FROM A DISTANCE: HOW THE PEOPLE WHO SAW JAMESON CURRY THROUGH HIS ARREST
SEE OKLAHOMA STATE'S PHENOM NOW

PLEASANT GROVE, N.C. -- Grow up a basketball prodigy in North Carolina, a
god in a place where hardwood is heaven, and people notice you. Follow you.
Watch you.

But can they see you?

Really see you?

JamesOn Curry broke the state's high school scoring record, surpassing
Michael Jordan, Phil Ford, Jerry Stackhouse and every other schoolboy
superstar with his 3,307 points. He averaged more than 40 points a game as
a senior. And somehow, knowing the numbers made folks think they knew him.

"People would just assume they saw me," Curry said. "I was in a glass box."

Then on a February morning last year, the superstar from Eastern Alamance
High School who'd signed to play at North Carolina was arrested. Busted by
police in an undercover drug operation. Hauled away with five dozen other
students. The news caused ripples across the college basketball world.

A relative living in Japan even saw news of Curry's arrest.

Today, news on JamesOn is different. The Oklahoma State freshman has become
indispensable. His 16 second-half points Sunday propelled OSU into the
Sweet 16. Curry has been hailed a fearless freshman by TV talking heads and
touted as the spark by his teammates.

Yet, there is one other tag that still follows Curry, that of a kid
arrested for selling marijuana to an undercover officer.

"If I was looking at it and I heard what happened to me," Curry said, "who
do you believe? You don't know me. You don't know what happened. You don't
know where it is where I lived. You don't know how the people is back
there. You don't know.

"Who would you believe?"

What about the principal who counseled him and the high school coach who
loved him like a son?

Then there's the college coach who cut him loose, the sheriff who busted
him and the attorney who wanted him to be acquitted in an entrapment trial.
And how about the mother who dreamed with him and the father who
strengthened him?

They are the people back home who saw inside the glass box. They see Curry
even now.

Who do you believe?

Who do you see?

The principal

Jo Anne Hayes ordered DirectTV just to watch Curry play this season. She
watched from her Mebane living room on Sunday as he hit one shot after
another. Even though she'd seen him do the same in high school, this was
different.

"He is a very determined young man who has a great desire to win," she
said, "not only on the court, but off the court."

Hayes first saw that desire when his uncles were playing at Eastern
Alamance in 1991. Little JamesOn would dribble onto the court at halftime
and wow the crowd. Then a guidance counselor, Miss Hayes eventually became
principal, but students would still come into her office, throw themselves
into the plump couch and talk.

JamesOn Curry did. She would listen and smile -- she was always smiling --
then let her Tennessee drawl soothe the rough spots.

"He was like my own child," Miss Hayes said. "That's why it's so painful."

On Feb. 4, 2004, administrators from each of the six high schools in
Alamance County gathered for a 6 a.m. meeting with superintendent Jim
Merrill. None knew of the bombshell Merrill was about to drop. An
undercover police operation had been conducted in the schools, he told
them, and arrests would be made that morning.

Among the Eastern students: Curry.

On that February morning, Miss Hayes expelled him from school.

"It was the worst day of my life in education," she said in the green chair
she sat in sometimes when Curry came in. "This was traumatic for this
child. That personal interaction we had that day ... "

She bit her lip, words stopping, eyes welling.

"Painful for me," she choked out. "But I assured him from the beginning, 'I
know you can overcome this. I know you can overcome this. We're here to
help you overcome this.' "

The high school coach

John Moon smiled last weekend as he watched JamesOn Curry starring on the
biggest stage of the 19-year-old's career.

And why not?

"He has brought an awareness of Oklahoma State to this community and this
area, and that's a good thing," Coach Moon said. "There's an acceptance
now. It's not like he's gone out there and reflected negatively on himself,
his family, his school, his community."

Curry has long been more than a star player to Moon, the boys basketball
coach at Eastern Alamance. Together they traveled all over the country for
prestigious camps and tournaments during the summer months. Nike Camp.
Five-Star Camp. Along the way, they stopped to see the sights.

"There's so many good times that we had together," Coach Moon said. "So
many good times."

He remembers those times when he thinks of Curry. Yet he can't help recall
the day the cops came for the kid who'd become like a son to this coach
with no children of his own. He had a million thoughts at once.

"I wanted to choke his a--, and I wanted to run to Canada," Coach Moon said
sitting amid decades' worth of photos and plaques in his white-washed
cinder-block office. "You go through the whole gambit of emotions. What can
I do? What did I do wrong? Did I miss this?"

But how could he have missed it? The miles had created a bond, a connection
beyond the gymnasium.

