Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 64

A2 The Arizona Republic Monday, August 31, 1998 6 I know what I nee aien to do' hoops says Striking out In his room, Johns keeps a laminated newspaper article and photo of his father during his most glorious moment on the basketball court: Rodney Johns smiling broadly, arms raised in victory after hitting the shot in overtime that gave Grand Canyon the NAIA championship 10 years ago. In that same room, there are marks on the walls, reminders of darker days when he would strike out in anger and run, leaving his mother to plaster holes and lay awake all night, praying her son I 83198 ALMANAC Today is the 243rd day of he In 1887, inventor Thomas A. Edison receives a patent for his "kinetoscope," a device that produces moving pictures. In 1954, Hurricane Carol hits the Northeast, resulting in nearly 70 deaths and millions of dollars damage. In 1962, the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago becomes independent from Britain.

In 1969, boxer Rocky Marciano dies in a plane crash in Iowa, the day before his 46th birthday. In 1980, Poland's Solidarity movement is born with an agreement signed in Gdansk that ends a 17-day-old strike. 3 ImK I.E'LJ 11 I Mark SchiefelbeirvThe Arizona Republic apartment complex to put up his own basketball backboard. He takes the board hoops for fear that it will be stolen or broken if he leaves it in place. REFORM PARTY: The group that out of Ross Perot's 1992 presidential run keeps going the Ener-gizer Bunny of third parties.

In it is fielding five candidates. 'V ft ffV'fl'l 1,111 I 1 1 KNOW, fivm Page Al Johns' basketball skills and physical appearance bear a striking resemblance to his father's. His life, at times, appears to be paralleling his father's as well heading down a dead-end street. Basketball could be his way out. But college is a long way down a pothole-filled road for Johns.

The weeks and months ahead, as he tries to steer clear of trouble and sort through his anger, frustration and legal difficulties, will go a long way to determine whether he can find a brighter future. PRAYER Lord, you have taught us to release our fears through the spoken word. How great you are to hear our plea and bring us a renewed peace and health! Amen. LOTTERY POWERBALL Saturday's results: 131418 29 31 Powerball: 23 Jackpot: 0S12 million (S numbers and Powerball) ARIZONA WINNERS 5 numbers: 18100,000 4 and Powerball: 385,000 4: 598100 3 and Powerball: 738100 3: 2,69187 2 and Powerball: 93887 1 and Powerball: 4,28784 Powerball only: 6,89883 Wednesday's jackpot: 814 million LOTTO Saturday's drawing 02 0814 24 38 40 Jackpot: .4 million (6 numbers) Second-place pool: 1581,148 (5 numbers) Third-place pool: 599857 (4 numbers) Fourth-place pool: 9,83882 (3 numbers) Wednesday's jackpot: $1.5 million FANTASY 5 Friday's drawing: 031015 34 35 PICK 3 Saturday's numbers 01 5 Players picking numbers in the exact order drawn win 8500. Other combinations pay from 850 to 8160.

CHUCKLE One good thing about living in the past it's cheaper. CORRECTIONS POLICY The Arizona Republic will correct errors fully and promptly. To report an error in the news columns, phone Deputy Managing Editors John D'Anna or Jeff Dozbaba, 444-8087. To report an error on the Editorial pages, phone 444-8499. HOW TO REACH US Circulation 444-1000 Classified 444-2424 Newsroom 444-8235 Editorial Page 444-8499 Reader Advocate 444-8912 Metro 444-8222 Business news 444-8142 Features 444-8152 Sports 444-8641 Photo 444-8282 Photo Reprints 444-8298 Back Issues 444-8537 Library Services 444-8017 (9 a.m.

-noon, Mon-Fri) JobLine 271-5656 code 9300 Newspapers in Education 444-8846 Tours 444-7090 All other departments 444-8000 Mesa office: News 444-7931 Advertising 444-7917 Scortsdale office: News 444-7474 Advertising 444-7400 Deer Valley office: News 444-71 11 Advertising 444-7100 MONDAY year. in formed Arizona, B1 police heading A3 will plans Kosovo. policy end his that NET has people more FOSSIL a few habitat NILE and of had formal Call CHASE CRASH: A vehicle fleeing in Louisiana crashes into a car to church, killing four of the occupants, including three children. I 1 WARNING YUGOSLAVIA: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright meet today with a NATO commander to accelerate contingency for an attack on Serb forces in A8 wasn't headed down the same destructive path that ended his father's life. Johns is not proud of the marks.

But they are there, like the tattoos on his body. One has the word "assassin" etched on his left arm, something he obtained when he was 13. Just a foolish period, hanging with foolish people and doing, foolish things, he says now. Johns is working to rid himself of a deeper blemish, a scar that runs deep through his soul, one left by the death of his father his hero nearly three years ago. Sometimes, he bolts upright in bed at night, in a cold sweat, awakened by the nightmare of his crashing his car into a concrete wall for reasons unknown to those closest to him.

