THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 16, 1995 TAG: 9511160432
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MICHAEL MAYO, FORT LAUDERDALE SUN-SENTINEL
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 289 lines
One door never opens, the distrust and suspicion seeping through a pane of glass.
``We've got nothing to say,'' says the elderly woman with glasses, Alonzo Mourning's paternal grandmother. ``There's been enough articles written.''
The shutters are drawn on all the windows of the huge two-story brick fortress in the affluent Forest Lakes subdivision, a remote outpost on the southern edge of town. It is the house Alonzo Mourning bought his father in August 1993, for $281,200.
The other door, festooned with a yellow wreath, is easily opened. There is a set of keys hanging from the unlocked lock, absent-mindedly forgotten. This is a few miles away, in the equally affluent River Walk subdivision, at a house Mourning bought in July 1993 for $226,000. A visitor rings the bell anyway, and Fannie Threet is delighted to greet the stranger, a shock of gray hair rising from her head.
``Please, come in,'' Threet says on a dreary, rain-soaked afternoon. The visitor starts wiping his feet on the welcome mat. Threet takes offense. ``Don't worry about that. A few tracks don't bother me, not with all the kids I've had.''
A few hours later, after showing off the pink heart-shaped Jacuzzi that came with the new house and the bed Alonzo slept in as a teen - sawed off, extended two feet and re-glued - which she brought from her old home as ``a memento,'' Threet is genuinely upset to learn the visitor has already checked into a hotel.
``Really, you could have stayed with us,'' Threet says. ``We have plenty of room. The next time you come to town, don't waste any money on no hotel. You're more than welcome to stay here.''
It is an offer she has made countless times through her 77 years, accepted by hundreds of children who had no better place to turn. One was a tall, gawky 10-year-old named Alonzo Mourning, who didn't want to deal with the turbulence of his parents' crumbling marriage.
``He just took to mom and he never wanted to leave,'' says Robert ``Bud'' Threet, 32, one of Threet's two natural children. ``She has a way of making people feel at home. And she doesn't know how to say, `No.' ''
That would explain the 11 adopted children and 200 foster children Threet says she has cared for since coming to Virginia in 1942, the daughter of a North Carolina pastor who had 13 children. She took in children long before there was a Department of Social Services that paid foster parents, and she didn't stop until recently, although there is still a child in her midst. It is her 12-year-old grandson, Brady, sent by the adopted daughter who places alcohol higher on her priority list, according to Threet.
``I don't know how Mom does it,'' says Bud, a bailiff for the Chesapeake Sheriff's Department. ``To have the energy level she has at her age. . . . She's a remarkable lady. You can't be around my mom for too long and not pick up the vibe.''
A lot about Alonzo Mourning, the Miami Heat's recently acquired franchise center and South Florida's newest sports icon, can be explained by the two doors in Chesapeake, each seemingly at odds with the other. He is a product of divergent personalities and environments. First came his natural parents, and the early years are still wrapped in mystery, because Mourning does not talk about it. Then the warmth, understanding and love of Fannie Threet, whom he also calls ``Mom.'' Then the sheltered protection of coach John Thompson at Georgetown, home of Hoya paranoia. Then an explosion of fame and money after being the second pick in the 1992 NBA draft, taken just after Shaquille O'Neal.
Put it all together and you have a 25-year-old enigma.
He can be surly one minute, smiling and soft-spoken the next. He can be perceived as greedy and generous, selfish and selfless. He doesn't want to be bothered with the nuisances of stardom, yet he gave himself up to an all-encompassing Nike deal before setting foot on an NBA court.
He has the blue-collar mentality of the shipyard worker that his father was, yet he also displays the ruthless business instincts of a shipping magnate, rejecting a 7-year, $78.2 million contract offer from the Charlotte Hornets because he thought he could do better.
He has maturity and focus beyond his 25 years, yet he can be impetuous, stubborn to a fault and hot-headed.
He broke the heart of his last coach, Allan Bristow, by leaving Charlotte, but he helped his high school coach, Bill Lassiter, find a new heart when Lassiter needed a transplant two years ago.
Mourning, single and unattached after recently breaking up with a girlfriend, plans for the future - talking about the need to provide for his unborn children and their children - while reconciling his past. He provides for his natural parents, whom he is on good terms with again, along with Fannie Threet. His mother, Julia, has remarried. His father, Alonzo Sr., sometimes accompanies him on road trips.
Health-conscious, Mourning no longer eats red meat, downing vitamins and ginseng, but Threet remembers the days he would devour her home-cooked Southern meals and put away three boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal in a sitting.
``I know he's already thinking long-term,'' said Hornets center Robert Parish, 42. ``The most advice I gave him was how to take care of his body.''
Mourning can be ferocious on the court, ejected seven times in his first two years in Charlotte, and so quiet away from it.
