertain.
Griffin receives counseling for substance abuse and depression, he lives under curfew and court restrictions, and he has separate hearings tomorrow in Houston on charges of felony assault and misdemeanor drug possession.

By Wednesday, he will be eligible to join the Nets' active roster, marking the latest in Griffin's long series of second chances. The priest prays that this is the last one he will need.
Griffin's potholed pilgrimage extends from Roman Catholic High in Philadelphia to Seton Hall, from Houston to New Jersey. But surprisingly, his network of supporters reaches just as far. The people Griffin might have alienated the most seem to be pulling for him the hardest.

That is just one of many paradoxes that define Griffin, a player who is simultaneously described as violent and gentle, who has repeatedly raised his fists but has hardly ever raised his voice, and who sometimes gets along better with ball boys than with teammates.

One of the tattoos on Griffin's left biceps reads, The Truth. In his case, however, the truth lurks far beneath the surface. Griffin insists he is finally discovering the center of his polarized personality.
"I feel like I accomplished so much in therapy," he says. "I have learned 100 percent more about myself."

An Angry Young Man

Of course, he has made similar statements in the past, and they have always been proved false. The difference now may be that he is receiving help for the problems he used to ignore. Therapy has taught Griffin to go back to the beginning of his life, retracing his missteps and learning from each one.

No one would have suspected such a temper raged inside such a mild-mannered boy.

Growing up in the West Oak Lane section of Philadelphia, Griffin was considered more the baby of the house than the big man. His mother, Queen, worked every night as a nurse to support the family, so Griffin clung to his older sister, Marian. On the rare occasion that Marian walked down the block without Griffin by her side, she remembers, neighbors would ask, "Where's your Siamese twin?"

Griffin never got along as well with boys his own age. At age 10, when he started getting into scraps and could not explain why, Queen sent him to live with his outgoing older half brother, Marvin Powell, who was a basketball player at the University of Hartford.
Three years later, Griffin returned to Philadelphia and became a basketball star, with silky post moves and a mature understanding of the game. When he was cited for fighting as a sophomore and a junior at Roman Catholic High, no one seemed to notice. His accomplishments on the court overshadowed any of his troubles off it.

But after Griffin brawled with a classmate over a card game in the spring of his senior year, the Rev. Paul C. Brandt, Roman Catholic's president and rector, finally determined that the best way to help Griffin was to punish him. He expelled Griffin, the national high school basketball player of the year, and barred him from commencement.

"I was concerned about where it would all end for Eddie," he said.

"I always hoped that would be a wake-up call for him. I didn't want him to have to go through what he has gone through the past few years because he is actually an excellent young man with an extremely sweet nature."

Brandt, like almost everyone Griffin has ever encountered, refused to give up on him. He helped arrange a home-schooling program for Griffin, set him up with anger management classes and awarded him a diploma.

Even today, Brandt refers to Griffin as a role model because of his enduring humility and the way he always embraced younger students. Griffin's photographs and magazine covers still hang proudly in the athletic center. His jersey rests in a safe in the basement, with other school souvenirs.

Griffin has rarely returned to his high school or college, but people on those campuses monitor him as a favorite son gone astray. As proof of Griffin's relative youth, the members of his recruiting class at Seton Hall are only now in their senior season. They often reminisce about their freshman year, when they lived with Griffin in the dorms and created their own family away from home.

"I talk to Eddie regularly, and he told me a couple of times that he really wishes he stayed behind and played all four years with us," said Marcus Toney-El, a senior forward at Seton Hall. "I still believe there are ways we can help him. We always have an open-door policy for Eddie."

Andre Barrett, a guard who roomed with Griffin when they were freshmen, said: "If he sees us doing well and being happy, then I think it will take a lot of stress off of him. If he can see his friends having fun, then he will start having fun as well."

Losing Control

In his one and only college season, Griffin showed his potential for greatness and self-destruction. When he reported to campus, he promised his mother there would be no more outbursts, and he promised his coaches that he had learned from anger management courses in high school. Although Griffin was named national freshman of the year and the Big East rookie of the year, he may be best remembered for punching a teammate, Ty Shine, in the locker room.

But the most devastating blow came when Griffin was preparing for the N.B.A. draft. He received word that Powell, his brother and father figure, had died of a heart attack at 34.

