Rockets forward Artest’s competitive nature forged by roots

By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

RICH PEDRONCELLI Associated Press

Despite having fame and riches, new Rockets forward Ron Artest, left, hasn't forgotten his roots.

“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed.”

— Booker T. Washington

NEW YORK — After all the years and all the changes, the reputation remains intact.

Tough. Dark. Dangerous.

The brick towers of the Queensbridge Houses still look the part. On this weeknight, at 1 a.m., there is a stillness on the streets and in the courtyards. It is not unlike that of the safest tree-lined suburb, but here, where reputation tells different stories, it might seem the 3,000 families of Queensbridge have gone indoors for the relative safety offered behind the walls of the pre-war federal housing project.

But the light of day reveals more about the neighborhood that new Rockets forward Ron Artest once called home and considers a part of him. There are truths to be told that reputation belies.

There are plenty of concerns here in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge, incidents that cannot be denied. But life in the nation’s largest housing project has changed over the years and always offered more inside those 96 six-story buildings than many cared to notice.

It is a relatively desirable spot, just two stops on the subway or a ride across the bridge from the wealth and power on the Manhattan side of the East River. And success, even greatness, has sprung from these towers.

“Queensbridge was a rough place, a really rough place,” said Jose Morales, one of Artest’s closest friends for more than two decades. “Not anymore, though. It’s the same thing with Ron. People hear stuff about Ron and think, ‘I’m not going near Ron.’ People hear about Queensbridge and say, ‘I’m not going out there.’ But when you get out there, like I said about Ron, when you actually get to know him, it’s different. It’s a great place. Same with him; he’s a great person. They’re going to love him in Houston.”

After a pro-am game in which he played for a team naturally called “Queensbridge,” Artest was informed by Morales that he would be traded from the Sacramento Kings to the Rockets, inspiring Artest to shout the names of Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming to the crowds on Lexington Avenue. Not long after, Artest answered some Yao comments by describing himself as “ghetto.”

“I’m still ghetto,” said Artest, 28, who was unavailable to comment for this story while tending to his daughter, Diamond, who was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for a kidney tumor. “That’s not going to change. I’m never going to change my culture.”

“What is ghetto?” said Ron Artest Sr., 51, who looks more like his oldest son’s brother than his father. “I lived in a ghetto, but am I ghetto? Is Ron ghetto? He was born and raised in the projects, but he never got involved with all the negative stuff.

“It was not far from him. But the way he was raised, the house was one thing, and what happened in the streets was another thing. There were guns. Some bullets came into the house twice. I found the bullet holes.

“He never was in trouble. In Queensbridge, the neighborhood is rough. People did what they did. That doesn’t mean you have to get caught up with it. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. It was never a temptation for me. The type of person Ron is, the way he grew up, I don’t think the stuff outside affected him.”

Basketball mattered

By the time Artest was 7, he was playing Catholic Youth Organization basketball and turning heads. The neighborhood was becoming rougher, but friends shielded him. He had a large family — three sisters, two brothers and nearly as many nieces and nephews — squeezed into the apartment and a sense that family mattered.

Even after his father moved out when Artest was 12, Ron Sr. was there so often few knew he no longer lived in the first-floor apartment in Building 41.

“It was definitely a rough neighborhood,” Morales said. “Lots of violence, unexpected violence. We’d be on the court as kids, and something would happen, and you’d have to take cover, run to the closest building. You’d hear gunshots. I can’t say it’s like every other neighborhood in America. It was rough. But it’s a good place to live. Don’t get me wrong.

“You have to do what you have to do. Growing up in that neighborhood made him a tough man. We saw a lot, went through a lot. But he had a good father, a real good father, there for him. He had friends for him, telling him he had a special talent, telling him to stick on this path. But mainly it was his father.

“As long as it wasn’t raining so hard you couldn’t see, Ron and his father would be at Queensbridge, shooting hoops. It could be snowing. His father would shovel, and his little brother would be rebounding, feeding him the ball.”

Soon coaches were mentoring him. Artie Cox, a longtime assistant at Christ The King High School, coached Artest and Lamar Odom with the BQ Express AAU team locally, and Ernie Lorch of the legendary Riverside Church coached Artest’s traveling AAU team. Artest played for Lou Garnes at St. John’s Prep and still plays for his pro-am team. Bill Aberer coached him at La Salle High School.