Why? Johns has asked himself since that dreadful night of Dec. 5, 1995. Rodney Johns was only 31. His sister was in the car with him when he drove at high speed not far from where he grew up in Phoenix. Both were killed instantly.

There are no answers to immediately heal the spirit, Tamarcus is learning. You finally wake up one day and let go. "He took a lot of anger out on me, because his dad passed away," Linda Terry said of her son. "I took it, because he had nobody else to take it. He didn't care if he lived or died.

Whatever happened, happened. That scared me. I tried to get him help before he got real bad." Now, after all the nasty words, the kicked-in walls, the arrests for car theft and weapons possession, after dropping out of two schools, after nights away from home, smoking marijuana, finding trouble, breaking parole, after being locked up, Johns says he's trying to help himself. Time will tell. He started classes this week at North High School, his third school in three years.

He has yet to finish a year at a high school. He has yet to last an entire basketball season. North could be a contender for the 5A state title, especially with Johns in its lineup, playing as he did this summer. The bigger "if" is not whether he can play at that level, but whether he can keep himself in school and out of trouble. "It's up to him to change and do the things he needs to do," North Coach Joseph Bustos said.

"I know he can play. If it works out for him, hopefully it will work out for us." Missing appointments Jacque Medrano, Johns' parole officer, isn't sure whether Tamarcus will get to basketball season. She says he has not been consistent with his parole obligations since leaving Adobe Mountain Juvenile Institution in May after serving a six-month sentence for car theft. Medrano said Johns, who is on parole until he turns 1 8, is supposed to meet with her every Tuesday. She said she's seen him only a few times this summer.

She said he has not been going to group therapy and has not taken advantage of a tutoring program. She said he also needs to be calling her more regularly. Medrano said that he could end up in a halfway house for troubled teens if he continues his current pattern. Johns said his summer was filled with basketball, traveling out of state for tournaments with the Stars, a club program for youths that includes some of the best talent in Arizona. He said he spent much of the past month trying to obtain transcripts and applying to get into Bostrom, an alternative school for students who are far behind in classwork.

Medrano was surprised to hear Johns opted for North instead of Bostrom, which has an accelerated program that would help Johns graduate this academic year. She feels going to North would be a step in the wrong direction. "There's been a lot of run-around," he said. "I've talked to (Medrano) about it. I want to get in to see her consistently." Medrano said she is giving Johns two weeks to show that he will stay on the programs laid out for his parole.

If he doesn't, she said he'll go to a halfway house that monitors him round the clock. He could still go to school and play basketball. "I know what I need to do," he said. "I've seen my daddy when he put all his effort into basketball. Not only did he put all his effort into basketball, but all his faith.

He felt that basketball would always take him out of the positions he had created that were not good for him. He depended on that. He thought his skills would financially pull him out. When he didn't make it, he was lost." Long, winding road; At 14, during his freshman year, Johns dropped out of Camelback High School shortly after his father died. He had one and four incomplete courses.

He said he was staying out late, getting high on marijuana, not interested in school, basketball or much of anything. "My first year in high school, I really didn't think about ever graduating," he said. "Everybody was looking at me like, 'You're just a basketball I felt like people only cared about what I could do INSURANCE LAPSES: The Cardinals thought they had an insurance in Brad Ottis, who was performing admirably at defensive left while Andre Wadsworth continues holdout. But now an X-ray reveals Ottis' left foot is seriously injured. C1 1 WORKING: As the Internet gone mainstream, tales of how are putting it to use are getting interesting.

David Hoye, El won't come easily, especially now when he's at another school and can't be there for him all the time. "He wants to go to college, play basketball and do the right things," Pinter said. "It seems like he's trying, but still there are things that are pulling him. I don't know if it's friends or what. He's come a ways, but he still has a long ways to go.

I do think he's trying. He's excited to get college basketball letters. He says he wants to get his credits. I say, 'That's good, but you've got to do everything Now that I'm working (at Trevor Browne), I can't take him everywhere." Athletically, Johns is classified as a junior. Of his 13 credit hours, 7.5 came while being detained in juvenile centers.

He needs 20 to graduate. "I feel the people around me now are making sure I stay on track," Johns said. "I'm not perfect. I still have times when I do things wrong and my mind is somewhere else. I think of the clubs, the parties, that high school kids go to.

I can't do that, because I messed up." Tries to be firm Terry prays that her son doesn't mess up again. She tries to be firm with her rules, including slaying home at night, but it's not always easy. She talks to him about his father. The subject is difficult for Tamarcus, but therapeutic nonetheless. "For years, this kid had buried his hurt," she said.