The night of the arrest, Coach Moon called his former superstar. Curry had
sought refuge at an uncle's house, his own surrounded by media hounds and
local gawkers. The kid cracked at the sound of his coach's voice.

"I let you down," he cried.

"Don't worry about that," Coach Moon said. "Let's see where we can go from
here. How can we get you where you need to go?"

Moon suspected that more bad news was on the way, a blow that Curry didn't
see coming.

"When you're young, you always think things are going to work out," Moon
said. "He thought Roy Williams was still going to keep him."

The college coach

Roy Williams saw nothing of Curry's second-half heroics Sunday. Not the
pair of 3-pointers that sparked a 12-0 run. Not the flip to Ivan McFarlin
for a victory-sealing slam. Not the way he emerged as arguably OSU's' most
valuable player this postseason.

The North Carolina coach had his own game to worry about Sunday.

Then again, Williams had seen Curry's greatness before. Even though the kid
from Pleasant Grove had been Matt Doherty's recruit, Williams had no qualms
about honoring the scholarship offer when he took over at Carolina. He
thought Curry could play right away, then start three years.

Then Curry was arrested.

Williams was still in his first season in Chapel Hill, having taken over a
team that openly feuded with Doherty and went to the athletic director
demanding change. The Tar Heels' on-court talent was surpassed only by
their off-court issues.

The son of an alcoholic who left Williams and his mother, he also knew the
destructive power of substance abuse.

How could he welcome a player arrested for selling drugs to a high school
student?

"I have zero problems with somebody having a second chance," Williams said,
"and in his situation, I wanted him to have a second chance but just didn't
think it was right for us to do it at this time. Particularly just coming
in and trying to get things rolling."

Williams found himself in a tough spot. Even though the pipeline of
McDonald's All-Americans never dries up at Carolina, he still didn't want
to alienate in-state high school coaches who might have the next Jordan or
Stackhouse.

Yet, Williams just couldn't have Curry in his locker room.

"I loved him as a kid," Williams said. "I just think he made a huge, huge
mistake."

The sheriff

Terry Johnson watched as much of the NCAA Tournament last week as possible.
The Alamance County sheriff is a die-hard Carolina fan.

For the longest time, he wanted to see Curry in a Tar Heels uniform. So
when one of the sheriff's men working undercover at Eastern Alamance
reported a marijuana purchase from Curry, the sheriff was shocked. The
sheriff worked in conjuction with the school superintendent and several
police departments in the county to mastermind the undercover operation at
the high schools. They cast the net and waited to see who would be caught.

Had Johnson not seen the surveillance footage of Curry, though, he might
not have believed it. The undercover operation would identify dozens of
students possessing and selling drugs over three months, but none was as
well known as Curry.

"He had everything going for him," Johnson said.

The sheriff's passion for Carolina basketball collided unexpectedly with
his profession. He had been elected to protect and serve the county, and as
much as anything, that meant cleaning up the drug problem. Towns in
Alamance County feel like Mayberry, but the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
has termed this the drug hub of the eastern United States. Interstate 85
runs from Washington D.C. to Miami and joins with Interstate 40, splitting
the county and bringing the big-city drug trade to the quiet towns.

The schools have not been immune to the drug problem, and law enforcement
officials and school administrators decided to take action.

"Don't care who the kid is," Johnson would say during the operation. "He's
going to be treated like everybody else."

That went for Curry, too.

Still, the day officers arrested 61 students was a struggle for the
sheriff. As the father of two grown children, one of whom he suspected
could've easily been drawn into the drug culture while in high school,
Johnson watched the events of the day with emotions mixed.

"Anytime that you have to take action on kids like we did," he said, "it
hurts."

The attorney

Dawn Allen's heart swelled at the sight of JamesOn Curry last weekend the
same way it broke when she saw him in the county jail. An attorney in
nearby Burlington, she received a call the morning of the arrests from one
of JamesOn's aunts, whose son played on Allen's Little League team. She
arrived at the jail within an hour of the arrests, even before Curry's parents.

The petite, blond mother of four talked with the basketball star and began
to build a defense. How Curry felt sorry for the new kid who turned out to
be an undercover cop. How the kid told stories of a brother murdered, a
home life ripped apart and an escape found in smoking weed.

The kid never asked Curry for marijuana.

"He was more, 'Do you know anyone that gets it?' " Allen said. "He
approached him several times. Several, several times."

Allen wanted to go to trial.

"Full entrapment trial," she said. "We were prepared to go to trial and
wanted to go to trial."

Then the district attorney determined that going to court would produce
only one of two results for any student arrested during the bust: an
acquittal or a prison sentence. There would be no chance of probation, no
plea bargains. A guilty verdict would mean incarceration.

Allen's head told her to go to trial. Her heart said something else.

