``Kevin is still here really. I have younger players who saw Kevin working harder than anyone else every day. Now, they work hard.''
William Nelson
``Licencia de Auto,'' ``Productos de Mexico y Puerto Rico,'' ``Nino de Paz,'' read the signs in the South Londale neighborhood around Farragut Academy on Chicago's West Side. The student body is 90 percent Hispanic and from the neighborhood.
Black students are in the minority overall but the majority on the basketball team. They come from North Londale, where William Nelson, the basketball coach, grew up.
Nelson's studied, take-no-prisoners hallway persona has been a lifetime in the making. Scowling, shoulders back, way back in his tweed jacket, he struts in neat, pleated slacks, with his head turning back and forth, like he's radar for the slightest blip of trouble. Otherwise, he is looser-limbed, an animated guy who acts out anecdotes and would rather laugh than take the events of life so seriously. That includes the game of basketball.
His approach to coaching: ``I take everything light. I have fun. I try to take the weight off the kids, and let the kids be kids.''
If Kevin Garnett ``missed a bunch'' and looked at Nelson to gauge his reaction: ``I'd just be laughing,'' Nelson says.
Still, there were times when Nelson would be wringing his hands. Kevin, with his unselfish playing instincts, would pass the ball to a freshman player instead of shooting at some crucial points in a game.
``I'd be there yelling, `Kevin don't pass -- shoot, shoot!' '' Nelson says.>
In his first year as a coach at a Nike camp, Nelson had been assigned Kevin, 16 and skinny, when he thought what he needed was a beast. But Nelson watched as his team, loose and relaxed, won 13 out of 14 games that week.
He saw what happened. Kevin. His presence pulled the team together.
The following year at Nike camp, Nelson heard about the fight at Mauldin. He told Kevin, ``The report is out, you're tough.''
Kevin, who had always been, ``No, sir, and yes, sir,'' grew quiet. ``No, it ain't like that . . .'' he said.
When Kevin enrolled at Farragut that fall, there were allegations in the press that Nelson had recruited him while at camp. Some stories also portrayed Farragut as a basketball ``factory.''
Nelson's voice rises excitedly as he responds: `` I don't have a state title, a section title. There are other high schools in Chicago that are national powerhouses, with coaches sitting around with tournament rings on.''
Further, he says, Nike was already well aware of Kevin Garnett. The company didn't need him, Nelson maintains, to bring Garnett into the limelight.
Other reports suggested that Nelson had received Nike money.
Nelson answers that charge with a question. Referring to his Olds 98 painted with gray primer, he asks, ``Why am I still driving in this beat-up-ass car?''
The same press reports that suggested Nelson benefited from Nike largess also alleged that Nike helped pay for Kevin's family's moving and living expenses for his senior year.
Kevin, his mother and his younger sister, Ashley, lived in the same apartment complex as Nelson -- Taylor Place on Ashland Avenue, across from the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center. Kevin's mother rented a one-bedroom apartment on the 12th floor of the south tower for about $700 a month, according to a leasing office employee.
Shirley Garnett worked at a pharmaceutical company and in a housing-management office to support her family. She found the cost of living much higher in Chicago than in Mauldin.
``It was hard, very hard -- to eat rice many nights, to go to the grocery store and realize you have only $20 on your Visa, having to walk when my car was stolen several times,'' she says. ``I cried many nights.''
Kevin was not as free to go out and play basketball in Chicago as he was in Mauldin. Gyms were more likely to be occupied, and not all the courts were safe late at night.
Nelson sometimes drove Kevin to community-college gyms, where he played with older guys. He also played on courts at Sheriden Park, run by the Chicago Park District, and at the YMCA and outdoor courts near Abla Homes, one of the city's worst housing projects.
As a Farragut Admiral, Kevin played with Ronnie Fields, a 6-3 guard with dazzling showtime moves and a 47-inch vertical leap.
``Kevin and Ronnie -- it was like they were rock stars, it was like a damn circus,'' says Nelson, who besides coaching, teaches math at Farragut. ``I was talking to sports agents, scouts, coaches, media people. Literally, 80 percent of the calls coming into the school were for me.''
Fields' senior season was cut short by injuries suffered in a car accident and later charges of misdemeanor sexual abuse; he pleaded guilty. He now plays ball for the LaCrosse (Wis.) Bobcats in the Continental Basketball Association.
``I still hope to go to the NBA,'' he says from the hotel room where he is living. ``Kevin's career just came sooner than mine.''
Kevin decided to declare himself eligible for the NBA draft after more than one failed attempt at passing the nationally standardized ACT exam for college. The Timberwolves selected him with the fifth overall pick in the draft, awarding him a three-year, $5.6 million contract.
``Other kids get a job if they don't get into college,'' rationalizes Darren ``Bull'' Gazaway, Kevin's former coach in Greenville, S.C. ``That's what Kevin did -- with the NBA.''


              Kids on Garnett's old Chicago playing grounds                       Drafted