"I still see a distance with him and his father." Other than basketball, Johns' outlet is writing poetry. His mother asked him to write a letter to his father. "I asked him to do that because he was saying, 'I want to tell him how he hurt she said. Johns said he hasn't written the letter. In time, maybe.

Terry doesn't push too hard. "We have to show love," she said. "For three years, he went wild. I said, 'You took me at my worst. I can take you.

But you can't stay there. You have to dream in your mind. If you want something, you can't let this dream die. You've got to get up and do Terry's brother, Cleveland Mitchell, was one of Rodney Johns' best friends at Phoenix Union High in the early '80s and keeps the Grand Canyon jersey Rodney wore when he scored 41 points in the '88 championship game. "He says he's going to pass it down when Tamarcus gets himself better," Terry said.

They pray that day dawns soon. IHlHI'IlfT FUEL: Jerry Howard and other Arizonans constitute an endangered species in a dwindling the full-serve gas-station island. D1 Tamarcus Johns climbs a pole at his down after each session of shooting for their basketball team." Terry, who never married Rodney Johns but maintained a friendship with him, said the battles with her son started before Rodney died but got worse shortly afterward. In September 1994, Tamarcus was arrested for shoplifting, a misdemeanor. When there was a problem with Tamarcus, Terry said she could call Rodney in the middle of the night and he would be there for him.

"For years, Tamarcus would say, 'My dad will come and take me to his house to live she said. "He'd say that since he was 5. That was his idol." Rodney Johns, who played at Phoenix Union in the early 1980s, was drafted in 1988 by the Suns but later cut. He helped coach for a time at Grand Canyon but was forced to come to grips with the stark realization that he didn't live his dream as an NBA player. After Rodney's death, bigger problems ensued for Tamarcus.

According to court records, he was charged with auto theft in April 1996 and spent 80 days in a Southeast Mesa juvenile facility. In July of that year, he was charged with aggravated assault on a correctional officer. In March 1997, he was charged with possession of a firearm and filling out a false police report. In June, records say, he violated his probation. A month later, he was again charged with car theft.

Last year, Johns struggled through a semester at South Mountain High, playing basketball on the junior varsity. He was cutting classes, getting high with friends, staying out late. He once scored 48 points in a game, but he felt empty. "It was real hard," he said. "It seemed like I was focused on the other players' fathers.

I would look out and see them there for their sons. It would hurt me inside." Terry saw the pain in her son's heart when he'd come home. "He wasn't snapping back like he should," she said. "A year later, and he still didn't care. I got afraid of him." Not a great role model Terry knew she wasn't a great role model for her son.

She was dealing with her own demons when he was small, doing hard drugs, such as cocaine, but said she's been clean for seven years now. At one point, she sent her son to live with her mother, and Johns took that as his mother rejecting him. She said she wanted him to be around her brother, who was a unner (jur medically based weight lose program will III 1 1 H-U 105. preacher, because she felt he needed to be around a positive role model. One time, he left home and didn't return for two weeks, Terry said.

Led by one of his friends, she eventually found her son scoring pot. in an abandoned house in west Phoenix. Terry turned him in. She said it hurt to see him go to Adobe in December, where he stayed for six months. But, she said, "I knew it was the best thing for him." "Right before he got locked up he said, I don't even know who I am.

I lived in my daddy's shoes for so He said, 'I'm That really hurt me." Johns calls that "the turning point in my life." "I made a promise to my mom to never hurt her again," he said. At Adobe, Johns attended classes, got counseling, went through self-esteem and behavioral programs and received a weekly visit from former Suns coach Paul Westphal, who coached Rodney Johns at Grand Canyon. They rarely talked hoops. "I had a real fondness for Rodney, and I want to try to see that Tamarcus doesn't make some of the same mistakes Rodney made," said Westphal, who was hired this sum mer to coach the Seattle SuperSonics. "I'd tell him about his father and encourage him not to squander his gifts.

I'm not sure what the final decision is, but we're hoping for the best." Johns led his cottage at Adobe to the championship of a basketball tournament and was presented the trophy from Meadowlark Lemon of the Harlem Globetrotters. "I remember Meadowlark saying, 'There's a Michael Jordan in this said Todd Peat, a former Arizona Cardinals lineman who is now a chaplain at Adobe. "Jordan got cut from a team in high school, and the point Meadowlark was making was to not give up on a dream." A new beginning This summer, Johns got a chance with the Stars, a club team that includes players from all over the state and travels out of state for tournaments. He was taken in by the team's coach, Brad Pinter, a teacher and assistant basketball coach at Trevor Browne High School, who made sure Johns filled out the proper paperwork with his parole officer so he could make the trips. Pinter sees in Johns potential for better times ahead, but knows they ni.

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