[外電] 表弟的「狂」 part 2

看板Kings (沙加緬度國王)作者kingpredrag (I love Man Utd!!!!!!!!!)時間15年前 (2010/05/11 21:32)推噓7(7推 0噓 1→)

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表弟的「狂」 part 2 “The day that ranking came out, a woman walked up to me and said, ‘Your life is about to change,’” Monique Cousins said. “She was right. In some ways it’s been downhill ever since.” Excited as he was about his future in basketball, Cousins’ semi-celebrity status caused emotional strain on him and his family. Faculty members at his high school who had ties to other AAU teams approached him in class or in the hallways and tried to use shoes and money to try to bribe him to leave the Storm to play for their program instead. College coaches began contacting Monique to tell her they would “take care of her” if DeMarcus signed with their school and people began spreading false rumors about his personal life. “People were using me,” Cousins said. “They were taking advantage of me and trying to buy me. Coach Danny and I came up together. He took a chance on me and I wasn’t going to leave him, but when I didn’t people threw dirt on my name and tried to walk over me.” Monique Cousins：「排名結果出爐的那天，有一位女士走過來跟我說：『你的未來即將改變。』他說的對，某些方面來說變得越來越糟。」在為自己的籃球未來興奮之際，表弟的小有名氣卻也為他自己和家人帶來精神上的壓力，學校的教職員常常帶著其他ACC球隊的人到他班上或學校大門堵他，想用球鞋和金錢誘惑他，讓他離開風暴隊到他們的球隊打球。大學教練開始找上Monique，告訴他只要表弟和他們學校簽約，他們就會照顧Monique的生活，同時人們開始散播表弟私生活的負面傳言。表弟：「大家都想利用我。他們都想占我便宜，想要收買我，我和 Danny教練不會分開，他為我開了一扇大門，所以我也不會離開他，但當我ㄧ一回絕後，他們開始污化我的名聲，想要踐踏我的人格。」 Monique remembers it a different way. “People did walk over him,” she said. “They walked over both of us. We didn ’t know how to handle it all. Everything was so overwhelming. “In the end you just trust in your beliefs, lean on the people you trust – and pray.” Making the situation even more difficult was that DeMarcus was only 14 and 15 at the time. With Monique working to support him and his five siblings and his biological father out of the picture, Cousins said the brash attitude he developed on the basketball court began affecting his life in a negative way. Violence and shootings were common in Cousins’ neighborhood. Many of his friends were either using drugs or selling them, and a senior on the Erwin basketball team that Cousins looked up to was arrested for a string of armed robberies. Monique的回憶有些不同。「那些人踐踏他，實際上他們是踐踏了我們母子倆，我們不曉得該如何面對這種情況，每件事都像巨浪一樣壓過來。」「最後你只能相信自己的信念，倚靠你信任的人，然後禱告。」表弟十四、十五歲那時期，情況繼續惡化，生父早已不見蹤影的表弟一家必須靠Monique獨自工作扶養表弟和五個孩子，表弟說當時他在球場上的急性子也開始對他的生活產生不好的影響。鬥毆和槍聲在表弟住家周遭屢見不鮮，他許多朋友都在吸毒甚至販毒，一位表弟尊敬的Erwin籃球隊高四球員更因為數宗搶案被捕。 Cousins managed to steer clear of trouble until his sophomore year when, midway through the basketball season, he got into a physical altercation on a school bus with a faculty member following a game. Cousins is adamant that he was defending himself, but he also conceded that his own immaturity may have provoked the fight. He was suspended from the team for the rest of the season and, after finishing out the school year, decided to transfer to another high school the following fall. “That’s been a dark cloud that has hung over me for my entire career,” Cousins said. “Every time I do something good, that gets brought back up.” From that point on Cousins said he felt as if he had a target on his back. 