Griffin did not have time to grieve. The Nets drafted him seventh over all, then traded him to the Houston Rockets. Without his role model and mentor, Griffin was unprepared to handle the wide-open world he was about to enter.

He bought two houses in Houston, one for his mother and one for himself; he equipped his with four video-game systems and a pinball machine. A couple of friends from Philadelphia moved in with him. They brought more friends. Griffin's home turned into a high-tech frat house.

"I wasn't too trusting of some of those faces I started seeing," Marian, Griffin's sister, said. A registered nurse, she moved to Houston this year to be closer to Griffin. "I just think Eddie needed to appreciate and value himself a little more. It's hard for him to say no a lot of times. He has to be stronger."

Griffin started drinking heavily and admittedly fell into a deep depression. In April, he was arrested after the police in Houston said they stopped him for speeding and found mar1juana in his car. The Rockets tried to push Griffin into therapy, but he resisted. They suspended him for missing a flight and practice during the preseason, but he did not seem to care. Griffin could not relate to his older teammates and considered quitting basketball.

"I promised myself that I was going to extend myself to this guy," said Knicks guard Moochie Norris, who befriended Griffin in Houston. "Teammates didn't always understand where he was coming from. They would just be like, `He doesn't say anything.' I know he regrets everything that happened. He wishes that he opened himself up more."

The eruption occurred Oct. 25, when his former girlfriend Joann Romero went into his home and found him in bed with another woman. Griffin's lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said Romero was asked to leave and refused. Romero said Griffin punched her three times in the face and fired a gun in her direction twice as she was driving away.

The Rockets had little choice but to release him, and Griffin had little choice but to enter the Menninger Clinic in Houston. There, he learned that he had been suffering from depression, that his condition had worsened after Powell's death, and that he was unable to handle the burden of supporting several family members and friends.

Changes, for the Better

Griffin often appears most comfortable around children. One of the only lasting relationships he built in Houston was with 8-year-old Lucas Postolos, the son of the Rockets' president and chief executive, George Postolos. When Lucas fell and injured his head two summers ago, Griffin rushed to the hospital and stayed by his bedside. Less than a year later, when Griffin was hospitalized for far different reasons, Lucas wanted to repay him with a visit.
"There's definitely another side of Eddie," George Postolos said.

"There are a lot of stories like that."

Ed Stefanski, the Nets' senior vice president for basketball operations and a Philadelphia native, said he first heard about Griffin when he was "in fifth or sixth grade." Stefanski became the latest suitor to be charmed by his unquestioned skills and naïveté. He persuaded Rod Thorn, the Nets' president, to sign Griffin and persuaded Griffin to return to the arena where he played college basketball.

"I was nervous meeting all these new people, but I'm glad they've accepted me," Griffin said. "I'm just happy to be getting another chance. I am going to take advantage of it."

The Nets are not willing to see him stumble again. Stefanski is accompanying Griffin to court hearings, and the club has hired a counselor to work with him. In an attempt to protect Griffin as much as possible, the Nets have restricted reporters' access to him, and he may not start to play until next month.

"Every day, Eddie gets a little better in the gym and in life," Stefanski said. "He is changing. He is a much different person now than he was even a few weeks ago."

Each morning, Griffin reports early for individual workouts; four players come along to help him learn the offense and get back into shape. Rodney Rogers will eventually compete with Griffin, but he has seen something of himself in Griffin, the shy newcomer who nervously bites his fingernails on the bench and rarely speaks until spoken to. "I thought I was quiet," Rogers said. "But he's quiet."
The hardwood has always been his ultimate refuge, the only place Griffin seems totally at ease in his 6-foot-10 frame, practically floating from the paint to the perimeter. When practice ends, he hustles back to his apartment to check in with the court and make daily phone calls to his mother, his big sister and, now, his daughter.

Four months ago, Griffin's girlfriend gave birth to his first child, Amaree. She lives with her mother in Griffin's house in Houston, but last week, Griffin missed the little girl so much that she and her mother came to New Jersey for a visit. Those close to Griffin say Amaree shares his sleepy eyes and sheepish smile, and they believe her very presence will push him to continue his therapy and turn his life around.

With help from their family and friends, two children could grow up together.

 

Agreed. A 19 year YOUNG player.

What a bloody shame (his life and the Rox [mis]fortunes as a result .Just think of all the (reported) possibilities turned down. Oh, the woe.)