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Chris Copeland's rough road to an NBA job with the Knicks
Two years after he lost his brother, Chris Copeland and his mother were still grieving. To get away, sometimes they’d jump on a plane to Orlando, to Disney World, thankful to find an alternate universe.
One weekend in August 1999, they visited family in Richmond, Va. Aunt Kelly brought Chris, then 15, to nearby Hermitage High School. He wandered into the gym where, by chance, the school’s players were running pick-up games. He was already 6-foot-6, and he was immediately noticed.
"You get the kid, I’ll get the mom," boys basketball coach Darrell Jenkins told his assistant, Joe Coulter.
The coaches gave their best recruiting pitch. Hermitage was coming off a state championship, and Chris’ future would be bright here, the coaches told them.
With that, Chris Copeland’s mother, Terry, said her son lifted his head for what seemed the first time in ages...
...In May 1997, Copeland’s only sibling, Vincent Alphaquan, slipped into a coma when a drunk driver struck him in a hit-and-run accident on Central Avenue in East Orange, a few blocks from the Copelands’ home on South 18th Street in Newark. He regained consciousness for a couple days, but six weeks after the accident, he unexpectedly died. Vincent, engaged to marry that June, was 22.
Copeland, whose father was absent, credits his brother — a basketball standout at Seton Hall Prep and Columbus High School in New York before he played at Jackson State — as his basketball inspiration.
...The day after he got the word from the Knicks that he was staying, Copeland crossed the Hudson to Newark. He attended a service at Good Neighbor Baptist Church where his uncle, the Rev. George Blackwell, is a pastor. Afterward, Blackwell drove him to a cemetery in Belleville. Copeland wanted to share the news with his brother.
http://www.nj.com/knicks/index.ssf/2013/01/chris_copeland_newark_native_a.html
One weekend in August 1999, they visited family in Richmond, Va. Aunt Kelly brought Chris, then 15, to nearby Hermitage High School. He wandered into the gym where, by chance, the school’s players were running pick-up games. He was already 6-foot-6, and he was immediately noticed.
"You get the kid, I’ll get the mom," boys basketball coach Darrell Jenkins told his assistant, Joe Coulter.
The coaches gave their best recruiting pitch. Hermitage was coming off a state championship, and Chris’ future would be bright here, the coaches told them.
With that, Chris Copeland’s mother, Terry, said her son lifted his head for what seemed the first time in ages...
...In May 1997, Copeland’s only sibling, Vincent Alphaquan, slipped into a coma when a drunk driver struck him in a hit-and-run accident on Central Avenue in East Orange, a few blocks from the Copelands’ home on South 18th Street in Newark. He regained consciousness for a couple days, but six weeks after the accident, he unexpectedly died. Vincent, engaged to marry that June, was 22.
Copeland, whose father was absent, credits his brother — a basketball standout at Seton Hall Prep and Columbus High School in New York before he played at Jackson State — as his basketball inspiration.
...The day after he got the word from the Knicks that he was staying, Copeland crossed the Hudson to Newark. He attended a service at Good Neighbor Baptist Church where his uncle, the Rev. George Blackwell, is a pastor. Afterward, Blackwell drove him to a cemetery in Belleville. Copeland wanted to share the news with his brother.
http://www.nj.com/knicks/index.ssf/2013/01/chris_copeland_newark_native_a.html
