MILES FROM HOME

It’s known as “the Hole” and it will never be mistaken for Disneyland.

Unless you live around it, the Hole is easy to miss. It’s at the bottom of a grassy hill and for years was where East St. Louis basketball players made names for themselves.

For new Clipper Darius Miles, selected third overall in last month’s NBA draft, the Hole, his first proving ground, helped position him to become the highest-drafted high school player in history.

Less than a three-minute bike ride from the home he and his mother, Ethel--along with others in an extended family--have lived in for most of his 18 years, the Hole is nothing but a short sheet of asphalt with two rims, masquerading as a place for full-court basketball games.

“It’s really just a half court because with two dribbles, you’re on the other end of the court,” Miles said. “I was about 10 when I started to play there. There’s a lot of good players who came out of the Hole. That’s where I really made my name. In this little area, I was the man.

“All the grown people used to pick me to play with them. That was the big thing about me. I always played with grown people.”

But playing with men almost cost Miles his life when he 13.

One summer day, Miles was playing with a group of friends when a young man known as “the Creature” approached, carrying a revolver, looking for kids who had tried to break into his car the night before. Because Miles was taller than everyone else, the Creature assumed he was the ringleader.

“I was looking dead at the bullet in the chamber,” Miles said. “I knew then that I had to get out. It was meant for me to go.”

Ethel Miles and her boyfriend, Donnell Dunn, remember that afternoon too.

“When Darius told me who the guy was, I took my nephew [Darrell] and went down there with my own gun,” Ethel Miles said. “But before I left, I called the police and told them that they better be there before I get there because he’s not leaving.

“By the time I got to the guy’s house, the police were already there. . . . I pressed charges and got him arrested because he pulled a gun on my child and falsely accused him. I knew that Darius didn’t do it because it happened at 1 o’clock at night. Darius was never out at night because once it got dark, he never could leave our street.”

Staying out of trouble has always been a full-time job for Miles, who has never been close to his father, Gilbert White, who also lives in East St. Louis. Not because he was a bad kid but because in “East Saint,” just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Mo., violence and drugs are commonplace. Some have made it out but for every Jackie Joyner-Kersee there are dozens of people who never even make it across the bridges connecting Illinois and Missouri.

But Miles was different from the start, and used the threat of death as motivation to follow his basketball dream.

“After I got that gun pulled on me, I felt like my life should have been over,” Miles said. “I decided then I was going to make the best of it and try and lift my family. I realized God had me on this earth for a reason.

“I realized that if you don’t come from a good area, it is hard to get anywhere because nothing is going to be given to you. . . . You have to work hard for everything you get.”

Not getting caught up in the bad elements that plagued East St. Louis was difficult for Miles. But whenever he needed motivation, he had only had to look at how street life had killed the dreams of so many around him.

For every two houses, another is boarded up. For every school or community center, there are two or three liquor stores--covered with gang graffiti. And for Miles, for every basketball bounced, there seemed to be a gun fired.

“So many people have been shot at places where I played basketball, it ain’t even funny,” he said. “But, I kept going because I love to play.

“There’s a place called Charlie Park [officially named Washington Park] and it is probably the worst area to be in. But I would go over there and play, and people would be surprised to see me. . . . Police are scared to go around there. Domino’s and Pizza Hut? Please, people around here don’t know what it’s like to have pizza delivered to their spot.”

*

It’s a hot, humid Saturday afternoon and there’s excitement at the Miles’ house on Douglas Avenue. Family and friends are there, waiting for “Little K.G. [Kevin Garnett]” to come home for the first time since he made NBA history three days ago.

The matriarch of the household is Miles’ grandmother, Elouise Miles, who lived there with her husband, Willie Sr., for more than 30 years. The first thing you notice is a mantelpiece swallowed up by trophies, pictures and other memorabilia of Darius’ short but celebrated basketball career.

There’s a McDonald’s All-American certificate. There are photos of him sitting next to Michael Jordan and John Wooden. There’s also a USA team jersey from when he played on the World Junior national team.

But most noticeable in this house is the love. With four generations of Mileses gathered, there is plenty to go around. And for Elouise Miles, it’s a chance to reflect on her long-ago decision to move the family into a white neighborhood during the Civil Rights movement.

