THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 7, 1997 TAG: 9702070077
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA LENGTH: 179 lines
Rahsaan Langford is 24, from New York. Used to attend Norfolk State. Has known Allen Iverson since he was 14. Says he visits a lot.
Langford is one of Iverson's friends who frequently wait for the 21-year-old Philadelphia 76ers rookie guard after practice, who sometimes plays halfcourt basketball while Iverson is showering or watching postpractice film.
Some days, the group includes Marlon Moore, Eric Jackson, Kevin Spence, Alex Rhoden. Sometimes Iverson's uncle, Greg Iverson. Some days, there are others.
Does that mean that they're the members of Allen Iverson's so-called posse?
``They're my friends,'' said Iverson, the former star at Georgetown University and Bethel High School in Hampton. ``They're here so I don't have to be by myself. Some days, some of them are here. Other days, others are here. I don't have to explain why. Who I need to have around, whatever, all that's personal.
``We're not a posse. I don't know why people say we're a posse, or that I have an entourage. Maybe the people who say that have no friends. Maybe they're mad because I have friends. Maybe they're scared of my friends. I don't understand, but it doesn't bother me.''
The dictionary defines ``posse'' as a force of men, taken from the group sometimes put together by a peace officer in pursuit of wrongdoers. But it has also become a term used by the MTV generation, defining a circle of friends. Sometimes, though, there's a negative connotation, including groups who ride the coattails of the rich and famous.
That's what some team officials, friends and Iverson's mother Ann fear his friends have become. Among the incidents they cite:
After Iverson signed a $9 million contract with the 76ers last year, one young man bought a $7,000 watch from a Washington jeweler and charged it to Iverson, according to Ann Iverson.
A month into this season, a group of his Virginia friends were living in the three-bedroom Philadelphia condo Iverson's mother had decorated for him. They were using his new pool table, eating his food, asking for tickets to his games, staying overnight and driving his cars, she said.
A report in the New York Post that members of Iverson's friends brawled with those of teammate Jerry Stackhouse in December. Iverson and Stackhouse deny the incident occurred.
When he was visiting his Hampton home last September, a shot was fired into his Mercedes, with two of his friends seated in it, while it was parked at Hampton University. Iverson was not in the car, but a gun registered to him was found in the front seat.
Later in September, two rooms at a Newport News hotel that were registered to Iverson sustained $700 in damage. Iverson says he knows nothing about that incident.
Iverson's mother became so concerned about Iverson's friends that she went to Philadelphia, asked them to leave and installed her brother, Gregory, a former Marine, in the condominium to instill order. Gregory also drives Iverson to his appointments and handles many errands.
``It's tough for him to tell his friends to take a hike,'' Ann Iverson said. ``So I threw them out.''
Reebok, the athletic shoe and clothing company which has signed Iverson to a $50 million endorsement deal, has assigned a full-time manager to provide additional direction for Iverson.
Henry Que Gaskins, 30, a graduate of the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, said he tries to figure out ways to sell his young star. But some NBA agents, players and media types privately call Gaskins a babysitter, and Gaskins admits ``there's some of that.''
It should be noted that although the Reebok situation is unusual, it is not unheard of. Nike Inc. had someone in Chicago working daily with Michael Jordan when he started in the NBA.
When Iverson left Georgetown after two years for the pros, family and friends sat him down to talk about responsibility and changing some of his friends, according to Linwood ``Butch'' Harper, a family friend. Harper said ``if his friends love him as he loves them, then they should do all they can to keep him out of trouble.''
Iverson's half-dozen friends that he met growing up constitute an inner circle. Then there is his mother, his two sisters and an aunt and an uncle.
Some of Iverson's friends have had run-ins with police, which Ann Iverson said does not concern her unless they are still committing crimes.
It's not unusual for professional athletes to have an entourage, and Iverson's friends perform many mundane tasks such as guiding him through autograph sessions. In return, Iverson has tried to give them a taste of his new life, such as bringing them with him on a West Coast road trip. When Iverson spent thousands on purchases of new jewelry for himself, he gave his old jewelry to friends, according to his mother. And when the NBA gathers for its All-Star game this weekend, friends of Iverson who aspire to be rap musicians will perform for Reebok executives. Iverson is averaging 22 points per game and will be playing in the rookie game on Saturday.
Gaskins said there is an explanation about Iverson's friends: ``He's taking his friends under his wing and trying to get them started in business ... trying to give them opportunities to shine.''