``Nobody really got close to him,'' said Scott Burrell, the Hornets forward whom Mourning wanted included in the trade to Miami. ``On the road, he didn't really hang out and go out much.''
His work ethic is legendary. On practice days, he is the first to arrive and the last to leave. Even after his first killer Pat Riley workouts last week, he kept his same regimen, working out an extra 2 1/2 hours after practice ended.
``He shows up at 9:30, punches the time clock and doesn't leave until 4:30,'' Heat assistant Stan Van Gundy marveled.
Sometimes the images don't add up. After a Heat practice in Hialeah this week, Mourning was welcomed by a fan who looked to be in his late teens. Camera in hand, he wanted to take a picture and get an autograph.
Mourning rejected the kid like a Spud Webb jump shot. ``I'm not taking any pictures, man,'' Mourning snarled.
Mourning was, after all, still working.
And then you see the pictures Tom Haselden has in his office at the Thompson Children's Home in Charlotte, where 40 neglected and abused children ages 5-11 are given love and therapy before being placed with foster parents. It is a place Mourning would visit a few times a year, sometimes unannounced.
``I've seen him sit for 15 minutes with a girl talking about hair ribbons,'' Haselden said. ``He could relate to a lot of the things these children are going through. He was just a real natural with the kids, getting them to feel good about themselves, making it through the trials of life.''
Haselden told about the time Mourning showed up for a Valentine's Day party in 1994, passing out balloons and wearing a tiny party hat. And when Mourning sensed there were too many extraneous staffers in the room, there only to gawk at him, he sternly said, ``There's too many adults in the room.'' And then they disappeared.
``The children were floating,'' he said.
They still are. A 7-year-old named Melissa is asked about Mourning. ``He's perfect,'' she said.
On this day, three days after the trade, not much of Charlotte agrees. Stunned by the swiftness of the rupture and his departure, an anti-Alonzo backlash has snowballed. But at the Thompson home, where Mourning's size-17 1/2 Nike Force sneaker sits in a glass case near the entrance, they are able to separate the player and the person.
``That's business,'' said Louise Rice, Thompson's director of volunteer services. ``We're talking about the personal side of Zo. He cared a lot about the kids. We'll miss him.''
So will the Hornets.
``That's the way negotiations go sometimes,'' Parish said. ``Everybody respects Alonzo's decision. We don't particularly like it, but we respect it.''
Coach Allan Bristow said: ``He was very coachable. He respected me and I respected him. We had a very good relationship.''
Hornets owner George Shinn said: ``I had to make a business decision. I made the best decision I could. I don't regret it. I'll sleep well and I wish him well.''
Shinn said his final offer was $11.2 million a year for seven years. ``I mean, he's entitled to try to get more, that's the American way. Why should anybody blame him for trying to maximize his situation?''
Should Miami be wary of Mourning's fickle ways? ``I don't know the answer to that,'' Shinn said. ``But you'll soon find out.''
The rumors out of Charlotte say Mourning will sign a long-term deal averaging $16 million with Miami next summer, that it has already been agreed to in principle. Without a deal, Mourning can be a free agent next summer.
``I expect to be here for the long haul, but anything's capable of happening,'' he said in a TNT interview taped last week. ``Just like I didn't think I would ever leave Charlotte. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my career there, start a family there. . . . But it's all about getting what you deserve based on what the market is. I've worked hard to get myself in the position I'm in. I'm trying to prosper and enjoy the fruits of my labor.''
Alonzo Harding Mourning Jr., was born Feb. 8, 1970, in Chesapeake, five months after Julia and Alonzo Mourning had married.
Mourning grew up in Deep Creek, at the end of Shipyard Road. He first met Fannie Threet in a local elementary school, where she was a substitute teacher.
Mourning ended up with Threet after his parents separated around 1980. Documents involving juveniles in the Chesapeake Domestic Relations Court are sealed. Threet's home on Oliver Street was well-known in the area as a haven for troubled children.
A 1993 Virginia Senate proclamation lauded Threet as ``a remarkable woman who for half a century has rescued troubled children from hopeless circumstances, and given them hope, love and a chance to live and prosper.''
``I didn't want to go through the custody battle,'' Mourning said last week. ``I wasn't pleased with the situation when my parents got divorced. But I was fortunate to have someone like Fannie around. She was there for me at a time of great adversity.''
With Mourning gone, his parents tried to reconcile. They had a daughter, Tamara Genese, in September 1981, but the marriage splintered again. They separated for good in July 1982 and the divorce was finalized in September 1983.
Julia took custody of Tamara, Alonzo Sr. was ordered to pay $150 a month in child support for Tamara and $165 a month to the Department of Social Services for Alonzo. The following year, the family home was sold for $39,000 and they split the remainder after debts were paid.
Bud Threet said: ``When Al first came, he was a little bit of an introvert, but that was to be expected, coming to a new home, being in new surroundings.'' Threet was caring for five other children at the time.
