From Inmate to Phenom : Freshman Guard Allen Iverson Is Making a Great Impression With His Second Chance as a Georgetown Standout

And now, up close and personal with Allen Iverson . . . Georgetown style.

Well, he’s a point guard. He wears No. 3. He’s 6-1. And after that, you’re pretty much on your own.

Iverson is the most publicized best-kept secret in college basketball. He might be the nation’s best freshman, but no one knows a thing about him except that he’s playing for the 20th-ranked Hoyas and is averaging 18.8 points, 4.3 assists and 3.2 steals.

And one other thing: He was convicted on three felony counts of maiming by mob and served four months in a correctional facility before the governor of Virginia commuted his five-year sentence.

Wrapped in the cocoon provided by Hoya Coach John Thompson, Iverson is protected from such annoyances as reporters and anything else school officials can think of. Not that Iverson is complaining.

“That’s because they care about the players,” said Iverson, explaining Georgetown officials’ paternal instincts. “It wouldn’t have been any good for me to go to a school where the coach didn’t care about the players, where he only cared about what happened on the court. Coach (Thompson) cares about every last player and what they’re doing off the court as well.”

Iverson wasn’t allowed to conduct his first interview until Jan. 2, which is standard operating procedure for Georgetown freshmen under Thompson. He isn’t available for any one-on-one chats. He will talk to reporters after a game, but only if the questions pertain to basketball--preferably about the game just played. Just in case, a Georgetown official is positioned nearby to monitor the interview and also keep a stopwatch on the proceedings.

“One more minute, guys,” yells the official, as the countdown continues.

Allowed only glimpses, the rest of America tries to understand how Iverson, who led his high school team to state championships in both football and basketball as a junior, eventually spent four months working in the prison bakery of the City Farm in Newport News, Va. Questions everywhere.

Was he wrongly convicted or wrongly released?

Did Georgetown rescue Iverson or did Iverson rescue Georgetown?

And then there is another possibility: Is Iverson simply trying to rescue Iverson?

If so, he has plenty of help.

*

It is Jan. 14 and Georgetown has just beaten Boston College at USAir Arena, 75-60. It wasn’t much of a game, especially with injury-riddled Boston College reduced to a no-point-guard offense.

About 10 rows behind the Hoya bench, Linda Mine and her family pack up their belongings, including a sign that basically reads, “Go Iverson,” but with a hand-drawn eye, a ver, and a sun. She waved the sign whenever Iverson returned to the huddle or whenever a TV camera was pointed her way.

“He always sees the sign,” says Mine, a hometown fan who has kept three big scrapbooks of Iverson’s career, from Bethel High in Hampton, Va., to the court case, to the comeback at Georgetown.

Mine was part of a grass-roots effort in Hampton to petition for Iverson’s freedom. She says Iverson was guilty of nothing more than “just being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“The only thing that most people see is what’s in the newspaper,” she says. “They don’t know the individual.”

Hard to know anything with the Hoya curtain of mystery draped around him. His player profile--if you can call it that--in the Georgetown media guide is as sparse as desert landscape. A tumbleweed’s worth of information is included--name, position, weight, class, hometown, high school, honors and a four-sentence comment by Thompson--along with a photo of Iverson and the school’s athletic director atop a parking garage.

“He’s a good kid,” says Mine, doing what she can to fill in the blanks. “Very quiet, but just the opposite on the court. And he’s real thankful to the community that we got behind him.”

True. Standing in front of his locker after the game, reporters huddled around him, Iverson reveals bits of his feelings in measured, careful doses. Of course, he has to do it in eight minutes.

What is his reaction to Mine’s homemade sign?

“It’s good to have people that support you,” he says, adjusting his tie. “I’d rather have a friend than an enemy any day, but I can deal with the enemies too.”

Does he realize that there are other supporters like Mine?

“I know there are,” he says. “But I know there are a lot of negative people out there too, who don’t care if I make it or fail. But I’m starting to become a lot better recognizing who my friends are, who aren’t. I always pay close attention to anybody that has anything to do with me, anybody who’s around me.”

When he wants to get away from it all, what does he do?

“I don’t even go out as much as I did.”

Because of the trial and conviction?

“Yeah, most definitely.”

*

On June 7, 1993, Iverson, then 17, was charged with three felony counts of maiming by mob. According to prosecutors, Iverson took part in a chair-throwing brawl at Circle Lanes Bowling Alley that resulted in injuries to two women and several men.

Iverson was tried as an adult and convicted in mid-July. Two months later, he was sentenced to five years each on the felony counts. The judge suspended 10 years of the total 15-year sentence, then sent him to the Newport News City Farm, a minimum-security correctional facility. If all went well, Iverson would be eligible for parole in August 1994.

Outraged by the conviction and even more so by the punishment, a Hampton community group was formed. Iverson’s family hired a new team of lawyers and an appeal was filed Dec. 30, 1993.

A day later, under increasing community pressure, then-Gov. Douglas Wilder granted conditional clemency to Iverson, who was released and began attending Virginia Beach’s Richard Milburn High School. Under the conditions of the clemency, Iverson wasn’t allowed to participate in varsity sports.

Last April, after Iverson’s mother appealed to Thompson to consider signing her son, Georgetown offered Iverson a scholarship. He signed his letter of intent, graduated from Milburn on Sept. 3 and enrolled at Georgetown on Sept. 5. His new life had begun.

“Did I consider any other place?” said Iverson, whose felony conviction didn’t stop many coaches from pursuing him. “No. This is where I wanted to come.”

According to Lisa O’Donnell, one of Iverson’s lawyers, the state’s Intermediate Court of Appeals is tentatively scheduled to hear arguments on the case the week of Feb. 20. Once the appeal is heard, a decision to overturn or uphold the original conviction usually is made in four to six weeks.

Iverson’s attorneys are appealing on grounds of insufficient evidence. In a separate matter, they also maintain that Iverson’s original trial counsel failed to do his job properly.

There was some thought given to leaving the conviction alone, to letting Iverson get on with his life.

“But he has three felony convictions on his record,” O’Donnell said. “He is about to embark on his life as a felon unless he can get these convictions overturned.”

Felons can’t vote, can’t hold public office and sometimes can’t find a job that requires any type of security clearance. But beyond that, Iverson wants to clear not just his record, but his name.

“We feel very confident that we’ll get there, hopefully on the this first try,” said O’Donnell, who added that if unsuccessful, the attorneys will petition the Virginia Supreme Court. “It’s amazing to us . . . that there ever was a conviction.”

It isn’t amazing to Colleen Killilea, the prosecutor on the case. However, she said that if the conviction is reversed on the basis of insufficient evidence, her office might not be able to retry Iverson. If the Intermediate Appeals Court overturns the decision, but then gives the prosecutors the choice of a retrial or dropping the case, Killilea said a retrial is likely.

“We don’t get many cases remanded, but the cases that have come back, we have retried,” she said. “But we haven’t thought about it.”

Killilea has nothing against Iverson. She has casually followed his career at Georgetown and has heard that the initial reports are favorable.

“I’m not wishing him bad,” Killilea said. “I don’t agree with the governor releasing him early. But if he can put what happened behind . . . if he can pick up from that point on at Georgetown, that’s all the better for him. It is a great opportunity. Very few kids get an opportunity like that.”

*

Georgetown’s Thompson has a history of taking calculated risks. He looks not only for talent, but for character. He did it with Patrick Ewing. He did it with Dikembe Mutombo. Now, in a different way, he does it with Iverson.

Thompson didn’t recruit Iverson. The Iverson family recruited Thompson. They explained Iverson’s side of the bowling alley brawl and then made a simple request: Could Thompson help Iverson? Please?

So Thompson said he would try. If Iverson qualified academically, Georgetown would be there.

There never was any question about Iverson’s athletic skills. He averaged 31.6 points, 8.7 rebounds and 9.2 assists as a junior at Bethel High. Had he not been part of that fateful Feb. 14, 1993, night at Circle Lanes, Iverson would have been one of the most highly sought seniors in the country.

Instead, he spent those four months in prison. O’Donnell used to watch him play pickup games during inmate recreation periods. Iverson and the cons. A long way from USAir Arena.

*

Against Boston College, Iverson finishes with 20 points, but he needs 19 shots and 10 free throws to do it. He goes five for 19 from the floor, but has seven assists, four steals and two rebounds.

The freshman review, abridged version: His first shot, a layup, is blocked. Later, he hits a three-point basket, gets called for traveling, makes several nice assists, leaves Boston College guard Marc Molinsky grabbing at vapor trails, puts up a couple of air balls, gets another shot blocked, commits a silly turnover, has a breakaway layup blocked, misses another jumper, throws a perfect pass on a fast break, clenches his fists after making two free throws and putting the Hoyas ahead by 10 with 2:03 remaining.

Afterward, he shakes his head when told his numbers.

“It was a lot easier in high school,” says Iverson, who has a bulldog tattoo on his biceps with an inscription, “The Answer.”

Thompson, who has restructured his historically center-oriented, half-court offense to fit Iverson’s speed and passing abilities, doesn’t seem too upset. In fact, he even jokes with Iverson about the blocked shot on the breakaway layup.

“I’ve seen a lot of great players in my years of (coaching), but I haven’t seen any freshmen walk in the door and do everything that there was to know,” Thompson says. “I haven’t seen one. If he reads some of the . . . that people write about him and believes it, you would think automatically that he fell down from heaven.

“Allen is going to be a great basketball player. He works hard and he loves to play. But he’s got to learn like everybody else.”

He doesn’t have to learn that much. Boston College forward Danya Abrams, who helped lead the Eagles to the NCAA East Regional final last season, says Iverson is this close to stardom.

“He’s like a one-man fast break,” Abrams says. “Every time I turned around, he was around the ball.”

Iverson tugs at the collar of his sport coat as a local TV camera crew approaches. Most of the other players already have left, but Iverson doesn’t seem in a hurry.

Then the interview monitor’s voice.

“OK, guys, that’s it,” says the official, shooing everybody out. “Thank you.”

Iverson collects his things and then looks around the locker room. Another day of the comeback complete. Another day holding tight to the life jacket he threw himself.