http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/202080-5906-179.html

A different side of Ron Artest
IN THE BEGINNING: School coaches, teachers, young players describe a man of determination and heart

By Sekou Smith
sekou.smith@indystar.com
December 14, 2004

NEW YORK -- Take two steps inside the cramped office of LaSalle Academy basketball coach Bill Aberer and he's already fussing.

Aberer's Cardinals are just minutes removed from a 74-55 win over Cardinal Spellman in Buckley Gymnasium, the historic cracker box on Manhattan's Lower East Side where Indiana Pacers All-Star forward Ron Artest starred in high school.

Aside from teaching all day and coaching his team to victory on a wickedly cold and rainy Friday afternoon, Aberer has been besieged with questions from around the country about his former pupil. He said his phone hasn't stopped ringing since the Nov. 19 brawl between Artest and his Pacers teammates and Detroit fans at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

Aberer's answer to all questions is the same: The caricature of Ron Artest seen nightly on TV is not the same Ron Artest he knows.

"I don't know what you are looking for, but if you're here looking for somebody to tear him down, you've come to the wrong place." Aberer says. "The press, the public doesn't know Ron Artest the way we do around here. The way they play it on TV, there's Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson and then Ronnie Artest. It's ridiculous, and I can't stand it.

"It's just wrong. Anyway you want to do it, that's wrong to treat somebody that way. Now, nobody here condones what he did, going into the stands like that. But this kid is nothing like what they are making him out to be, and it's a travesty that no one is telling the truth about him."

The truth?

The truth is quite a few people feel that Artest's season-long suspension, doled out by NBA commissioner David Stern, was justified.

The truth -- Artest has said it himself, countless times -- is Artest alone is to blame for the extensive history of dustups and suspensions that have plagued an otherwise brilliant rise to NBA stardom.

The truth is Ron Artest is the benevolent LaSalle Academy alumnus who returns home to shepherd Cardinals players to the Five Star basketball camp in Pennsylvania every summer, helping pay their way and working tirelessly with them to ensure that they enjoy the same experience he did.

The truth is the same Ron Artest who struck fear into the hearts of fans everywhere when he sprinted into the crowd that night in Detroit is the same Ron Artest that ran down a hill and bought sandwiches and sodas for 30 campers the last night of Five Star.

"This is a guy that could eat anywhere he wants, a millionaire, and he's down at Turkey Hill getting food for all the kids," Aberer said. "This guy's a millionaire, and he sleeps in the same bunks as coaches, eats with kids, is up at 6:30 to work out with our kids and put them through drills. They love that. And at night he's up until 1:30 or 2 in the morning working on his own game. He's phenomenal.

"Despite what they are trying to make him out to be, he is not a monster."

Queensbridge connection

The truth is, at age 25, Ron Artest is all those things, good and bad.

And the origin of that truth lies three subway stops from LaSalle Academy, at Queensbridge Houses, the nation's largest federal housing project.

A brief walk around "QB," as it's known to its 5,000 families, and it's easy to see why the place is so intimidating. The sheer enormousness, the silence and stillness surrounding the seemingly endless arrangement of brick towers pierce any sense of confidence. The structure doesn't scream despair, but it's clear that despair lives here, thrives here.

Artest grew up here. He watched drug deals and shootouts, witnessed firsthand the poverty and tragedy that live alongside the artistic and entrepreneurial genius a life of hardship often inspires.

A select few -- including Artest, rapper Nas and rap duo Mobb Deep -- have made it from Queensbridge to fame. Two former Pacers grew up there, too, Sean Green and Vern Fleming. The road for them, they have said, was no easier.

"This place is no joke," said Artie Cox, another of Artest's former coaches and still one of his close friends. "That's why when people talk bad about Ron-Ron (as Artest is known to many around his old haunt), you know they've never been to where he's from. Because nobody around here will tolerate that. I wish somebody would bad mouth him around me."

Ray Polanco is a former New York City police officer who knows Queensbridge well.

He also taught Artest economics and Spanish at LaSalle and coached him on the freshman team.

Polanco sat Artest for 10 games that season to discipline him, mostly to help smooth out the fiery 14-year-old's rough edges.

"I'm from the Lower East Side, and I think everybody from New York likes to think they are from a tough part of the city," Polanco said. "But I've been to Ronnie's neighborhood, and you better learn how to survive in that neighborhood or you're going to be in trouble.

"That's where Ronnie gets his toughness from. He's not going to back down from anybody. He's always been that way. He is from an area where it's bred in him not to back down from anybody."

Artest didn't go after Pistons center Ben Wallace after Wallace shoved him that night at the Palace. For that, some have questioned Artest's toughness. Not those who have known him for years.

"I heard a TV commentator call him a coward for not fighting Ben Wallace," Aberer said. "A coward? A coward? He was trying to do the right thing. This is a guy that went after Shaq O'Neal -- I don't think a coward would do that. I thought the restraint he showed was admirable.

"But that's just more of the stupid crap people that know nothing about him are spreading."

