November 13, 1998

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- The tattoo is what the guys around his neighborhood call "phat." And that way, Steve Francis has something impressive for nearly everyone he loves.

It was put there with a purpose three years ago - a cross with his mother's name, "Brenda," written into his right arm. It was put there just after Brenda Wilson died back in 1995, just after it appeared Francis's life story was going to be like that of so many other promising basketball players around Takoma Park.

And now that Francis has fought to reach the cusp of college basketball stardom, his old neighborhood isn't about to let him go back.

Francis is a junior guard on the University of Maryland basketball team. He plays for Takoma Park. That is part of the reason folks in the neighborhood call him "Franchise."

"There's been players that have gotten their deals and scholarships and forgotten about us," said Francis's childhood friend, Darren McLinton, who played at James Madison University and whose brother, Kevin, played at Maryland. "Steve is not like that. He doesn't care about the fame. Steve cares about the 'hood. That's why we're behind him. We're not going to let him fail."

It is a support system that has been important ever since Francis made an oral commitment to the Terrapins early this year, because a Maryland program rich in tradition rarely has experienced so much interest in a player before he ever had played a game for the school.

Francis's pickup games already are legend, especially since some of them include encounters with NBA players. One day during the summer, he used his 43-inch vertical leap to slam one on former Washington Wizard Chris Webber's head.

The attention has "been out of control," Maryland Coach Gary Williams said. "Everywhere I go, people were asking me about Steve Francis this summer. The kid hadn't even taken a class yet." But Francis knows this journey isn't just about himself. He knows the people in Takoma Park are watching, living vicariously through his success. It is pressure he said he does not mind.

"I'm definitely playing for my community, and there are more people for me than against me," Francis said. "They tell it to me like it is. Like the other day, they told me I didn't play well [during Maryland's exhibition game against the Australian All-Stars]. That really helps me out.

"It's a lot to bear. But I think I can handle it, and not run away from any type of pressure and just work through it. If you run from pressure, that's the sign of a coward, and I don't think I'm a coward. I think it helps me to keep striving. But I'm not here to be the star."

Great Expectations
The funny part is that the 20-year-old Francis thought he was going to get through all of this in relative anonymity. But then he'd be in the student union, and whispers would come.

"That's him over there."

Then phone calls from students, and even faculty members, began to flow into the dormitory room he shares with teammate Lonny Baxter. No one could get any sleep, and now they don't answer the phone anymore.

"I let the answering machine pick it up, and then I'll call back whoever I feel like calling back," Francis said.

Then came the most bizarre incident. One day, Francis was walking across campus listening to go-go music by "The Backyard Band" on his Walkman, when a student approached him.

"Are you Steve Francis?" the young man asked excitedly.

"Yes."

And before Francis could extend a hand, the student had dropped to his knees in worship, right there in front of everyone.

"Oh, man! I'm really glad you're here! Everybody is!"

The basketball star was embarrassed.

"There's some wild stuff" people have done, Francis said, reluctant to reveal some of the wilder episodes. "But I think there was all the hype in the preseason, and now [fans] want to see what's up. They want to see if I can do what everybody was talking about.

"In a way, it's hard to handle. I think Laron [Profit, a senior forward for the Terrapins] has really helped me handle it better. He's talked to me about keeping humble. He tells me how to go about things a certain way."

But Francis had learned tough lessons in humility long before he reached College Park.

At a Loss
Francis grew up proving himself at the Takoma Park Boys & Girls Club and "The Firehouse," a basketball court tucked underneath a fire station in nearby Silver Spring. But he hardly got a chance to show those talents in high school.

As a freshman, Francis was academically ineligible, but he returned to play third string on the Montgomery Blair varsity. His junior year, a broken ankle kept him out for the season, and when he became a senior, the worst happened.

As usual, Francis was at the basketball court the day the bad news came. His pager kept sounding on the sideline, and he knew that continuous pages meant trouble. He didn't call. He went straight to his grandmother's house. When he got there, his brother, Jeff Francis Jr., told him their mother had succumbed to cancer.

"I was stunned," Francis recalled. "It was just a cold feeling running through your body. I was looking for answers. But at the same time, my family is very religious. Jeff was telling me that God was calling her to come home. But I didn't want to hear that at the time."

He got the tattoo. Above the cross, there are two words: "In memory."

"It's just there," Francis said. "It lets me know that's what happened. It's just something I want to keep for the rest of my life. I feel like I'm playing for her all the time."

The tattoo came the same year Francis stopped going to school, knowing his mother would not have liked it. After his mother died after his junior year at Blair, his grandmother, Mable Wilson, helped him get a partial scholarship at Milford Academy, a prep school in Connecticut, for his senior year of high school. But he ran out of money in November 1995, making the tuition impossible to pay.

Pretty soon, he was back in Takoma Park moping, full of anger and pain. He never enrolled at Blair again.

"He went through a tough period," said David Vanterpool, one of the older players Francis would follow to local basketball courts.

"He was playing basketball and doing the wrong things. But when he was going through that, the thing that helped him the most is what he had to go through when his mother passed. He wasn't a quitter."

Getting it Together
Redemption came in 1996 in the form of an AAU team coached by Lou Wilson, also the coach at Largo High School. The AAU team played in a tournament in Winter Haven, Fla., and, typically, Francis put on a show. He dunked. He passed. He dominated, averaging 18 points and seven assists.

A coach from San Jacinto Junior College in Pasadena, Tex., noticed him. And after a few eventful months, during which Francis received his GED and qualified for junior college, he was playing college basketball. The hunger began to develop.

"When he came in, we didn't know how good a player he was going to be," said San Jacinto Coach Scott Gernander. "But one thing about Steve: He played hard and he played with a lot of desire."

They were tough times, though. Francis missed the East Coast and, more important, his mother. While he was in Texas, Gernander said, Francis carried around an article about his mother's death. "He's a real sensitive kid," Gernander said. "You could just tell how much he missed her."

But he still played basketball well. He averaged 13.5 points and 7.1 assists per game as a freshman at San Jacinto. He led the Ravens to a 36-1 record, the loss coming in the final of the National Junior College Athletic Association tournament. San Jacinto was ranked second in the final NJCAA regular season poll to Allegany (Md.) Community College.

By season's end, Francis missed his friends in Maryland so much, he knew he wasn't going back to San Jacinto. And once he learned Allegany was looking for a point guard, he knew where he would be the next season.

Francis broke the news to Gernander in the spring of 1997, and the coach became upset. Francis could leave if he wanted, Gernander said, but he wouldn't be granted a release to play at Allegany, meaning he wouldn't be able to play in games during the fall semester.

Allegany Coach Bob Kirk called Gernander and asked him to reconsider releasing Francis, but Gernander wouldn't budge. By then, Francis was enrolled at Allegany.

"I was being kind of selfish, and I said, 'Well, I'm not going to release him,' " Gernander said. "But it kind of dawned on me that the reason I didn't want to release Steve was because he was such a good kid and I wanted him back. It's almost like, 'I ain't going to let him go.'

"Finally, I thought, 'Why hold [anything] against Steve?' It was hard, but I realized that he wasn't going to be here anyway, and I wanted him to do well. He would have had to sit out a semester, and I thought, 'Why do that to the kid?' It was never personal, I just wanted him back so bad, I didn't know what to do. Steve is a special person."

Close to Home
Francis's buddies from Takoma Park and Silver Spring often piled into one car and made road trips to western Maryland to see Francis play for Allegany, which is located in Cumberland. It was therapeutic for both parties. Francis had the support from the neighborhood; his buddies were watching over him, making sure the journey continued.

"It's very important that he didn't forget where he comes from," Darren McLinton said.

"The people that were here when he was coming up and going through adversity were the ones there for him at those games. He could have stayed at San Jacinto, but he wanted to come to be near his family and friends who grew up with him. We wanted to be there for him."

Several members of Francis's support group are former basketball players who fell short of the NBA dream. Vanterpool, for example, was an all-Met at Blair, played at St. Bonaventure and now lives in Silver Spring. Even though basketball season is here, Francis still works out with McLinton and childhood pal Calvin Scott at the Takoma Park Recreation Center.

"The thing is he stays very humble," Vanterpool said. "Not too long ago, the day of Midnight Madness, I was working out at Takoma Park. He asked me to show him this little move I was using. I mean, this kid is supposed to be the star player at the University of Maryland, and he's asking about some little move I'm doing in some gym before Midnight Madness?"

Duane Simpkins, a former Maryland player from Fort Washington, had the explanation.

"That kid's hungry," said Simpkins, who plays in the Continental Basketball Association. "He wants it like nobody else. That kind of thing you can't put a price on. I think the fact that he's made it through the stuff he's gone through, he knows it's not easy. He's seen the flip side of it."

Francis became what Kirk called the best overall player Allegany has produced. This coming from a coach who has had two NBA first-round picks - Eric Mobley and John Turner - on his campus.

In a comfort zone at Allegany, Francis dominated even more during the 1997-98 season. The numbers were dizzying: 23.5 points, 8.7 assists, 7.1 rebounds and 5.3 steals per game. The season included another trip to the NJCAA final, making Francis the first person to lead two teams to the NJCAA final, and a first-team all-American selection. Things went so well, Francis considered reneging on his commitment to Maryland and jumping to the NBA.

"Me and my coach [Kirk] talked about it," Francis said. "For some reason, I thought it was the best thing for me to come here and play for two years. My coach was like an advisory committee. He said he was getting a lot of calls from a lot of agents who wanted to represent me."

Ultimately, Francis couldn't pass up a chance to play close to home. That way, he could be near the Takoma Park Boys & Girls Club, where he still goes to shoot hoops and do his college papers on the computers.

Each week, Francis makes time to go visit his stepfather, Dominique Bryant, and his 8-year-old sister, Tiffany, who live in White Oak. Since the community is helping Francis, he wants to reciprocate.

"I know I've had it rough, especially being from around here," Francis said. "Just seeing a lot of things happen - good and bad - for people, that really made me open my eyes and see which way I wanted to go and what I wanted to do with my life. It showed me what type of a role model I wanted to be for my little cousins and my little sister and my family and my friends, too, even the ones that are older than me.

"Since I've been going to school and doing my thing, they've been changing themselves. Just so it can rub off on other people, that makes me feel better."

By C. Jemal Horton
Washington Post Staff Writer