She talks about the changes in the neighborhood but never with anger. She talks about how a brick with a note, saying “Don’t bother to unpack,” was thrown through her downstairs window right after the Miles family moved in, and how houses were burned to prevent other African Americans from moving onto the block.

Elouise Miles also talks about determination, which she says kept her family of six kids together. She talks about how Darius, his mother and family have made sticking together a top priority.

East St. Louis native Andrew Jones, who has run a sports advisory service for athletes since 1990, says it is easy to see why Miles was drafted higher than even Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant when they made the jump to the pros from high school.

“There is just so much love with his family,” Jones says. “His mother put in all the time and effort to support Darius. She’s been at every game, at every camp. She was always there. Every time you looked up, she was always around, cheering and coaching. She is just real good people and it follows the old adage, ‘He’s a chip off the old block, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ ”

The crowd at the Miles home builds and finally reaches 30, but the guest of honor is nowhere to be seen, thanks to a flight delay in Los Angeles. His family and friends wait and wait. One hour passes, then another before the prodigy son finally arrives.

It has been a while since he has been home. The day after he graduated from East St. Louis High, Miles left for Chicago and moved in with close friend and now Clipper teammate Quentin Richardson to get ready for the draft.

But home is home, and he walks in all smiles, making his grandmother feel good.

“He was always a quiet kid,” Elouise Miles says. “But he talks a lot more now and he also smiles a lot more.”

For Ethel Miles, 43, the fact that her only child is about to take a giant step into the NBA finally has begun to sink in. She has driven a school bus for the last 15 years and sometime this summer, she, along with Dunn and her nephew Darrell, will be moving to Los Angeles to live with Darius.

“I did a lot of things that most fathers do,” she says. “I got out and played basketball with him, we wrestled against each other, I even caught football with him. I did everything.

“Darius has always been a mellowed-out kid. . . . Even when he began playing basketball, for a long time he would not talk much. I used to elbow him to open his mouth and talk . . . but if he didn’t know you, he didn’t talk a lot.”

That’s not hard to imagine because Miles is still more cautious than outgoing. He has close friends in his neighborhood and he is dedicated to the community.

Shortly after returning home, he leaves to give a tour of East Saint, where he’s received as a hero. Little kids run from ice cream trucks to chase the sports utility vehicle he’s driving. Childhood friends stop him in the middle of the street just to tell him to “keep it real for the community.”

“I want to be a good influence for people around here,” says Miles. “I think the reason why people respect me is because I did it the right way. I didn’t get it by selling drugs or any of that stuff. People always come up to me and tell me that.”

As Miles drives around, he is greeted by a young woman driving home from work, an old man walking out of a liquor store, even members of local gangs.

“My goal is to try and put East Saint back on the map,” he says. “There is so much talent down here, but people are just scared to come down here.”

*

Larry Butler, who coached Miles with the AAU Chicago Warriors, was not afraid to go to East Saint, which is why Miles’ reputation began to spread.

While looking for players to join his group of Chicago kids, which already included Richardson and another new Clipper teammate, Corey Maggette, Butler ran across Miles. Butler quickly persuaded Darius’ mother to allow him to play in Chicago during the summer. Miles had just turned 14.

Miles started out on the 15-and-under team but soon moved up with the big boys on the 17-and-under squad, where Richardson was the star. Miles improved dramatically and when he returned to East Saint, his “statement plays” against older local heroes became the talk of the town.

Kenyze Henderson, who has known Miles for years, said the turning point occurred in a pickup game against an older 6-foot-8 player who had been a standout at Lincoln High. Miles was about to enroll as a sophomore at Lincoln.

“Everyone knew the [older] guy because he had even played ball in college,” Henderson said. “But . . . Darius was coming down on a fast break and he just took off on him. He threw it down [scored the basket] and just looked at him and basically said, ‘There’s a new breed in town.’ Darius was kind of quiet but when he did that, everyone looked at each other and knew he was something special.

“He was just a shy, cool little dude then but he had that flair about him. . . . He always was head and shoulders above everyone else his age.”