"If, for some reason, they thought, 'Well, maybe he was a little guilty'
.. he wasn't going to county jail. He was going to prison," Allen said.
"That was very hard for me being a parent. That was just way too real.

"When I really thought we were going to trial, I was trying to figure out
how to prepare myself if they put him in handcuffs."

She couldn't do it.

On April 5, Curry pleaded guilty, received 36 months of probation and 200
hours of community service.

The mother

Surrounded by the family and friends who packed the family's small white
house after church Sunday, Connie Curry watched her baby take control of
the game. He hit those baskets and sparked that run when no one else would.

She hasn't been feeling great after a car wreck earlier this month left her
banged and bruised, but seeing her son play that way lifted Connie Curry's
spirits.

"He stepped up," she said. "He's doing good."

Then again, she admits, that's what she always says about JamesOn and his
basketball. She has always been the doting, encouraging kind.

Mother and son became confidants, JamesOn telling her about girls,
problems, even dreams.

None was bigger than being a Tar Heel, playing less than 45 minutes from
the Curry home in the Dean Dome. Connie watched him work toward it, bending
a clothes hanger over a door, balling up a bunch of socks and shooting.
Heading to the school a couple miles down the road, dribbling all the way,
right-handed going, left-handed coming back. His heart's desire had become
hers.

That closeness made those first days after his arrest difficult.

"I'm going to love you regardless," Connie told him that morning at the
Alamance County jail. "You're mine."

Her life changed because of it. She stopped first at the courthouse every
pay day to hand over $75 or $100 until JamesOn's restitution was paid in
full. Gave up her job as a supervisor at the light company to work in the
field -- cutting off people's electricity when they didn't pay their bills
- -- because it allowed her to make the court hearings. Listened to people in
the community tell her what should be done with her son.

"He thought he would never get to go to school," Connie said. "We didn't
know what to do."

Eventually the Oklahoma State coaches would come to the house on state
Highway 119, Connie filling the kitchen with food, the Cowboys offering
JamesOn a scholarship.

As she sat on the tan comforter in JamesOn's bedroom, the plaques he ripped
down the night of his arrest only recently having been put back on the
walls, Connie pointed to some boxes near the door. Inside one, a collection
of Tar Heels memorabilia.

She said, "He won't let me throw it away."

The father

Leon Curry watched his son hitting shots and dishing assists and going for
31 points in his first two NCAA Tournament games, and he felt the emotion
swell his chest. Pride. Thankfulness. Joy.

"All the hard work he's put in is paying off," Leon said. "It just makes
you feel real proud, especially with where he was a year ago."

Curry's father has always been his biggest fan and his staunchest critic.
No sugar coating. No babying. Even when JamesOn was young, Leon cut him no
slack.

The 45-minute drives home from AAU practice in Greensboro were torture for
young JamesOn. His father would critique every detail, looking into the
rearview mirror, locking eyes on his son, and he would talk like JamesOn
was a grown man, not a young boy.

Sometimes when silent tears would run down JamesOn's cheeks, his mother
would reach behind the passenger's seat and hold his hand.

"I knew he could do better," Leon said as he sat in the family's den, still
wearing his work clothes from a day at the textile factory. "I just wanted
him to do it right."

Leon struggled to understand how his son had been arrested on drug charges.
His frustration boiled over. He drove across the state line into Virginia
to get groceries or over the county line to buy gas. He refused to buy in
the county.

Leon Curry hated seeing what JamesOn endured, the gawkers watching him do
community service in the park, the editorials saying he should never play
basketball again.

JamesOn Curry ended up hanging onto basketball when the rest of his world
crumbled.

"I have to pinch myself sometimes," Leon said. "It's not a dream."

How they see him now

They watch JamesOn Curry now from afar. Every one of them have seen him
play on television. Some trekked from Alamance County to Stillwater,
America. His parents. His high school coach. His attorney.

Roy Williams even traveled to OSU last fall. The Carolina coach wanted to
observe one of Eddie Sutton's practices, especially defenses.

"But also, I just wanted to see how JamesOn was doing," he said. "I love
the fact that he's having success and am just as happy as I can possibly be
for him."

Williams is not alone.

Allen, the attorney: "I am so proud that he's been able to get out there
and be the kid we knew he was."

Johnson, the sheriff: "I want him to make it because I think deep down
inside he is a wonderful kid."

Hayes, the principal: "I'm looking forward to the day he can come back here
and work with young children."

Men and women who have seen Curry -- really seen him -- through good times
and horrendous ones could not be any prouder of him. He accepted his
punishment, learning from it instead of folding under it. He turned a
second chance into the opportunity of a lifetime.

They didn't just see him.

They saw him through.