Two of them, Jackson, 21, and Langford, 24, are aspiring rap stars who have started a musical group called Maad Rugid.
Jackson, who played youth league football with Iverson, was arrested in September 1994 and charged with maiming in a shooting death that occurred two months earlier when a stray bullet struck and killed a Newport News woman, according to court records and newspaper reports. The charges against Jackson were eventually dropped because witnesses refused to testify, according to Newport News Commonwealth's Attorney Howard Gwynn.
Last September, two of Iverson's friends were in Iverson's Mercedes when shots were fired at the car, according to a Hampton police report. One of those friends was Powell, 28, who in 1990 was convicted in Hampton Circuit Court of felony possession of cocaine and received a suspended sentence. In 1992 he received a three-year suspended sentence in Newport News Circuit Court for possession of a weapon by a felon, according to court records. Powell was placed on ``good behavior'' for 10 years for the weapon charge.
The other man in Iverson's car was Walter ``Alex'' Rhoden, 22, a close friend who sometimes stayed at Iverson's home when they were growing up, according to Ann Iverson.
Friends say that the two people closest to Iverson are Steele and Moore, both childhood friends.
Part of the reason that controversies trail Iverson, said Gaskins, is the athlete's tumultuous high school experiences.
In January 1993, the all-state basketball and football player was at a party in a hotel where a man was shot to death. A month later, he was involved in a brawl at a Hampton bowling alley that landed him a five-year prison sentence. Iverson served four months at a Virginia prison camp before receiving conditional clemency from then-governor Douglas Wilder, and a Virginia Court later overturned the case on a technicality.
Iverson left Georgetown last May after two years to enter the NBA draft. He was picked first in the entire draft, by the 76ers.
Gaskins believes people could be deceived by their first impression of Iverson's friends.
``People think he has a posse, because of the way they dress, the way they look, their hip-hop style,'' Gaskins said.
``They grew up with rap music, and it's reflective of the way Allen plays, aggressively. People aren't accustomed to kids as `real' as they are.
``By that, I mean I grew up in a very rough part of town, but my parents made me change a lot of my patterns. These guys haven't had a lot of advisers, mentors. I learned to `play the game,' they haven't and don't feel a need to. But people on the outside looking in don't understand.''
When Pat Croce, the current Sixers president was the strength and conditioning coach for the Sixers and the Flyers, the operative term was ``cliques,'' not posses or entourages.
``Sometimes we called them `cling-ons,' '' he said, laughing. ``It's mostly the same as it is now, just the term has changed. I mean, Allen's Uncle Greg? That's Allen's mother's brother. Is he part of a posse?''
Adds Sixers coach Johnny Davis: ``For me, `posse' is a new phenomenon. I'm from a time when teammates provided support. But it's a new day, players have other people in their lives. It used to be your high school or college coach you went to, now it's your agent. That's new, too.''
But have things really changed all that much?
``When Wilt Chamberlain, Guy Rodgers, Hal Lear, John Chaney played, we all had `friends,' '' said Sonny Hill, a Sixers advisor.
``I carried Guy's bag. I was honored to do it. He'd have one or two of us with him going to games. He created a spotlight, we were just a part of it. Later, when I became a pretty good player, somebody carried my bag.
``But the last 10 years or so, the `friends' have grown in number. Maybe that's what created the terminology `posse.' I don't like it, but it's only negative if you let it become that way. I don't see it as negative with Allen.''
Iverson tries to block out as much as he can, reminding himself how happy he is.
``I've never been this happy in my life,'' he said. ``The only happier time was when my daughter was born (two years ago). People I love and care about are around me. And I'm taking care of my family.
``Where I grew up, people said I was too short, too skinny, that I couldn't go to college, that I couldn't go pro. They would tell me that to go pro would be one in a million.
``I heard it all. But now I'm on that level. They can't break me. The only way to break me is to kill me.'' MEMO: The Washington Post and the Philadelphia Daily News contributed to
this report. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by LAWRENCE JACKSON/The Virginian-Pilot
Allen Iverson, the former Bethel High School star, insists he's
having a ball despite all the scrutiny he's under. ``I've never been
this happy in my life,'' he said.
Color AP photo
Allen Iverson announced last May that he was leaving Georgetown. His
mother, right, recently asked her son's friends to move out of his
Philadelphia condo because of concerns she had about their behavior.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY