Georgia Tech Freshman Carries Family Torch of Hoop Dreams

The message, delivered by a high school janitor, was harsh. But then the janitor, like most everybody in Coney Island, saw the skinny 14-year-old as the receptacle for dreams deferred since before the boy’s birth.

“Work hard, OK?” he told the high school freshman. “Don’t [mess] up like your brothers.”

It was not supposed to be this way--not for Stephon Marbury, the fourth in a line of hoop-star siblings, all with pro skills and aspirations. By now, one of the Marbury boys should have ascended from their city housing project into the big time and big bucks of the National Basketball Assn.

When Stephon was in diapers, brother Eric was dunking alongside Dominique Wilkins at the University of Georgia. By Stephon’s fifth birthday, brother Donnie’s deadly jumper seemed to be his ticket out. When Stephon hit his teens, brother Norman was collecting assists and scholarship bids.

The Marburys, like dominoes, followed one another to Lincoln High School. Each wore the same No. 3, and each drew attention from a horde of major college coaches. For each, pro basketball seemed just a few sweet shots away.

But those shots didn’t fall.

Eric, now 35, Donnie, 31, and Norman, 25, came back, one by one--back to Brooklyn. Failures, neighbors whisper, even though they were all college men. They ignored the whispers and passed the torch.

It’s down to Stephon now, as the heralded Georgia Tech freshman takes his family’s best shot at basketball’s brass ring.

“He’s seen his brothers, all successful in different ways, all great ballplayers, but they didn’t make it to the NBA,” says Lou D’Almeida, a close family friend. “It’s a tremendous pressure on him.”

The brothers now scrutinize, critique and encourage Stephon, anxious for the teen to take their unfinished final step: from high school All-American to college star to NBA lottery pick.

The pressure extends beyond the walls of Marbury’s cramped apartment. His run-down ‘hood, a hoops hotbed-by-the-sea that cheered Lincoln to seven of the last 10 city championship games, has never seen a native son make The Show.

There were near-misses--the Marburys, yes, but also legendary local players dubbed “Silk,” “Tiny” and “T,” who couldn’t overcome the drugs, the violence, the bad grades, the bad luck.

For them--for the neighborhood--Stephon is their hope too.

The young point guard is “not only carrying the whole family, he’s carrying all of Coney Island with him,” says veteran city basketball scout Tom Konchalski.

“He was the anointed one since he was a young boy, the one to make it to the NBA. Stephon can take them to the promised land.”

*

Coney Island’s first family of hoops grew up one block from the beach and a million miles from nowhere.

Once a resort that lured 1 million visitors a day, the neighborhood is now more of a last resort--a collection of high-rises whose only connection to the good times gone is their kitschy names: Ocean Towers, Surf Manor.

The local subway stop sits at the end of the line in Brooklyn, amid the remnants of Coney Island past: Nathan’s Famous, the Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel. The skeleton of the abandoned parachute jump stands empty, rusting.

Coney Island present rises to the west between Surf and Mermaid avenues: 16 blocks of concrete and brick city housing, including the Marburys’ home in Surfside Gardens. While the city experienced a drastic drop in crime last year, murder and assault were up here.

Escaping Coney Island can be a matter of life and death. In the summer of ‘90, ex-Lincoln star David “Chocolate” Harris--high school dropout, small-time drug dealer--was found dead in a vacant lot, a single bullet wound in his 17-year-old head.

But escaping is also a matter of dollars and cents. The city’s last great point guard, Kenny Anderson of Queens’ Lefrak projects, awaits a new contract after turning down $40 million from the New Jersey Nets.

Georgia Tech alum Anderson, a pal of Norman Marbury, recruited Stephon for his alma mater. Marbury departed Lincoln High School last year with good grades and a qualifying SAT score.

Academic excellence was once standard at Lincoln. Founded in 1930, its alumni included author Joseph Heller, playwright Arthur Miller and three Nobel Prize physicists.

In recent years, its best-known grads were basketball players named Marbury.

The family patriarch, Don, is known as “The Creator” for his Fab Five progeny (the youngest Marbury, Zach, currently wears No. 3 as a sophomore guard at Lincoln). Dad was a track star, but his sons played the city game: basketball.

Eric was an undersized forward with extraordinary strength and leaping ability. Donnie was a high-scoring guard with a lethal shot. Norman was the consummate point guard: a penetrator and pinpoint passer.

They were all leaders who played hard--traits passed down as each brother took up the family torch. But their grades were never as good as their games.

Eric (known as “Spoon”), Lincoln class of ‘78, excelled at the University of Georgia, but the 6-foot-2 forward was too small to post up in the pros; the Los Angeles Clippers cut him. He returned to Brooklyn, where he works construction. He’s two semesters short of a college degree.

