SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 2010 NBA DRAFT
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Tonya Pulley, right, spent much of John Wall’s childhood playing the role of babysitter instead of stepsister, and he kept her close by when announcing he would attend the University of Kentucky.
Word of God Coach Levi Beckwith is one of the male figures who began to help a headstrong, young Wall overcome an attitude that held him back so he could harness his immense basketball talent.
worth adoring where others saw a criminal
more than a year with text and voice messages from college coaches. “LeBron has been LeBron since he was 3; Kobe has been Kobe since he was 4; Shaq has been Shaq since he was 5,” Mo- ton said. “John Wall has just been John Wall since he was 16. It just clicked one day.” By the time he graduated high school, Wall was considered a lock to enter the NBA draft after only one season in college. He followed Coach John Calipari to the University of Kentucky. He was beloved by rabid Ke-
nucky fans before he even took the court in Lexington, a feeling that only intensified after he made a game-winning jumper over Miami (Ohio) in his first college game last November. He finished the season as a consen- sus all-American. His mother rented a car and made the near- ly 500-mile trip from Raleigh to Lexington for every home game. Wall thrived under Calipari, whom he views as a father fig- ure, and regularly joined other players for meals at the coach’s house, developing a rapport with his wife and children. “I love him so much,” Wall said. Calipari said Wall finished with the highest grade-point average on the team. Wall called the one year in college the “greatest experience ever.” “If there was not a chance to
go to the NBA,” Wall said, “I would have loved to stay there four years.”
‘He still was there’ After a sweltering workout in
the gymnasium of his former high school last week, Wall sat on the first row of bleachers re- counting his childhood. He hardly knew anything about his dad’s time in jail. He learned just this month that his parents got married in prison, after hearing relatives talking about the dress his mom wore. He still had no idea why his father was locked up.
Wall stretched out his legs, re- vealing his yet-unnamed per- sonal line of Reebok sneakers, and leaned his elbows back on the second row, seemingly at ease.
“I think it was just for an al- PHOTOS BY ETHAN HYMAN/RALEIGH (N.C.) NEWS & OBSERVER
John Wall lost his father to cancer, but he said he has learned to channel the sense of loss into intense inspiration every time he plays. “People say, ‘Well, he is like
way to school one day, Young called him and said, “You got cut.” Young was mad; Wall was in disbelief. Wall said his out- look had improved by that point, but several people famil- iar with the situation said atti- tude was the main reason why Broughton Coach Jeff Ferrell cut Wall.
When reached by telephone,
Ferrell declined to specify, say- ing, “It is not public record.” When asked about Wall’s devel- opment, Ferrell said, “I know him as well as I know you, and I don’t know you.” Tony Edwards, one of Wall’s
first summer-league coaches, said: “It crushed him. It was dev- astating to him. He didn’t want to go to school the next day. I mean, it crushed him.”
Edwards and fellow summer- league coaches Brian and Dwon Clifton had formed an inner cir- cle that Wall said helped him slowly overcome his distrust in men. Wall, his mom and team of mentors decided he should transfer to Word of God Chris- tian Academy, which has an en- rollment of fewer than 300 stu- dents. He attended Friday night chapel and Bible study classes.
He met often with Word of God founder Frank Summerfield to build a bond, talk about the loss of his father and discuss aca- demic and social issues. But it was a work in progress. Summerfield would tell Wall: “John, you can’t curse. This is a Christian academy. Help me out here.” Wall was academically ineligi- ble for the fall session with a 1.6 grade-point average, and while his talent began to emerge upon his return, so did his attitude problems. In a game against Mount Zion, Wall stewed on the bench before Coach Levi Beck- with finally told him to enter the game. Upon reaching the scorer’s ta-
ble, Wall mumbled something to the effect of, “I shouldn’t even bother now.” Beckwith heard him and sent him back to the bench. Word of God lost. Beckwith limited Wall’s playing time the next two games in the state playoffs. Still, the coach kept in regular touch with Wall’s mom, and his summer-league coaches. When- ever an issue emerged, Beckwith usually called them to dissect it before Wall did.
that because his daddy died and he doesn’t have a male figure; you can be tough on him and say you can’t always use that as an excuse,’ ” Beckwith said. “It ain’t an excuse. An excuse is avoid- able. A reason is not.” Beckwith would talk regularly
with Wall, asking him what he felt the appropriate punishment should be for his behavior. Beck- with wanted Wall to take re- sponsibility for his actions. Wall’s struggles didn’t evapo-
rate overnight, but Beckwith would not allow any situation to fester, making late night visits to East Davie Street to talk out any problems, even as small as Wall fetching Gatorade before the coach was done talking with him. “That’s when I learned,” said
Wall, who graduated from Word of God with a 2.8 GPA. “I knew I could not beat the coach. And if I could not beat him, I could not beat anybody if I wanted to play.”