Lives for challenge

LaSalle officials dispute the notion that Artest always has been troubled.

School President Brother Michael Farrell said Artest was an honor student, and "we never had a problem" while Artest attended the school. Coaches said that during breaks in practice, while other players were relaxing or shooting around, Artest would be in a corner finishing his homework.

Hard work paid off in basketball, too. Artest was a star on a Cardinals team that went 27-0 and won the city title during his senior season, 1996-97. A McDonald's All-American, he had his pick of colleges and chose to stay near home, at St. John's.

Former St. John's coach Fran Fraschilla, who recruited Artest and coached him during his freshman season (Artest went pro after his sophomore season), said he saw qualities in Artest that he hadn't seen in 23 years of coaching, a career that saw him coach 18 players who went on to the NBA.

"Ronnie's got this competitiveness that is totally off the charts," said Fraschilla, now an ESPN analyst living in Dallas. "The thing we always needed at St. John's was a jump-starter, a guy that refused to lose. Ronnie single-handedly jump-started St. John's."

Fraschilla said Artest did that by using what Queensbridge had ingrained in him: fervent pride and a fear of failure that borders on maniacal. Both showed in Artest's tireless work ethic and at-times peculiar behavior. His old coach suspects it's all fueled by a need in Artest to prove to any nonbelievers that he's the real deal -- "QB's finest," as one of his tattoos reads.

Fraschilla had a counterpunch for Artest's over-the-top behavior.

"I'd tweak him. I'd throw him out of practice," said the coach, who lived by the credo that he had to be "crazier than your craziest player."

Artest also would be forced to play with the second and third team whenever Fraschilla needed to crank up the intensity at practice. Artest loved it. "The greater the challenge, the greater the response," Fraschilla said.

Fraschilla maintains that during Artest's two years at the school there were no problems off the court. He said Artest was always respectful of authority. The only outbursts were on the court, his coach said. Those would last about 10 minutes, and then Artest would go right back to being the gentle, giving person his family and close friends talk about.

"I'm sad that people don't get to know that low-key, innocent side of him," Fraschilla said. "I would coach him again. I'd love to, because he lived to show you that he could do whatever somebody thought he couldn't."

Life goes on

So can Artest overcome his latest incident, called by some the worst moment in U.S. sports history? He'll spend a lifetime dealing with the fallout, Polanco said with regret.

Aberer said he doesn't care if people ever change their minds about Artest because he won't.

Pat Thomas, a senior at LaSalle Academy whose picture with Artest from the Five Star camp last summer is the centerpiece in a photo collage outside the gymnasium, claims all of New York, Artest's New York, supports its native son.

"Life goes on around here whether you want it to or not," said Thomas, who scored a game-high 26 points Friday afternoon. "What happened has already happened. Everybody has to move on and let Ron-Ron move on, too."

Artest himself isn't talking about the matter, on the advice of legal counsel. Thursday, he and his suspended teammates spent six hours with an arbitrator in a Midtown Manhattan law office -- only a dozen or so miles from Queensbridge, but a whole world apart -- trying to regain some of the games and money they've lost while serving their suspensions.

That's about all that may be salvageable from the entire affair of Nov. 19.

But like Pat Thomas said, life goes on.
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We need this guy back in NYC... I'd trade Craw for Artest in a heartbeat.

some players are azzholes in life, but play the game and are with in the rules of the team and the league.

Ron is a great guy in life, who is not the sharpest crayon in the box, but goes completly off his rocker on the court.

He was the fuse of an awful situation. He started it. He was 100% in the wrong. And his history of irational behavier in the heat of battle is considerable. At this point, he should not be allowed on the court until its reasonable to expect these antics won't happen.

How that translates into a "punishment" I really don't know. The others were handed very tough suspensions, but they don't have the history of Ron. I think it needs to be reduced, but Ron should not be allowed to play until he is able to contain some of his emotions to conform to the rules.

Why? IN a different situation, a freakin riot could have erupted and the safety of dozens of innocent fans could have been jepordized, and the players themseves could have been attacked by a mob! All things considering, it was over fast! But next time? There cannot be a next time! And not with Ron, that must be for sure.

Its a complex issue, but ROn is no gangster bad guy. He is benevelent and good natured, especially with the kids. His interviews are honest and he is ignorantly playful! Not stupid, just kinda easy. He is getting bad advice with that music thing, and those agents he has will rob him blind.

I hope he can pull it together, get good advice cuz his earning power is limited when his playing days are over. He is not going to be on ESPN doing analysis!

[Edited by - nalod on 12/15/2004 12:06:46]

Ron's a loose cannon, plain and simple. He's got a fuse.. you light it and you better watch out. Its a good article, because people arent black and white as the media makes them out to be. Sounds like Ron does a lot of great things. Losing his crap doesnt negate those good things, but those good things dont make losing his crap ok either. He's probably just not mentally cut out for being a pro athlete and everything that comes with it. The guy's dumb as a bag of rocks, but hey, thats not his fault either.

I would take him on my team anyday