The Making of AI
by Leo
via flickr/zz77
The Facts: The night before Valentine’s Day, 1993, six high school kids – all black – decided to go bowling. At 11:30 p.m., they arrived at Circle Lanes Bowling Alley and bowled on lanes nine and ten. It was a busy, crowded bowling alley near Pine Chapel, one of the rough housing projects in town. The group included Michael Simmons, Dwayne Campbell, and Allen Iverson.
There was another group of kids there – all white – who had arrived at 7:30 p.m. This group included Steven Forrest, Lori Clark, and six others. They bowled near the snack bar.
At this point, even the court documents are unclear about who’s involved in what.
The Hearsay: At midnight, Iverson and a friend (conflicting reports name different friends) walk to the snack bar to check on a food order. Forrest’s group is sitting near the bar drinking bar. Words are exchanged between the two groups. Iverson testified that someone called him, “nigger and stuff…little boy.” Forrest denies this. Forrest testified that when he stood up to tell Iverson, “We don’t have a problem” someone other than Iverson hit him on the back of the head. The state would later identify Michael Simmons as the one who threw the punch. At this point, someone swung a chair.
Dwayne Campbell had a different account of the events. He testified that he was the friend who went up to the snack bar with Iverson. While they waited for their food, someone made a racial comment to them. Then, one of the men stood up and cursed at Iverson. As he tried to pull Iverson away from the situation, someone swung a chair and hit him.
Whatever the exact provocation, the brawl was on.
***
At first, things are quiet. “Did that really just happen?” But the brief respite did not last, instead, even more people join the fray. To understand why that happened, we have to look back into Iverson’s past.
via flickr/Vedia
It’s sad that the word cliché can be used to describe the experience of abject poverty. The word demeans a miserable experience than most of us are lucky enough not to know about. But as horrific as Iverson’s youth was, it does fit in with the mythology of the successful black athlete. His biological father didn’t stay to raise him. His mother was only 15 when she had him. His house was swamped with raw sewage for a month. Ends sometimes didn’t meet and so Iverson would play basketball for money. As Mike Bailey, Iverson’s basketball coach at Bethel High School in Hampton, said, “There were times when Allen never knew where his next meal was going to be.” Sports became a life or death matter – if he didn’t win, he didn’t eat.
Around the time he was a freshman in high school, Iverson lost two men important in his life: Tony Clark, someone who kept Iverson off the streets, was killed by his girlfriend and Michael Freeman, the man who raised him, was caught selling drugs and sent to jail. It was around this time that Iverson realized his mother and two sisters had no one to depend on but him – he was the man of the house. Like many young men in his situation, he decided to use sports as a way out. It was an easy decision as he loved sports and was a sensational athlete.
His plan was an early success. Press coverage and attention from colleges came immediately because Iverson dominated his high school competition. In his junior year, he earned top honors in football, his first love, and basketball – The Associated Press proclaimed him Virginia’s high school player of the year in both sports. The success made him a local legend. If he was ever in trouble, there’s no question people would rush to his aid. In Iverson’s own neighborhood, he would not fight alone.
And so, with the high school superstar under attack, other people – including people from outside the bowling alley – joined the fight. Differing accounts of the fight say between twenty and fifty additional people joined the brawl.
“Fight!”
“Fight!”
“Fight!”
The action was violent but brief. When the police finally got there, they found that the blacks had left. The eyewitnesses, all white, gave their side of the story. Even later, no blacks were willing to come forward and press charges. In the days that followed, four black youths, Iverson included, were picked up.
At this point, there was no reason to think that anything too serious was going to happen to anyone – the incident, as horrifying as it was, had not resulted in any hospitalizations and didn’t involve any guns, knives, or drugs. Virginia had larger problems to deal with. Juvenile probation officers recommended to the court that the youths receive counseling and be required to perform community service. They did not recommend jail time. Defense attorney Jim Ellenson, who represented Stephens and, in the beginning, Iverson, had this to say: “My perspective was that gee, I just can’t take all of this seriously. I’m listening to the evidence, I’m taking notes, I have the report from the juvenile probation officer in my hand, this case isn’t going anywhere.” Things wouldn’t be so inanimate.
The state wanted to charge the four youths as adults, and juvenile court Judge Louis Lerner agreed. Iverson, Stephens, and two others were charged with different counts of maiming by mob – a disconcerting charge considering that the felonies stemmed from a statue designed to combat lynching. No whites were charged with anything.
The case was tried in front of Judge Nelson T. Overton. He found the youths guilty and sentenced them to long prison terms – Iverson receiving an unbelievable 15 years.
Instant outrage. “Racism!”
The severe penalties attracted national attention – boycotts were organized, marches were scheduled, nighttime rallies were held. While justified, the results of this effort were mixed. Most national civil rights organizations did not get involved.
Ultimately, Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder issued an executive order granting the three jailed defendants (Melvin Stephens received no jail time) partial clemency. An appeals court would later overturn the guilty verdict.
via flickr/CoincidenceUNO
Iverson would go on to star at Georgetown and on the 76ers. He would earn enough money to take care of his family ten times over but, unlike fairy tales, real life does not end happily ever after. Iverson never shook his image as a thug. His involvement in The Brawl was only the beginning of a long career unsettling white audiences. His corn rowed, jeweled, tattooed body symbolize a hip-hop generation white spectators associate with run-ins with the law, crass rap lyrics, and gang-allegiances.
His off-court image isn’t his only problem. Iverson’s shoot first, one-man-team mentality never led to much team success. His prodigious personal output never won any championship and never fit into any conventional basketball system.
Other questions have yet to be answered. Where does AI go after he’s earned enough money? What motivates him now? Without the strong leadership of Larry Brown, Iverson stopped playing “The Right Way” and reverted to playing his way.
In a sense, we’ve only witnessed half of Allen Iverson’s hero’s journey. We’re at the midpoint of a story that asks, “Can AI overcome his image?” Will he triumph over public perception? Or are we looking at the tragic end of one of the greatest players to ever play the game.
Iverson is supposedly close to a deal with the Grizzlies. After being spurned by basically every team in the league, he feels like he has something to prove now. Will he make the changes necessary to win? Or will he play the way he’s always played – the only way he knows how?
I don’t think even he knows.
via flickr/Vedia
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