Donnie (“Sky”) graduated from high school in ‘82, but his grades required rehabilitation at two junior colleges. He transferred to Texas A&M;, led the Southwest Conference in scoring, but was passed over by the pros. “Not quite as strong as Eric,” says scout Konchalski. Donnie, who graduated from a fourth college, is now substitute teaching and coaching Zach at Lincoln.

Norman (“Jou Jou”) was supposed to be a sure thing. The ’90 high school graduate signed with the University of Tennessee, but lost his scholarship to a low SAT score. An odyssey through three junior colleges and Brooklyn’s tiny St. Francis College ended without a degree or an NBA deal. He played pro in Indonesia, but is back in Brooklyn working part-time construction. He’s looking for another overseas contract.

“All of them, absolutely, had NBA talent,” says D’Almeida. “But what’s the expression? ‘Many are called, but few are chosen.’ So many things can go wrong. It’s such a hard, subtle thing.”

It’s hard, but hardly subtle. There are 545,000 high school basketball players across America. The NBA drafts just 58 players annually--less than .01%.

*

Eric, Donnie and Norman didn’t make the NBA, but the Marbury kids all attended college, made good lives for themselves. Failures? They don’t want to hear about it.

“How did we fail?” asks Eric, his tone angry. “Instead of looking at the positive we’ve done, they look at the negative.”

The family apartment is on the fourth floor of a 15-story building, at the end of a dank, graffiti-scarred hallway, after a rickety elevator ride up. Their steel door has no identifying number or letter; everyone knows where Coney Island’s lone celebrities live.

Inside rises an imposing, five-deep collection of the brothers’ trophies. There’s also a nod toward future Marburys--there are already two grandsons--in a plastic toy hoop tucked behind the front door.

Mabel Marbury’s sons collect awards; their mom collects plants. Stephon’s post-NBA plans include a new home with a greenhouse for his mom, she confides.

Stephon is most often compared with his New York point guard predecessors: Anderson, Kenny Smith, Pearl Washington. But his real role model was brother Eric, who taught 3-year-old Stephon to score on a regulation basket.

At Eric’s insistence, Stephon would run up and down their building’s stairs, do calisthenics, perform martial arts drills--workouts sometimes ended by the sound of gunfire. Stephon honed his game with Donnie and Norman in the Lincoln gym.

Stephon became a one-man “Best of the Marburys” collection, fusing Spoon’s intensity, Sky’s jump shot and Jou Jou’s passing. Konchalski first heard the buzz when Stephon was a fourth-grader, and the first college recruiting letters arrived three years later.

It was Eric who dictated that the next Marburys would be point guards. After his Clippers’ tryout, Eric realized he had played out of position at forward--the reason he failed in the pros, he says now.

His brothers would not repeat the mistake. The lesson was simple: They could make the NBA if they learned to run the show.

“When I was telling Norman, Stephon would be watching,” Eric says. “So he’s been hearing this for a long time.”

Stephon listened, although he stays closed-mouth about the pressure of his family ties. Two months before entering Tech, he offered this hard lesson learned from his predecessors: “You can’t let basketball use you. You have to use the basketball.”

The Marburys--twin sisters Stephanie, a teacher’s aide, and Marcia, a television journalist, round out the seven kids--have always been a close-knit bunch. Stephon is now its unifying force.

The brothers videotape Stephon’s games for Mom, who only watches the victories. Stephanie still lives at home and is Stephon’s closest sibling. Zach copies Stephon’s on-court style at Lincoln. Donnie offers Stephon post-game advice by phone. The clan turned out at the Meadowlands in New Jersey when Tech played Massachusetts in December.

Despite past disappointments, they are certain Stephon will make the NBA. “I feel that he could go pro right now,” Eric says flatly--although Mrs. Marbury feels her son will return for his sophomore year, and NBA scouts recommend it.

*

Before he even made it to Georgia, Marbury was asked about going pro. He flatly said if he was a top five pick, he was gone after one year. It only heightened anticipation: Was he really that good?

The expectations were “unfair,” Tech coach Bobby Cremins says. “It’s going to take time, but no one wants to give Stephon time--probably including himself.”

Now 6-foot-2 and 180 pounds, Marbury didn’t need much time. After his debut, Manhattan coach Fran Fraschilla observed dryly, “He doesn’t walk on water, but he doesn’t get very wet either.”

With Marbury’s starring performance, including a 29-point game against Boston College, Tech made it to the NCAA’s Sweet 16, then won/lost to Cincinnati Friday night.

So far, he’s handled the pressure with poise.

But none of that is a guarantee for the future. What if something happens? What if Stephon too, never plays a minute in the NBA?

Friends and family say he’ll find them back in Coney Island, the same way his three brothers did.

“You never know what’s going to happen,” Mabel Marbury says. “I told him, ‘I want you to get your degree. You can only play ball for so long.’ Whatever he does, I want him happy.”

Mabel Marbury smiles; she’s repeating herself. It’s the same message she’s delivered to three sons already.