Hard work and tough love helped turn Cheek into a top recruit

With the discipline he learned at St. Anthony (Jersey City, N.J.) and tremendous talent, Dominic Cheek has taken one step toward stardom. Jersey Journal

By Kevin Armstrong, SI.com

He was not put on a pedestal when he enrolled at St. Anthony in Jersey City, N.J. His long, lean frame needed to fill out. His internal fire flickered, but it needed kindling. In signing on to play for Bob Hurley's basketball program four years ago, Dominic Cheek agreed to shave his braids and that no tattoos would appear on his skin. On weekends, the 6-foot-6, 195-pound swingman would have to phone the white-haired disciplinarian from his family's landline phone by 9 p.m. Much would be sacrificed, but the shooting form -- that lock-and-load release -- would make him a star. "The shot was always there," says Joe Whalen, the St. Anthony athletic director who coached Cheek with the Jersey City Boys & Girls Club as a youth.

Cheek was ready to be thrown into the fire of Hurley's practices because he was raised by Izaphine "Ice" Howard, his maternal grandmother, in a three-bedroom, first-floor apartment on Lexington Road. Outside those doors, Cheek witnessed a neighbor being shot 20 feet from the building's front door, drugs decay his neighborhood and the Lex Boys -- an area gang -- conquer the Bergen Avenue corner. On a mid-May afternoon, he walks with ease along Lexington Road, greeting neighbors and pointing to the fire escape he used to shoot basketballs at in lieu of an actual hoop. "[The gangs] never recruited me because they know I have a talent and potential," says Cheek, who is expected to be named to Team USA's U-18 team, which will play in the 2008 FIBA Americas U-18 Championship in Formosa, Argentina, from July 14-18.

What basketball recruiters and neighborhood denizens see in him, baseball scouts and locals once saw in his uncle, Omari Knight, a 33-year-old postal worker who takes evening classes at the Lincoln Technical Institute. Above a cupboard in the family living room, preserved by green lamination is the USA Today All-American baseball team from 1993. There among Anaheim Angels center fielder Torii Hunter and Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez is a headshot of Knight from Jersey City's Lincoln High. Another yellowing newspaper clip recounts his days as "a man of steal", and a white base with a gold plate commemorating his 100th career pilfer atop it. "The phones used to ring for me," Knight says.

The phone stopped ringing the first week of June that year. As players were drafted and Knight's chances of being selected lessened (he was never drafted), Cheek -- who was all of 3 years old at the time -- approached his uncle and said, "Don't worry I'm going to make it for us."

"I couldn't believe what he was saying," Knight says. "I'm pretty sure he didn't even know what he was saying."

Fifteen years later, the calls and mail now come for Cheek -- a key cog in St. Anthony's 32-0 national-title run last winter. In a briefcase kept next to the couch in the apartment's hallway are stacks of envelopes, bound with rubber bands like piles of cash and categorized by school. Those most likely to have their budgets affected by the recent raise in postage are Tennessee and Florida. While Bruce Pearl -- who is the only coach to have a photo of himself on the front the envelopes -- corresponds frequently, the family is still waiting to see him stand out in a crowd at a gym. Weighing in with lighter loads are Villanova, Texas, Wake Forest and UConn.

Not yet sure of when he wants to commit, Cheek lists each of the schools in the briefcase as options as well as North Carolina, Memphis and Louisville. "One minute I want to commit and get it over with," Cheek says. "The next I want to wait and see."

In the three months since his high school season ended, Cheek has played in AAU tournaments in Providence, R.I., Pittsburgh, South Jamaica, N.Y., and Chapel Hill, N.C. He has met with Knight and cousin Emery Muldrow for weightlifting sessions. Last month, he injured his shoulder at the NBAPA camp in Charlottesville, Va. He says it did not affect him this week at Team USA Under-18 tryouts in Washington, D.C. In between the tourneys and tryouts, there has been limited down time.