At Clark Junior High, Miles dominated but the school played only six games and he didn’t get much exposure. Once he started playing AAU ball in Chicago, he went from being a shot blocker and transition player to a highlight film waiting to happen. As a junior in high school, he led Lincoln to the state tournament for the first time in more than a decade. When Lincoln High closed, he moved over to rival East St. Louis High and took that team to the state tournament.

Still, Miles always felt overshadowed by the country’s more celebrated prep players.

“When I played against Eddie Griffen from Philadelphia, who was supposed to be the No. 1 player in the nation before our senior season, I ate him up,” Miles said. “I had, like, 53 points against him, but they really didn’t give me any attention because I was from East St. Louis. . . .

“Big places like New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and other places in California get most of the attention. It’s hard for people from little towns like this to come up. There are plenty of people who had talent like me, but they didn’t get a chance and they just faded away.”

Because the NBA had always been his dream, Miles didn’t apply himself academically for college. His grades were good but on the American College Test, he fell one point shy of the score necessary to qualify for college. When he played in the Illinois Class AA third-place game against Peoria Richwoods High, he was met with chants of “A-C-T! A-C-T! and “Jun-ior col-lege! Jun-ior col-lege!”

But Miles didn’t let that bother him. He had committed to attend St. John’s in New York because of a close relationship he had built with Coach Mike Jarvis, but Miles knew he was headed to the NBA. After all, Michael Jordan had told him so.

Miles went to Jordan’s camp in Santa Barbara last summer, and impressed everyone. He even blocked one of Jordan’s shots and lived to tell of it.

“Yeah, I blocked it,” he said, “but all Mike did was make 30 shots in a row over me.”

When agent David Falk heard about Miles, first from Denver Nugget assistant coach John Lucas and then Jordan, he changed his policy on not representing high school players.

“The best scout for Darius was Michael Jordan,” Falk said. “Once he said he picked him on his team every night, I decided that was enough for me.”

*

In the days before the draft, the buzz on Miles took on mythical proportions. Thanks to the success of Garnett, Bryant and Tracy McGrady, each of whom had made the jump from high school, teams did not want to miss out on Miles.

Most basketball experts, however, did not think the Clippers would take a chance on Miles with their third pick.

What people didn’t know, however, was that Jeff Weltman, the Clippers’ director of player personnel, had been hot on Miles’ trail for two years. Then when nearly all of the 25 teams drafting behind the Clippers inquired about a trade to move up to pick Miles, the decision became a no-brainer. “We’re just so fortuitous,” Weltman said on draft night. “You couldn’t dream it up any better.”

The Clippers are notorious for squandering talent but Miles was not upset about being picked by them.

“The main thing is, that we can’t go no further down,” Miles said of his new team. “We’re already at the bottom. We just have to work our way to the top. . . . I know being drafted third overall surprised a lot of people, but I could have gone No. 1. . . . By the time the draft came around, I heard I had a 50% chance that the [New Jersey] Nets would have picked me first.”

When the Clippers selected Richardson, Miles’ buddy, with the 18th pick, Miles said, “That was the million-dollar selection right there.”

With Missouri point guard Keyon Dooling, Richardson and Maggette joining him to team up with talented Lamar Odom, Miles believes the Clippers are the team of the future.

Miles understands that he has room for growth. He is already working under the guidance of Jordan’s strength coach and has hired a shooting coach.

His critics point out that he has to add muscle to his slender 6-8 frame and that although he’s a terror in the open court, he struggles in a half-court setting.

“I think he will have spectacular nights as a rookie and other nights when he will look like a rookie,” Falk said. “ . . . I don’t want him to get hung up on whether he starts . . . but the only way he is going to develop is by playing because there are not a lot of practices in the NBA.”

Which makes the Clippers the perfect team for Miles. If he had been drafted by the Lakers or Portland Trail Blazers, he said, he wouldn’t be as excited because he knows he wouldn’t be getting a chance to play much.

“I’m looking forward to playing in L.A.,” Miles said. “The Clippers are an NBA team and my dream was to play in the NBA. . . . I feel that I’m ready. The way I see it, if people really didn’t think I was ready, I wouldn’t have been the highest drafted high school player ever.”