The Playground Gave Us Stevie Franchise
STEVE FRANCIS
ALL-MET ELITE
For those who only deal in short term memory, the name Steve Francis may only conjure up a shrug of the shoulders. During the last few years, his playing career has wound down rather unceremoniously. But the ending of a book is never the best place to judge it’s worth. The entire story must be digested in order to form a proper opinion. And although the last chapters in Francis’ career have been anti-climactic, there’s no denying that the beginning and middle stanzas of the man’s journey has earned him a place in “The Playground Gave Us…” pantheon.
Steve D’Shawn Francis, a.k.a. “Stevie Franchise” a.k.a. “Steve-O”, grew up in Tacoma Park, Maryland, a stone’s throw from the D.C. city line. His early days were challenging, growing up poor with his mother and grandmom. His dad walked out when he was 6 years old. By the age of 10, he was helping to pay the household bills by picking up odd jobs around the neighborhood.
He also picked up a ball around the time his pops left, showing an uncanny ability to entertain spectators. His family and folks around the way called him “Wink.”
He hit the Maryland and D.C. playgrounds, in addition to neighborhood rec centers. But he only played one game of high school ball. He’d been in and out of a number of schools and displayed an allergy for schoolwork. When his mother died, Stevie was 16. He then proceeded to drop out of school for good. After his mother succumbed to cancer, Francis did not touch a basketball for two years. He got a tattoo on his right arm that reads “In Memory of Brenda.” Throughout his playing days, whether in a packed arena in front of 20,000 or out in the park, he rubbed the tattoo each time he prepared to take a free throw.
In August of ‘96, he was just another 18-year-old asphalt phenom with no high school diploma, wandering aimlessly through life. Earlier that summer, Lou Wilson, the coach at Langley High School, managed to get Stevie a spot on Team Maryland as they were heading to the AAU National Championships in Florida. He played well in the tourney and impressed some coaches, but no offers came, which wasn’t surprising considering that he hadn’t seen a classroom in years.
Then, one of his best friends named Mike Palmer was gunned down. He thought about his mother and the hopes she harbored for him.
“After awhile, I started thinking about what she’d want for me,” Francis said in the NY Daily News. “She’d want me to get an education. She’d want me to be happy again. She was such a strong woman, such a fighter. I couldn’t disappoint her.”
Francis reached out to a mentor named Nate Peake who was coaching at the Langley Park Boys and Girls club. Peake knew his way around the sports landscape because he also moonlighted as an assistant manager for his cousin, prizefighter Sharmba Mitchell. Peake told Stevie to get down to the gym.
Francis showed up and destroyed a playground rival during the run. Although he wasn’t even 6-feet tall, he jumped out of the gym for some remarkable dunks, drove the hole with ease and authority and drained long range jumpers from all over the court. During the day, Peake and Francis worked out and got his game tight. Afternoons and evenings were reserved for putting in the academic work and studying to get a G.E.D.
Peake used his connections to secure an offer from San Jacinto Junior College in Texas. “If you do A, B, and C,” Peake told the young man, “D will follow.” The D he referred to was pro ball.
In the fall of ‘96, Francis packed his bags for Pasadena, Texas. He played point guard, led the team into the JUCO post season tourney with an undefeated mark and within one win of a National JUCO championship.
The next year he transferred to Allegany College, a Maryland JUCO, and averaged 23 points, 9 assists and & 7 rebounds per game during another undefeated regular season. He’d also grown to be 6′3″. Stevie Franchise became the first player ever to take two unbeaten teams into the National Junior College Tournament.
Pro scouts started showing up in Cumberland, Maryland to see what all the whispers were about. Stevie thought about going pro, but figured he could improve his profile and draft position with an NCAA takeover.
When he showed up in College Park the next fall, word spread so quickly about how he was killing it in practice that he received a standing ovation during his first introduction, just for removing his warm-up pants.
At the University of Maryland in ‘98-’99, he crashed the national radar when, along with Terrence Morris, Laron Profit, Obenna Ekezie and youngsters Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter, the Terps rang up 28 wins and were ranked as high as #2 in the country. He averaged 17 points, 5 assists and 3 steals per game en route to being named All-American and a Naismith and Wooden Award finalist. He also shocked and amazed with his playground style, crossover dribble, powerful and gravity defying Jordan-like lean in slams and propensity to take over whenever he needed.
Fans at Cole Field House begged him to score more and be more selfish. “But that’s not the way I play,” he told Lisa Olsen of the NY Daily News.
While most people only saw the highlight reel dunks every night on SportsCenter, those who watched him every day at practice knew he was something special.
“If you watch ESPN, you think he just dunks at the end of transition,” Terps coach Gary Williams told the NY Times. “He’s not averaging many more shots than everybody else. What I like is his willingness to blend in with other players.”
Williams also said this to Lisa Olsen of the NY Daily News: “Steve is incredibly unselfish. I find myself shaking my head at him sometimes, not for what he does, but for how complete a player and person he is.”
“Everyone noticed the dunks and the 3-pointers, but as a coach what I really appreciated was his defense,” Williams was once quoted in Sports Illustrated. “He also was a great passer, an unselfish player who made those around him better.”
The Terps were eventually upset by coach Mike Jarvis’ St. John’s Red Storm – which was led by Ron Artest, Bootsy Thornton, Eric Barkley and Lavor Postell – during March Madness that year in the Sweet 16.
Before the tourney match-up, while Postell was saying that Francis was just an average player who could do spectacular dunks, Ron-Ron begged to differ.
“I’ve seen him crossing people over and he’s very active on the boards,” Artest told Judy Battista of the New York Times. “I don’t think you can take him out of his game.”
After his one and done, Stevie took some heat for refusing to play for the team that drafted him, the Vancouver Grizzlies. But once that storm passed, the man called “Stevie Franchise” went about the business of bringing his D.C. playground boogie to the world’s greatest stage – the NBA.
On occassion he’d come back home to run at the Goodman League or the Jabbo Kenner during the summertime. One legendary match-up took place in 2001 at the Kenner, in Georgetown’s McDonough Arena. On that night which will forever be talked about in D.C. lore, the team called Francis’ Hitmen – with Cuttino Mobley, Moochie Norris, Walt “The Wizard” Williams and Jerome “Junk Yard Dog” Williams – lost to a team of street royalty 121-120. Stevie dropped 59 on D.C. legend Curt “Trouble” Smith. The problem was that the 6-foot “Trouble” gave Stevie 62!
Although playoff success eluded him, he thrilled millions around the globe during his years with the Rockets and the Magic. And despite the injuries that grounded him with the Knicks, Francis can limp off into the sunset with his head held high. Sometimes, the brightest shooting stars fade quick, and never reach the heights that others think they should. But Steve Francis owes no one an apology. For a kid who dropped out of school and played one game of JV ball in high school as the third string point guard, I’d say he came pretty darn far. And if it wasn’t for the neighborhood oasis’ of the blacktop, the rec centers and the tiny plywood court in a firehouse basement gym that allowed him to keep the flicker of his basketball dream alive, who knows if the world would have ever heard from him.
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