The Agony and the Ecstasy

It is seconds before tipoff at the Byrne Meadowlands Arena. It is Georgetown's first visit to the area. The opponent is Seton Hall, the atmosphere Big East Big Apple, Big Everything. There are as many reporters and media on hand as there would be for the postseason. The crowd is ready, too. It is all because of one freshman, small as a stick, bony legs sticking ludicrously out of a skirt-length set of black and motley baggy shorts. The game begins.


"Hey Iverson," yells one full-throated fan sitting behind the scorer's table, "go back to jail!"



The game goes up and down the court, the 19-year-old freshman has a hard time with Seton Hall's double-teaming. He tries to force the ball a couple of times, gets nowhere, then has to drop the ball off. There is another voice from the gallery: "Put the handcuffs on Iverson." If Iverson hears any of this (which he surely does) he acknowledges it only in the subtlest way - by the continued tightness of his play. The voices are sharp, penetrating, unrelenting. the game is not. It is slow-tempo, almost sluggish, and Georgetown, clearly the better team, is having a harder time than it should.
Allen Iverson, who has led his team from the start of the season in scoring, assists and steals, looks like anything but the player who has been advertised as one of the best point guards to come along in years. The tag "troubled" seems more apt, like the bold tattoo high on his left arm. Deep into the first half, he has taken only a handful of shots, made none, turned the ball over several times and, more surprising than anything, appears for all the world, to be a little kid lost in a big man's game. His ineffectiveness finally leads his coach, John Thompson, to replace him. As Iverson moves off the floor, there is another bullfrog croak from the swamp:


"Hey, Iverson, how's O.J.?"



The justice in all of this turned out to be the simple justice of the game. Georgetown left the floor with a two-point halftime lead, came back and put the wood to Seton Hall - with Iverson, sort of like Isiah, giving them quick doom in the form of some heavenly moves. With the game still relatively tight Iverson, with his cocky high dribble, stutter-step and feint moving the ball quick-as-that between his legs, hit a 3 to turn a six-point lead into nine, raced back and stole a down court pass - one of five steals on the evening - then whipped the ball to a team-mate for an easy layup, putting the game out of reach. In a stretch of a little more than five minutes, Iverson simply became the show, controlling the ball, the tempo, the scoring - and the fans.
"Play Jailhouse Rock!" someone sang midway through the second half. By the end, there was no music from Seton Hall partisans.
At his locker, Iverson, afterward, was surrounded by an army of reporters, as though he were Michael Himself. But by now, barely a dozen games into his college career, Iverson understood the difference between Michael and his endlessly repeated moment.
"Do you like all the attention you're getting?" a reporter asked.
"In the beginning I did," Iverson said, his face as weary as an old woman's. "It was really exciting for me and I enjoyed it a lot. But now when you start to see the negative things that come out of it, you begin to get the real picture ..."
The real picture is that this heralded rookie has been followed not because of his extraordinary talent and potential but because of his past. Like it or not he carries a felony conviction and jail time with him to every stop along the way, to every arena, to every game, to every waiting gaggle of reporters. He has scored 41 points in a game this season, leads his team in scoring, led the Big East in scoring for four weeks earlier this season and has been named Rookie of the Week for the Big East on four different occasions. Yet the clouds of the past as much as the light of stardom gather about him as he goes. It is as though for this young player, the question he must answer is not how good he is but how bad he is. Never mind the fairness of it, whatever his basketball future, this young man is already headed for the Wheel of Fortune Hall of Fame. Everyone - from the boo-birds to the bleeding hearts - wants to know, Who is this Guy? It all begins February 14,1993.
On that St. Valentine's Day two years ago, according to Virginia Commonwealth prosecutors, there was a massacre of sorts in a local bowling alley in Hampton, Iverson's hometown. On that evening, actually late evening of the 13th into the 14th, Iverson and a group of friends, all black, paid a visit to the Circle Lanes bowling alley, located in a middle to lower-middle class area of the city not far from Pine Chapel, one of the rougher housing projects in town.
Iverson and his group were directed to a couple of lanes off to one side and proceeded, like others crowded into the emporium, to bowl a couple of games. At one point, said an employee, one of the lanes on which the group was bowling was cut off because the group had paid for only a single game. Iverson, out on a Saturday night may or may not have rolled a ball or two down the alley anyway.