‘It just clicked one day’
Wall repeated his sophomore year in high school, and Brian Clifton helped get him into the
2007 Reebok All-American Camp in Philadelphia. At that point, Wall was known only as one of the best players in North Carolina, but he was about to play among the hottest pros- pects in the country. And that’s when the basketball world dis- covered John Wall. “I knew that was my chance,”
Wall said. “Can’t back down.” His speed, jaw-dropping verti- cal jump and competitive fire distinguished him from his peers. He scored 28 points in a game against Brandon Jen- nings, the top point guard in the class of 2008 and a future NBA lottery pick. The following summer, dur-
ing a Las Vegas tournament that featured thousands of players, Jennings walked into a high school gymnasium to watch one player: Wall. Standing next to Chris Rivers, then Reebok’s grass-roots director, Jennings was asked to name the one high school player destined to be a star. Jennings immediately point- ed to the court: “Wall,” he said. “The kid from Raleigh.” By that point, Edwards’s phone had been overloaded for
tercation or something that hap- pened,” Wall said, wiping sweat from his face. “I don’t really know. It was something that happened.” The only record of what hap- pened can be found in microfilm archives deep within a court- house located just a half mile from where Wall lived on East Davie Street: On Sept. 30, 1991 — less than a month after his son’s first birthday — John Carroll Wall walked into a convenience store in Raleigh, removed one beer and continued to the check- out where clerk Cecil Ibegbu stood. Wall placed a $1 bill on the counter. He then removed a .22-caliber Ruger from the back of his jeans and pointed it at Ibegbu, demanding all the mon- ey in the register. He was con- victed of robbery with a danger- ous weapon. Sitting in the gym following his workout, Wall was told his father robbed a convenience store. He offered a slight nod and said, “Uh-huh.” Before meeting his mother,
Wall’s father had served three other sentences, one for armed robbery, another for possession of a firearm by a felon and a third for second-degree murder, after shooting a 26-year-old housewife in the head following an argument. Sitting on the bleachers, Wall learned for the first time that his father had served prison time before he was born and that the crime was murder. He offered no affirmation and looked away for
amoment. “Ohhhh,” he said, dragging the sound for a second. “Oh, I didn’t even know. I didn’t know.” He paused, but not for long.
He took a quick glance at the basketball court — the place that helped him quickly rise to star- dom in high school — before making eye contact again. He was calm, but his speech slowed. “My mom never told me. I heard he had one robbery thing,” he said. “That is all I knew. I never knew anything about that other part. She would never tell me, she would not want to tell me or my sisters.” Was he ever curious? “I was not curious,” Wall said. “I was just happy to see my dad and talk to him.” The gym was almost empty,
except for a few of Wall’s men- tors and friends chatting on the other side of the court following Wall’s 80-minute workout. Wall was asked why his dad’s past has done little to diminish his opin- ion of him. “Well, because, for one thing,
that’s my dad,” Wall answered without hesitation. “He brought me onto this earth and, like everybody, makes mistakes. Everyone is not going to be per- fect. Sometimes people do some stuff because of certain situa- tions they are in, or the people they are around. Or they might be drunk or something and just do it.
“Like I said, he still was there for me. . . . Probably if I were old- er, you would have been, ‘Forget him, he ain’t my daddy, he ain’t here for me, taking care of me.’ At a young age, you don’t know, you don’t care. You’re just happy to have somebody there that you can call your dad. And that’s the biggest thing.” Wall has declined to get tat- toos because of concerns over his image for marketing rea- sons, but he is considering get- ting one on his chest, consider- ing it strongly enough that he has a specific design in mind. It would be of his dad’s face, with clouds surrounding, and the words “Forever Living On.”
Moving on
Last Sunday, about 100 friends and family members gathered at a Raleigh Communi- ty Center to celebrate Cierra’s high school graduation. After a meal of barbecue, Wall ad- dressed the crowd, said some warm words about his sister and then announced that their mom would soon be moving from the apartment on East Davie Street. He is buying her a five-bedroom house on a four-acre lot in a qui- et section of Raleigh. The room erupted in cheers. Frances Pulley is going to need to buy furniture. She re- cently recounted the days of working two jobs while being es- sentially a single parent, her only sleep coming “in between” her other responsibilities. Did she ever imagine her life would turn out like this? “Never,” she said, laughing.
“Never.” Asked later about how much her and her son’s life are about to change, she broke down: “A lot,” she said through the tears. “A lot.”
Soon the boxes on the floor will need to be filled with the contents of the apartment. The photos, the awards, the diploma, the drawings — all of it will need to be moved. So will a vase that holds the ashes of John Carroll Wall. Her son will soon be moving, too, to begin his professional ca- reer in Washington, the city where his father was born.
prisbelle@washpost.com
Staff writer Michael Lee contributed to this report.
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