If He’s the Answer, We’re All in Trouble

His coach and teammates say he’s a changed man, and the media, starving for a new angle, is taking this ball and slam dunking it. He now arrives at practice on time. He no longer rides with a pistol in his car. He isn’t telling his coach to go to hell anymore. Hey, he hasn’t flipped courtside fans a verbal middle finger in months.

People are actually applauding Allen Iverson for acting responsibly. Imagine that. Have we, as a society, placed the bar so low that when someone finally upgrades his behavior to acceptable standards, he’s suddenly a fine example for our kids to follow? Please. I wouldn’t buy this even if I had Bill Gates’ money.

Iverson doesn’t move me. If anything, I, as a black man, am repulsed by him.

It’s easy to be bamboozled by his basketball brilliance. That’s the way it goes in sports: the better the player, the more slack we’re willing to give him.

That’s the problem. We’ll get more of Iverson butchering the language, more of his defiance toward some imaginary “establishment,” more misplaced anger from a man who makes $11 million a year, more of Iverson saying how he’s misunderstood, more of this gangsta hip-hop image he loves to project.

And then you read a letter from a Robert Woodward of Philadelphia, who gushes in the Daily News: “Allen Iverson has evolved into a role model for children of all ethnicities,” and you want to vomit.

Sorry, but I hope my precious Victoria, who turned 3 last week, doesn’t wait until she turns 26 before she gets half a clue.

She’s being raised in a middle-class household and, knock on wood, will have certain advantages that Ann Iverson couldn’t give her son. But I’m really tired of people excusing Iverson’s delayed maturity on a hard-knock life. Iverson grew up no worse than my family. We spent years on welfare, crammed seven people into three rooms in the projects, ran from the rats and roaches and mimicked the pimps. And none of us did anything more felonious than jaywalk.

Iverson has had more responsible people in his ear than we ever did. There are many black athletes I’d rather a nation listen to right now instead of Iverson. Unfortunately, David Robinson is back in San Antonio, where he’s building a school for underprivileged children with his own money. The classy Ray Allen couldn’t get past the 76ers. Miami’s Brian Grant, who spends more time with the terminally ill than you’ll ever know, couldn’t escape the first round.

Instead, the person front and center chose to pose on the cover of Sports Illustrated shirtless and showing his jock strap.

“You know, I think it’s unfair,” he said. “People need to take the time to know who I am as a person. People are judging me on the mistakes I made in the past. I’m older and wiser.”

Last week, Mr. Older and Wiser asked a room full of reporters: “Is Marcus Hayes here? No? If you see him, tell him I said he’s . . . “

Hayes is a reporter from Philadelphia who mentioned on TV that people will always be uncomfortable with Iverson. Later, when Hayes sought Iverson out to explain, Iverson threatened to punch him and had to be restrained.

“I’m still the same person,” Iverson says.

No doubt.