94 Feet and Rising: Greg Grant's Journey

Some rookies arrive to the NBA as grizzled veterans of the media's glare, coveted lottery picks accustomed to performing in a spotlight trained on them since their first high school game.

And then there are players like Greg Grant. Undersized and under-recruited, the 5-foot-7 dynamo spent his entire life trying to avoid falling through the cracks, growing up in a broken home and working in a fish market after high school until a Division III coach saw him shine on the playground and offered a scholarship in 1986.

After a prolific three seasons for Trenton State College (NJ) in which he averaged greater than 30 points a game, Grant joined the Phoenix Suns as a second-round pick in 1989, the first of his seven years in the NBA. With the help of writer (and fellow Trenton native) Martin Sumners, Grant detailed his unlikely journey from the playgrounds to college and all the way to the NBA in his autobiography, 94 Feet and Rising, released this past July. Keep reading for an excerpt, recounting Greg's first game in the NBA.

CHAPTER 1

THE BEAUTIFUL STRUGGLE

I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time.
-- Ecclesiastes 3:10-11

Life is beautiful, life is a struggle. Life is a beautiful struggle.
-- Mos Def

Phoenix, Arizona. November 3, 1989. In the Valley of the Sun, my dream of playing in the NBA was finally a reality. Nobody expected a skinny runt of 5 feet 7 inches who barley tipped the scale at 135 pounds with a past like mine to make the NBA. Yet, I was about to make my rookie debut and I would play in the league for seven years. But in all those years, nothing compares to the first night. Most of what happened in the game is now a blur, but the important stuff I have committed to memory. The way I felt.

Underneath my pristine white warm-up suit with purple and orange trim, I was wearing the home white uniform of the Phoenix Suns in the locker room of Memorial Coliseum. I was a few minutes away from running onto the court with the rest of my teammates. It was the Suns' 1989-90 season opener. Major League Baseball and even the NFL have this great lore around opening day. But it's pretty special in the NBA as well, especially for an unknown rookie from nowhere with an amazing amount of adrenalin coursing his veins.

Moments earlier, I along with my teammates had gone through the pregame ritual warm-ups on the court which consisted of loosening up with stretching and shooting. Fans were streaming into the arena while the music was blaring and you couldn't help but notice all the fanfare of opening night. Yet, I was able to gather myself and thought I had adjusted to the surreal anticipation of the occasion.

But things changed upon returning to the locker room after the pregame warm-ups. During the time before the tip-off, players gathered there to take care of things like taping of ankles and get last minute instructions from the coaches. I began to really notice things around the locker room. I could see all the thick white towels stacked up high and all the drinks you could ever want right at your fingertip. The carpet seemed plusher than any I had seen in a locker room and was like the kind you walked over while in a nice office building. Also, rather than a long bench to accommodate a lot of players we had individual chairs. I began to picture the scene outside and realized that I had never played in such a large arena in front of so many fans like the vets or the other rookies who went to big-time colleges.

But I had played well in the Southern California Rookie Summer League in Los Angeles before making the team. I also played well in the preseason against experienced NBA players. My play earned me a roster spot and I was sure that I would get a certain amount of minutes. And the night before, I was not nervous as I watched the local news air a segment about the impending opening night.

Although I have to say, I did get some jitters on the drive to the arena, and now I don't even remember who drove: me or my teammate and fellow rookie, Mike Morrison. Mike was a 6'4" guard out of Loyola (Baltimore) whom I spent a lot of time with that season. We both played great in the rookie league and he was a real good ball player, but he only played that one rookie season in the NBA. That's the way it goes sometimes in the NBA: here today, gone tomorrow.

But beyond how nice the locker room was, it was full of great players. There were established stars like Tom Chambers, Kevin Johnson (KJ), and Eddie Johnson and budding stars like Jeff Hornacek and Dan Majerle. Before joining the Suns, I had seen these guys play on television but after seeing their dedication and intensity while playing with them in preseason, I respected them even more. Now, they were ratcheting it up to another level for opening night. But I kept my cool as I was taught to never let anyone you're battling see that you are in awe. Yet something more than adrenalin began to stir inside me.

I realized that I was not just there as an observer. I was in an NBA locker room with real NBA players about to play in my first NBA game. I wasn't a starter, which was the first time in a while that I wasn't going to line up around center court for the opening tip-off. But soon enough, I was going to get the signal to check in from our ever colorful coach Cotton Fitzsimmons. I could see myself ripping my warm-up pants off and running over to the scorer's table to make the dream official.

And the dream was going to be televised on national TV. A lot was expected of the Suns my rookie year as the previous season, the team had surprisingly reached the Western Conference Finals. So the team was rewarded with hosting the Golden State Warriors in the second game of the televised season-opener doubleheader. That night, we would scorch the scoreboard for 136 points, the most in a season opener in Suns' history. But I wasn't thinking about making or breaking any records.

I was thinking about the people in my hometown of Trenton, New Jersey. This would be their first chance to see me play in the NBA. The summer league games back then, unlike now, were not televised. And the preseason games may have been televised, but only locally. But those games aren't the regular season anyway. These games counted, and this was the moment that mattered.

The games meant something to a lot of people, but you wouldn't know that from talking to my mom. The night before while sitting in my apartment all alone, I had spoken with her on the phone and she said, "I'll try to stay up, but I'll probably fall asleep." But that was my mom. She made sacrifice after sacrifice for me but attended only my final two games in college. In high school, I felt that if she had ever come to a game, I would have dropped a hundred.

"... I could vividly recall growing up wearing sneakers with cardboard stuffed inside to prevent my socks from coming through the holes on the bottom of the soles." I wanted the people who did support me to see the game and be proud of me. But I also wanted the bright lights of the television to almost rub it in the eyes of those who doubted me.

I was alone with my train of thoughts until my mind was temporarily derailed when KJ walked by and asked me, "Are you ready?"

I told him, "I've been dreaming about this moment ever since I was a little boy."

I'm sure many rookies have said the same thing, but my dream had always been interrupted by cold-sweat nightmares and the cold hard facts of life. As I was tying my sneaker, something made me stop. Here I was lacing up my brand-new sneakers with twelve more pairs of unopened boxes stashed in my locker when I could vividly recall growing up wearing sneakers with cardboard stuffed inside to prevent my socks from coming through the holes on the bottom of the soles. I had to sit back in my chair. I couldn't contain myself anymore. I started to cry. I was hoping no one saw me.

I don't know whether they were tears of joy or relief. Maybe both. But I remembered less joyful tears. I remembered the sad moments like my father telling me that I wasn't going to be worth anything and that I was wasting my time playing basketball. When I was still a young boy, not even a teenager, he would yell at my mom for allowing me to go play basketball. He used to say that I should be worried about getting a job and not bouncing a ball. But when I tried to do things he wanted me to do like help him on his contracting jobs, he would continue to criticize me. In fact, no matter what I did he often found a reason to be dissatisfied.

But worse, he would get drunk and beat my mom. Other times, he would change up the order and beat my mom then get drunk. He would do this for the better part of my childhood. The beatings were almost daily and the threat was constant as was the verbal abuse. My mother suffered more black-eyes, bumps and bruises at his hand than I can count. In the still air of the pre-game locker room as players quietly focused on the competition at hand, I could clearly hear her screams inside my head. The root of those screams was the lashings my father doled out. He was not my biological father but he raised me. He's the only dad I knew. He was my dad.

Check back later today for additional excerpts, including anecdotes of Greg facing Magic Johnson on the court for the first time and what life was like with Charles Barkley as a teammate later in his career.

94 Feet and Rising was released on July 17, 2009 and is available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.