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A different side of Ron Artest

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  • #1

    A different side of Ron Artest

    http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/202080-5906-036.html

    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.

    Call Star reporter Sekou Smith at (317) 444-6053
    Broadcasting Classic Rock Hits 24/7 SauceMaster Radio!!!!

    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: A different side of Ron Artest

    Sekou Would have been such a nice article if Sekou hadnt' f'd up badly with this little intermezzo (opinionated nonsense? see q&a) :

    "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."

    Why? because it has nothing to do with the content of the article, if anything it brings an otherwise well informative article to the level of gutter journalism.

    After I cut that sentence it was actually a very nice article and it shows once more, there is more then twixth heaven and earth.
    So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.

    If you've done 6 impossible things today?
    Then why not have Breakfast at Milliways!

    Comment

    • #3
      Re: A different side of Ron Artest

      That was great to read.

      For those of you who are anti-Artest, I would be interested in your thoughts, feelings and emotions when reading this article.

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: A different side of Ron Artest

        Originally posted by btowncolt
        I'm not anti-Artest the human being. I've readily acknowledged that he's a fantastic person off the court and out of the locker room. I just want to win a championship, and know that we can never do that as long as Ron Artest the basketball player is still on this team.
        For this season, I'd say the opposite. We can't win a championship in 2004-05 unless Ron IS on the team.

        I knew Ron was a better student than most suspect, but an honors student was new info. I guess the reports that Ron was a math major at St. Johns are accurate.

        I also didn't remember that Ron was a McDonald's All American.

        My judgement is that Ron has more good qualities and good character than most Americans. I think it is in the Pacers best interest to stick with Ron, whether he is able to come back this season or not.

        He's not a piece of junk as some would have it. He's worth the effort.

        Comment

        • #5
          Re: A different side of Ron Artest

          Your comment has a disconnect in logic, btown. And, it is probably, untrue. I don't know enough about Ron's AAU and high school career to know the facts. But I'd imagine at least the AAU teams won plenty of championships. :wink:

          Comment

          • #6
            Re: A different side of Ron Artest

            I just want to highight this portion of the article, for what reason, Oh I don't know

            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."

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: A different side of Ron Artest

              How nice a person Ron Artest is off the court (and we've all seen articles saying that's how he is) has zero impact on his worth as a basketball player. The two are entirely different things.

              I will go back to my Behavioral Studies courses. The best indicator of a person's future behavior is his or her past behavior.
              The poster formerly known as Rimfire

              Comment

              • #8
                Re: A different side of Ron Artest

                Originally posted by Unclebuck
                That was great to read.

                For those of you who are anti-Artest, I would be interested in your thoughts, feelings and emotions when reading this article.
                For every single nice thing, there's also a long, long list of disrputive things he's done.

                The cynic in me thinks that most of the good things he does are just damage control, dreamed up by his agent, so that his cult-like following has a few threads to grasp onto. But that's probably too strong of a statement. By all accounts, he's generous and charitable to a fault, and he cares deeply about helping out the people in QB.

                This is one of the reasons why people can understand why there are so many rumors that he's bipolar. I'm not diagnosing him, so don't jump on my @$$ for bringing it up. I'm just saying that there's a reason those rumors don't go away and that is because when he's good, he's very, very good. And when he's bad, he's very, very bad. But he never seems to find the equilibrium point and his condition can swing quite rapidly from moment to moment.

                And the polarizing of the community of Pacers fans can be traced to these rapid swings of his condition - some of you see glimpses of good and clutch onto them, others of us see that it always comes back to something bad, usually worse than the previous episode, and are tired of the cycle.

                Its not that I don't understand why you guys see the good in him, he's a helluva player, and when he's not a total disruption, he's pretty much an angel. I just don't think I can take another cycle and I don't think any of you, with perhaps one exception, are bold enough to say that the cycle will never repeat itself again, regardless of how much effort the Pacers would invest in Ron. Its coming again, and you all know it.
                Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
                Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
                Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
                Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
                And life itself, rushing over me
                Life itself, the wind in black elms,
                Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

                Comment

                • #9
                  Re: A different side of Ron Artest

                  Jay, you mention when he is bad, he is very, very , very bad. Well I guess that is relative. Maybe very bad but not really bad.

                  As many of you ave pointd out all this means nothing or very little to his on te court and in the locker room effect he has on the team. To a certain degree I can agree with you, but isn't it a good idea to get to the know the person as they may shead some light on why he is still a pacer

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Re: A different side of Ron Artest

                    So can Artest overcome his latest incident, called by some the worst moment in U.S. sports history?

                    What idiot has called this the worst moment in U.S. sports history?

                    Sheesh.
                    You're caught up in the Internet / you think it's such a great asset / but you're wrong, wrong, wrong
                    All that fiber optic gear / still cannot take away the fear / like an island song

                    - Jimmy Buffett

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      Re: A different side of Ron Artest

                      Originally posted by Unclebuck
                      Jay, you mention when he is bad, he is very, very , very bad. Well I guess that is relative. Maybe very bad but not really bad.

                      As many of you ave pointd out all this means nothing or very little to his on te court and in the locker room effect he has on the team. To a certain degree I can agree with you, but isn't it a good idea to get to the know the person as they may shead some light on why he is still a pacer
                      You're talking about a guy who refused to get on the team plane during last season's playoffs, was going to sit out a game during the next series, then flew charter to join his teammates, and then had a mini-meltdown on the court.

                      I'm sure they are trying as hard as they can to get to know him; he doesn't make it easy.

                      As for why he's still a Pacer, we know the answer: the asking price this summer was too high for Milwaukee, Memphis, Sacremento, and who knows how many other teams. Orlando got a better offer. Sounds like the Pacers tried to have an auction with a floor price that was too high for any real bidders.

                      If anything, one should be blaming DW and Bird for overvaluing him even while they were trying to dump him.
                      Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
                      Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
                      Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
                      Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
                      And life itself, rushing over me
                      Life itself, the wind in black elms,
                      Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

                      Comment

                      • #12
                        Re: A different side of Ron Artest

                        I imagine this has been brought up at some point already (so please forgive me), but after the most recent incident, would those of you that are fed up with Ron consider changing your stance if he ever accepted diagnosis/medication?

                        Comment

                        • #13
                          Re: A different side of Ron Artest

                          I can just picture this in my head:

                          And at night he's up until 1:30 or 2 in the morning working on his own game. He's phenomenal.

                          Comment

                          • #14
                            Re: A different side of Ron Artest

                            Jay, I don't see anything wrong with pointing out the good side of Artest, we have all seen a good portion of the bad side.

                            Comment

                            • #15
                              Re: A different side of Ron Artest

                              There's nothing wrong with it.

                              We all acknowledge its true, as well. Largely irrelevant, but true.

                              You asked what we thought...

                              A well balanced discussion leads to the following conclusion: with Ron, its fifteen steps up and 18 steps back. Sure, there are some (not naming names) that are focused on the fact that Ron keeps improving - the fifteen steps up. And there are others that are focused on the fact that Ron keeps regressing, and I admit to getting caught up in that because its so easy to see how much damage Ron does to the team - the 18 steps back.

                              But the key is, net-net, every cycle leaves the Pacers in worse condition than when they started. Perhaps it would be more obvious to some of you if it were two steps up and five steps back - that would put us in the same net-net position without the illusion (delusion) of great but fleeting improvement.
                              Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
                              Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
                              Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
                              Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
                              And life itself, rushing over me
                              Life itself, the wind in black elms,
                              Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

                              Comment

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