EX-STAR ATHLETE ADMITS BEING LURED BY DRUGS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 24, 1992                   TAG: 9201240396
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
EX-STAR ATHLETE ADMITS BEING LURED BY DRUGS
Joe Fitzgerald had just stepped out of the courtroom when a man who had been sitting on the back row walked up to shake his hand.
The man remembered Fitzgerald, 19, as one of the best high school basketball players in the state - not as the convicted cocaine dealer he had just become.
"How did you get messed up with that stuff?" the man wanted to know.
It was a question that Fitzgerald, a former star at William Fleming High School, struggled to answer in an interview Thursday, minutes after he pleaded no contest in Roanoke Circuit Court to a charge of possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute.
"I just wanted to be out there where everybody else was," he said. Like hundreds of other disadvantaged youths in Roanoke, Fitzgerald admits he was lured by crack's promise of "fast cash."
He said he was also swayed by peer pressure from other youths already involved in the drug trade.
Fitzgerald - who some say could have played at the college of his choice had he not dropped out of school and turned to drug dealing - was allowed to remain free on bond until he is sentenced in March.
"I made a big mistake," he said. "This is not the way I wanted to go. I wanted to go to school and make something of my life."
While at Fleming, Fitzgerald was named one of the state's top sophomores. The following year, the 6-foot-6 center was selected as the Roanoke Times & World-News Timesland boys' basketball player of the year. But after being ruled academically ineligible to play his senior year, Fitzgerald dropped out of school and began to run into trouble, getting convicted of several misdemeanor offenses such as trespassing and assault.
In summarizing the evidence of the drug charge, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wanda DeWease said Fitzgerald was arrested the night of Sept. 27, after police received a complaint about drug deals in progress on the 1700 block of Melrose Avenue.
When police arrived, Fitzgerald and a group of people split and ran. As police chased Fitzgerald through an alley, they saw him throw to the ground what was later determined to be a plastic bag containing a rock of crack.
Two blocks later, they caught Fitzgerald. He admitted then that he was selling crack he had bought from a dealer nicknamed "Scrap Iron," DeWease said.
Fitzgerald also admitted to police that he was smoking crack - "a lot," the prosecutor said.
But after the hearing, Fitzgerald said he was not using crack cocaine. He said he hopes to re-enroll in school and continue to play basketball. "I will make a comeback," he said.
Fitzgerald said he realizes now that his arrest disappointed a lot of young people who looked up to him.
"It takes something like this to make me realize that I was headed the wrong way," he said. "I'd like to tell all the young kids that it's not the route to go."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB