A New York Times feature on Herb Pope

Here is a New York Times feature on Herb Pope that fills in a few more of the blanks:

Seton Hall’s Pope Keeps His Distance From His Past
Dave Caldwell
New York Times
December 19, 2009

Two or three times a week, Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis gets a phone call from Herb Pope, another exceptional athlete from Aliquippa, Pa. Revis and Pope talk about life, about sports, about being far away from home. Being far away, they agree, is a good thing.

Aliquippa is a hardscrabble town in western Pennsylvania that provided Pope with few breaks. He was shot four times at a party in his senior year. His parents abandoned him as a youngster, so he grew up with his aunt and uncle. His father, a crack addict, is back in prison.

Two years ago, Pope decided to play basketball at New Mexico State — in part because it was so far from Aliquippa — but he left after one year because the coach, the former N.B.A. star Reggie Theus, had been hired before the season as the coach of the Sacramento Kings. During winter break that year, Pope was arrested in Pennsylvania for driving under the influence of alcohol.

But now, finally, Pope seems to have found a comfortable home 380 miles east of Aliquippa. He is a student at Seton Hall and has quickly, though not surprisingly, emerged as a star forward for the Pirates, who are 8-0 entering Saturday’s nonconference game in Newark against Temple.

He is averaging 14.6 points and 12.8 rebounds a game and has six double-doubles. He is proud of compiling statistics that measure toughness: blocked shots, rebounds, steals. But two statistics that have nothing to do with basketball seem to mean the most to him: He says he has not been to Aliquippa for almost five months, and when he did visit, he was there for 16 hours...

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