直到高二那年表弟才決心和麻煩撇清關係，他在校車上和去看比賽的學校教職員發生肢體衝突，表弟堅稱他是出於自衛，但他也承認他的不成熟或許是這場衝突的導火線。表弟被判禁止參加當季剩餘的全部賽事，學年結束後，表弟決定在秋天轉學到其他高中。「這將是我職業生涯的污點，每當我有好表現的時候，大家就會提起這件事。」從那時起，表弟覺得他背上彷彿被劃了一道標靶。 The following summer he attended a pool party where someone was seriously injured in a fight. Even though he wasn’t involved, Cousins received a ticket in a mail a few weeks later indicating he had been charged with battery. The charges were eventually dropped, but the situation was another reminder of the scrutiny and spotlight that accompanied his status as a basketball star. A few months later he was deemed ineligible to play at Clay-Chalkville High School because of allegations that first-year coach Robi Coker, a former staff member at Ole Miss, recruited him there. Cousins and his mother denied those allegations. “There were a lot of people that didn’t want to see him succeed,” Monique said. “I love Alabama. I was born and raised here. But there are some things we just shouldn’t have had to go through. At that point the hits just became too hard.” 當年暑假表弟參加一個派對，派對中有人因為打架而受重傷，雖然表弟沒有參與，但幾週後他仍收到傳票，通知他因為參與鬥毆而被起訴。該項官司最後無疾而終，但這件事情也變成大家看到他繳出明星數據時一定要提的往事。幾個月後表弟被認為不適合在Clay-Chalkville高中打球，主因是當時執教滿一年的教頭Robi Coker對他有疑慮，他是前Ole Miss的教練團成員，曾試圖把表弟招募到該校。表弟和他媽否認這些指控。 Monique：「有很多人不願意看到表弟成功，我喜歡阿拉巴馬，我在那出生長大，但那裡有太多事情我們無法承受的，而且事情每況愈下。 So DeMarcus and his mother packed up their car, left Birmingham and moved back to the city where Cousins was born and had lived until the fourth grade. Mobile, Alabama. LeFlore (Ala.) High School has just won a playoff game by double digits, but as Otis Hughley walked off the court, the Rattlers head coach hardly seems to be enjoying the victory. Instead he’s berating a player who had taunted the opposing crowd by flicking his jersey as the final horn sounded. “We don’t stand for that stuff here,” Hughley said the following day. “ Ask anyone that’s ever played for me. That’s not what we teach here.” 因此表弟和他媽打包行李，離開伯明罕搬回表弟出生並住到四年級的地方，阿拉巴馬的摩比港。 LeFloree剛在一場季後賽大勝雙位數以上，但當教練Otis Hughley 離開球場時，他卻很難為這場勝利而高興。他剛剛在場上叱責了自家球員，因為當比賽結束槍響時，他的球員抖動著身上的球衣向對手挑釁。之後Hughley表示：「我們不該那樣做，問問看任何被我帶過的球員，那不是我敎他們的東西。」 Kentucky coach John Calipari often says that standout freshmen Cousins, John Wall and Eric Bledsoe have always been coddled but never coached or disciplined. That may be the case with Wall and Bledsoe. But Cousins? “That’s not true,” Hughley says with a chuckle. “He’s got to say those kinds of things and that’s fine. But that’s obviously not true.” Cousins agrees. “Oh I definitely knew what it was like to be yelled at and coached and disciplined,” he said. “Coach Cal is on another level, but Coach Hughley was tough. He was crazy.” 肯塔基教練John Calipari常說他那些傑出的大一生表弟、Wall和 Bledsoe被照顧的很好，而且不需要特別去管教他們，這句話或許適用在Wall和Bledsoe身上，但適用於表弟嗎？ Hughley：「這不是真的，他當然需要說些場面話，但這很明顯是錯的。」表弟也同意Hughley的看法。表弟：「我非常了解被吼被管教的感覺，卡教練是另一種教練，但 Hughley教練很硬，他是個狂人。」 