Artest was thrown out of practices and banished from a few teams for practice dustups. But the issues were considered small, and coaches began trying to teach him to channel his aggression.

“People don’t know how hard Ron worked to get where he is right now,” Cox said. “They think he is this loose-cannon guy, goes to the beat of his own drum and doesn’t pay attention to the rules. You’ve heard all these things. It’s really not true. Ron, where he came from to get to the NBA, is a dramatic story.

“Ron was on his own a lot. He was a soldier. He could have quit many times, but he had it in his heart. He knew basketball was going to be his out.”

As each friend and family member argues that Artest’s image does not begin to reveal the truth about him, they refuse to make excuses for Artest’s mistakes. They don’t blame others for his reputation.

Ugly incident

There have been many incidents, but the night he went into the crowd during a game against the Pistons at Auburn Hills, Mich., triggering an ugly brawl and earning Artest the longest suspension (73 games) in NBA history not related to drug use or gambling, is what labels him more than the rest.

Artest blames himself for his actions. His friends argue that the image is wrong but that it is Artest’s fault.

“The image that he has, to me, he’s not like that at all,” Ron Sr. said. “He brought most of the baggage on himself, but he has a pure heart. He’s not a bad guy.”

The incidents are described as things that have happened. The rest are considered things that he does.

Artest has established a scholarship fund for Excel University. He sponsors teams and events in Queensbridge. Last month, he and Morales piled 300 kids into buses for a trip to Great Adventure Amusement Park. He has taken the La Salle basketball team to the Five Star Basketball camp. He formed Team Artest, which Morales said steers kids from trouble by keeping them busy.

But Artest’s hesitation to publicize his good deeds could be a result of his not considering it to be charity work as much as a part of his life, just another way in which he remains a part of Queensbridge, where he arrives by public transportation, blingless in shorts and T-shirts like everyone else there. When he sent players to Five Star, he slept in the bunks just like the players and went to the practices.

One of his favorite things is serving as a volunteer with Wheelchair Charities Inc., which he has done for 15 years, and doing anything he can for Hank Carter, its founder and chairman. Carter has taken Wheelchair Charities from a small entity that raised money to buy motorized wheelchairs to one that has purchased more than $10 million in wheelchairs, beds, computer labs and state-of-the-art technology for Coler-Goldwater Hospital.

Charity work

As an NBA player, Artest has played in the Wheelchair Classic game and attended the dinner, recruiting others to join him. Carter, who had been the community center director at Queensbridge and taught Artest’s father to box, has helped guide Artest for nearly 18 years, including the two years when Artest lived with him when times were particularly tough.

“We were so close,” said Carter, 65, a Queensbridge native. “I was into basketball. I was in Vietnam. I was very against drugs in the community. That’s how this started. I fought the drug dealers. I go to Mass every day. I tried to pull Ron closer to God, and he was. Ron will give you the shirt off his back. He’s a great human being. I kept Ron going to church every day. I believed if he gets closer to God, I don’t have to worry about him.”

Still, there have been incidents. Friends and family say the off-court problems have been misunderstood.

Artest was arrested in March 2007 and charged with domestic abuse and subsequently sentenced to 20 days in jail as well as community service. The sentence was reduced to 10 days in a work-release program. He has been accused of animal neglect, although charges were not filed.

Friends and family say Artest is devoted to his wife, Kimsha, and children, Sadie Jeron, Ron and Diamond, and that the arrest for domestic abuse was the result of an argument. They said the animal neglect accusations were because individuals Artest trusted to feed his dogs while the Kings were on the road did not.

But his on-court incidents made the off-court accusations easier to believe.

“Reputation is like that,” Cox said.

“Now, he’s married. He’s a great father, always doing something with his children, always giving back to his community.”

In some ways, nothing has changed. But Artest’s life has. He left the projects and poverty. He considers himself among the most elite of all-around players in the NBA and is so excited to be joining the Rockets that he picked out a home in Houston within days of learning of the deal and began trying to convince his father to bring his large family to join him.

But in many ways, Artest never left Building 41.

“He is so proud of being from the projects,” said Fran Fraschilla, an ESPN analyst who recruited Artest to St. John’s. “It drives him. He is proud not of getting out of Queensbridge, but of being from there. His body might have left, but his mind and his heart are still there.”