``He was always very obedient, very mannerly,'' Fannie said. ``There might have been only one time when I had to speak to him harshly. He had lifted one of the boys up in the air, and I came running out and said, `You put that boy down or I'll put a brick through your head.' And that was it.''
Bud said when Mourning arrived, he was already nearly 6 feet tall and wore a size 12 shoe. Despite the seven-year age difference, they became close. Just down the block, there was a lot with trees where neighborhood kids built treehouses and a primitive basketball court.
``It was just a homemade hoop and backboard that we nailed to a tree,'' Bud said. ``Al liked all sports at that point. Football one day, kickball the next. He was just a kid growing up.''
And he kept growing fast.
It wasn't long before he caught the eye of local basketball coaches. As Alonzo shot up, Fannie thought, ``I don't know what we've got here.'' She took him to Paul Webb, then the basketball coach of Old Dominion University, a family friend, and Mourning began spending his summers in basketball camps.
His raw height made him a force. In the eighth grade, at 6-foot-4, he was already playing on the high school junior varsity. His teammates were all all ninth- and 10th-graders.
``He was the youngest guy on the team but the tallest,'' said Freddie Spellman, then the junior varsity coach. ``He was the same type of player as he is today - aggressive defensively, always very intense. But he was quiet. The only way you'd know he was coming down the hall was because he was so tall.''
When Mourning entered Indian River High School in 1984, Bud Threet went off to the Army for two years. When he returned, he was struck by Mourning's development.
``I know his skills had improved,'' Threet said. ``And he had height.''
As a junior, Mourning was close to 6-10, his height today. He led the Braves to a 51-game winning streak in his final two years, including a state championship as a junior when he was named Virginia's player of the year. As a senior, he was named national high school player of the year by Gatorade and USA Today.
He was touted as a can't-miss prospect, compared with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell and Moses Malone, recruited by scores of Division I programs before signing with Georgetown.
Through it all, he never lost his focus or his drive. The blue-collar ethic was always there: in basketball camps, at his after-school job for $4.25 an hour. Fannie's first rule of the house was to finish homework, and his high school teachers said he did all his work, despite all the recruiting trips and basketball games.
``I'm a pretty level-headed guy, but he probably did better than I would have in his situation,'' Bud Threet said. ``He never hung out with the wrong crowd. He knew what he had to do.''
In his high school yearbook, Mourning wasn't named most athletic but most likely to succeed.
He was an average student who needed two cracks at the SAT to get the minimum score required by Proposition 48, but he did it, scoring 830 (700 was the required score). Just like he did his senior research paper, spending hours in the school library with a tutor who showed him the nuances of footnotes and bibliographies.
``He didn't think he was better than anybody else, he wasn't disrespectful, he really was a very sweet kid,'' said Sandy Mills, Indian River's librarian. ``I think a lot of it had to do with Mrs. Threet. Thank goodness for her. She kept him straight.''
Mills and another librarian, Joan Daffron, like to tell the story about how Mourning once returned a book late and balked at paying the $1.20 fine.
``At first he was complaining about how he was on a basketball trip and he was gone when it was due,'' Mills said. ``I said, `Alonzo, the due date is in the back just like in everybody else's books. You could have brought it back and gotten it renewed beforehand.' And then I said, `Besides, with all that money you're going to be making, what's $1.20?' ''
Mourning paid.
When the stories hit the paper that Mourning turned down $11 million a year to stay with Charlotte, Mourning was a hot topic of conversation in Indian River's teachers' room. Some wondered if he's lost his perspective. Some were resentful that Mourning hasn't shown his alma mater more gratitude. Mourning used to return a bit when he was at Georgetown, but his NBA schedule doesn't allow it. He usually comes to Chesapeake twice a year, at holidays and during the summer.
``He's gone on to another stage and we don't really exist any more,'' said an English teacher who taught him and didn't want to be named. ``I think he's pretty greedy and money has become more important to him than where he came from. It's too bad he hasn't come back, given a talk to a student assembly or something.''
She stops and realizes the harshness of her words. Then, softly, ``I thought he was a decent young man. That's why I'm so disappointed. If he was a jerk then, it wouldn't bother me now.''
Daffron said: ``It's almost not fair to him. He came here, spent his time and moved on, like everyone else. As far as I'm concerned he doesn't owe us anything. It must be tough being in his position. Everybody wants a piece of him, a little bit here and there. Soon, there's nothing left to give.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE
Fannie Threet took a 10-year-old Mourning into her home when he
wanted to escape his parents' turbulent marriage.
KRT FILE
Mourning has been called generous - spending time with children in a
foster home - and greedy - rejecting a lucrative deal from Charlotte
for more money.
Photo
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE
``He didn't think he was better than anybody . . . he really was a
very sweet kid.'' said Sandy Mills, Indian River's librarian on
Mourning.
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