It’s no wonder that Cousins wanted to play for Hughley at LeFlore. In the four seasons before Cousins’ arrival in the fall of 2007, 16 of Hughley’s players had earned Division I scholarships. LeFlore was 35-0 entering the state championship game the previous year. National television appearances were commonplace for a team whose coach serves as instructor at Pete Newell’s Big Man Camp during the summer. “Why wouldn’t he want to come here?” said Hughley, a former college assistant coach at various levels. “We were glad to have DeMarcus, but we didn’t need him. Our culture had already been built.” Even though he was told he could transfer to any school in the state once he left Birmingham, Cousins was forced to sit out the first nine games because of recruiting allegations. 無庸置疑地表弟願意為Hughley教練在LeFlore打球，表弟於2007年秋天入隊，此前的四個球季，Hughley帶著手下十六位球員贏得數次分區冠軍。前一年Leflore以35勝零敗的戰績進入州冠軍賽，在全國轉播上見他們是司空見慣的事，Hughley也常在暑假到Pete Newell的長人訓練營擔任指導員。 Hughley：「有甚麼理由他不想來這裡？我們很高興表弟能加盟，但我們並非真的需要他，我們的球隊已經建立完備。」雖然表弟被告知離開伯明罕後可以自由轉到任何學校，但他還是因為招募規定被迫坐了九場板凳。 “We hadn’t lost a game in this area for four years and we hadn’t lost one in the state for two years,” Hughley said. “They thought, ‘The rich are getting richer. We’ve got to do something about this.’” Once Cousins became eligible it was obvious he and Hughley were a good fit. Hughley began picking DeMarcus up each Sunday morning so he could attend church services with him, his wife and three young children. Because they didn’t have a gymnasium at their school, LeFlore played all of its games on the road. The more time Hughley spent with Cousins on buses and vans and in arenas and hotels, the more he realized that he hardly fit the reputation that preceded him. The only “fights” he was involved in were harmless wrestling matches with assistant coach Jeff Pope in fast food parking lots. Cousins was never ejected from a game and, although he talked back at times, he never refused to follow orders. 「四年來我們在這一區沒有輸掉任何一場球，在我們州裡兩年內沒吞過一敗，別人會認為我們是富者恆富，但我們為此著實下了許多工夫。」當表弟取得上場資格後，你會發現他和Hughley非常的配，每個禮拜天Hughley都會把表弟挖起床，帶著表弟和他老婆以及三個孩子去做禮拜。因為他們學校沒有體育館，Leflore所有比賽都在客場進行，Hughley 和表弟在校車、貨車、球場和旅館上花了非常多的時間相處，當他越了解表弟，他就越難相信先前在表弟身上的流言蜚語。表弟之後所牽涉的唯一一場「架」是場無害的摔角比賽，他和助理教練在速食店的停車場鬧著玩的，表弟從不拒絕任何遊戲，雖然他已經一再地說要回家了，但他還是不會拒絕同伴的邀請。 “DeMarcus isn’t a tough kid,” he said. “On the court he may be tough, but off the court he’s scared of the dog. He’s not a wussy kid, but he’s a sweet kid. I don’t know anyone that’s met him that doesn’t like him. “My son sees him on TV now and almost starts crying: ‘I miss DeMarcus.’” Even though Hughley knew the real DeMarcus Cousins, the problems Cousins encountered in Birmingham were public knowledge in Mobile. Cousins also continued to receive criticism for his attitude and poor body language during games. 「表弟不是那種頑強的小孩，在球場上他很硬，但下了球場他居然會怕狗耶，不過他不是軟弱的娘娘腔，他是個窩心的小孩，我不了解為何之前他遇過的人居然會不喜歡他。」「我兒子現在在電視上看到表弟就會開始哭著說『我想表弟。』」雖然Hughley知道表弟的本性，但表弟之前在伯明罕的遭遇還是傳遍了摩比港，表弟也必須繼續面對隨之而來的批評以及場上的肢體挑釁。待續... -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 118.167.177.161