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Tyrone Hanson knows people assume he's a thug. Everywhere he goes and in every interview, the worst day of his life is the topic of conversation.
The day Hanson was beaten unconscious.
The day he begged for his life with a gun in his face.
The day he ran out of a Halloween party with his girlfriend and stepped over a bleeding body in the doorway, not knowing three people had just been murdered.
The Jackson State forward from New York is playing for his third collegiate program since 2006 and understands his past will never be forgotten. But Hanson has a third chance to do the thing he loves most - play basketball - and swears he won't blow what's likely his last opportunity.
"A lot of guys get kicked out of school and you don't hear about them no more," Hanson said. "They're either on the block, or have a 9-to-5, or are taking care of a child somewhere.
"You just don't see a lot of guys survive after two schools. I thought I was going to be in one of those categories."
Hanson is Brooklyn - New York, not Mississippi. That may be both his biggest weakness and strongest attribute. Hanson was raised on the asphalt courts in a city many consider the mecca of basketball. His father regularly had to drag him inside.
Those courts cultivate an environment where young boys are bound to get pushed. They either take their ball and go home, or learn to push back. Hanson shoved his way to a 3-star ranking by the recruiting service Scout.com while playing alongside Cleveland Cavaliers rookie Danny Green on the 2005 St. Mary's (New York) High School team that USA Today ranked No. 1 in the country.
He was recruited nationally, landed a scholarship at the University of Nevada in 2006 and played in 30 games as a freshman. That swagger and hard persona got him off the streets, out of the inner city and helped Hanson live his basketball dreams.
That same demeanor was the reason Hanson hardly hesitated to attend an off-campus Halloween party in 2007, wearing an "I love NY" T-shirt, even after then-Nevada coach Mark Fox (now at Georgia) ordered his players to stay inside. That same attitude caused him to take offense when someone bumped into him on the dance floor.
Suddenly, the world that Hanson thought he had left some 2,000 miles away reappeared. Words were exchanged and in moments he was on the floor, beaten and robbed. Friends pulled Hanson, unconscious, into the kitchen. Glass exploded as shots rang out. He came to and tried to escape, but was met by a .380 semiautomatic.
Samisoni Taukitoku, who pulled the gun on Hanson, was sentenced to three life terms in prison in January 2009.
"I know a lot of guys watch a lot of movies (with people) hitting guns away," Hanson said. "Nah, it's nothing like that. When you're looking down that barrel, your life is in another person's hand.
"Only thing I could do was talk to him. He was shaking. That's the only thing I could say, 'Please, man, don't shoot. It's not that serious.' "
Already on thin ice after flunking a drug test, Hanson was booted from the Nevada team following that fatal evening. After returning briefly to New York, he found a home at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, where former Nevada assistant Josh Newman was the head coach.
After a redshirt year in 2007-08, Hanson watched his relationship with Newman deteriorate until he was kicked off the team for an undisclosed violation of team rules.
"There were no signs that the road he traveled would have been that road," said Newman, who wouldn't elaborate on Hanson's dismissal. "As all of us go through life, there are times when we make mature decisions and times we make immature decisions. It was very discouraging. Any coach in America that brings a young man on campus is discouraged when that young man chooses not to do what's necessary or even right.
"Here was a young man who basically had a second opportunity at life to realize what's important. I hope he's learned that now at Jackson State (because) I think he didn't learn that here."
Jackson State and Texas Southern played an overtime game in front of a national ESPNU audience two weeks ago, with JSU trying to hold onto a two-game lead in the SWAC standings.
Players moved around the court stone-faced as every possession seemed to hold the season in the balance. Just about every player but Hanson, that is. He smiled down the stretch of JSU's 70-67 victory, even taking time to mug for the cameras. There were no hard Brooklyn looks - just a kid happy to be playing basketball.
This is the guy JSU coach Tevester Anderson knows. Smiling. Accountable. Honest.
"He seemed like the type of individual that I could trust," said Anderson, who credited Hanson's father for helping ease concerns. "After I met with him, I was pretty confident that if he had problems, they were behind him.
"You can't just condemn an individual for life. I pride myself on being able to judge character, and I've been in this a long time. ... I think he realized God's given me a third chance. I better take advantage of that. He and his father talked about that."
Save for one blip - he was suspended for half a game after getting into a shoving match with a teammate - life in Jackson has been near perfect for Hanson, a 6-foot-7 junior forward.
He's the second-leading scorer (12.1 points per game) on a team that has won its last nine games and at 13-1 is closing in on the SWAC championship. He leads the SWAC in 3-point shooting percentage (42.3) and has become a valued scorer for a team that desperately needed one after preseason offensive player of the year Grant Maxey was lost for the season to injury.
Coaches and teammates say they don't see thug when they look at Hanson.
"Honestly, I heard a lot of stories about what happened, and he's told me," JSU senior captain Garrison Johnson said. "But I see no signs of that person. He came to Jackson with a new focus.
"All I see is a good teammate who handles his business on and off the floor."
Still, Hanson is Brooklyn and he will quickly remind you of that. Where a hardened, stubborn mindset once got him kicked out of two schools, it now fuels his rebirth. He can still see the gun in his face and the childish behavior that forced Newman's hand at Arkansas-Fort Smith. But Hanson also remembers lying in bed crying, thinking his career was over.
But his thoughts always return to Brooklyn.
"You're going to go through things growing up in Brooklyn," said Hanson, who turned 23 last week. "You're gonna lose a fight in the park. Are you man enough to come back to the park the next day? Are you man enough to stand there and say, 'I'm still here?'
"That's what (got me through). Family, friends and mental toughness."
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