Where Sean Dockery grew up, being able to walk around looking straight ahead is a luxury.
In the South Chicago neighborhood Dockery comes from, gangs run the streets, young men are killed all the time, and college is either a pipe dream or not a dream at all.
So when Duke's senior guard said getting his diploma in May is as important to him as anything he accomplished on the basketball court, he was not just taking a page out of Coach K's prepared-for-life handbook.
"I know I'm the first person in my neighborhood to basically go to college, stay four years and graduate," Dockery said. "You never see anyone from my area get a degree, so you never have that vision of someone getting it. And for me to do that, getting that degree without seeing someone else do it, shows a lot about my personality."
Four years ago, Dockery emerged from the type of neighborhood that most Duke students only read about in public policy class. A couple of months before he got to campus, the then-19-year-old was in a car that was shot into. While he was in high school, some of his close friends were killed. Dockery still gets phone calls nearly every other week telling him that someone else from the neighborhood has died.
Coming to college was a culture shock, made worse by the fact that no one thought the inner-city kid could cut it at rich, prestigious Duke.
Dockery's GPA and ACT score in his senior year of high school were short of the NCAA minimums for Division I scholarship recipients. On Sept. 4, 2001, The Chronicle ran a staff editorial declaring "It is sad that a top-10 institution like Duke is even considering Dockery."
While Duke's elitists were criticizing Dockery for being dumb, the people from his neighborhood disparaged him for being too ambitious.
"They just wanted to see me come back and fail just like everybody else from there," Dockery said. "That's all they see, negatives, through their whole lives, so they're going to be negative towards me. And that's what they were doing."
For a college freshman, all of the pressure probably should have been too much. On the court, Dockery-a scorer in high school-had to turn himself into a playmaking point guard to please head coach Mike Krzyzewski. Dockery was unsure of himself around his world-famous coach and didn't see much of the court.
In the classroom, Dockery had to learn to study. He would stay up until 4 a.m. reviewing with classmates, trying to understand material that he might have been taught in the elite high schools his classmates attended.
Everywhere else, the freshman felt no one understood where he was coming from. He was close with his roommates, J.J. Redick and Shavlik Randolph, but as the first inner-city public school product Krzyzewski ever recruited to come to Duke, he was in uncharted waters.
Eventually, Dockery couldn't take it anymore. In a four-hour telephone conversation with his parents, Dockery broke down in tears, telling them he wanted to leave Duke, wanted to transfer, wanted to go to a place where people understood him.
"It's different, and it's tough-that was my first time feeling like I couldn't do this, I couldn't be here," Dockery said. "They just said, 'You can do good things, you can graduate-no one in this area ever graduated-and you could be a role model to kids.'
"I kind of thought about it-I could do that. So that gave me strength right there."
Since that night, Dockery hasn't looked back. He's improved as a player-moving into the starting line-up as a junior-and is on pace to graduate with a degree in African American Studies.
Sources of strength
On the inside of his right wrist, just below his palm, Dockery has one of his several tattoos. Isaiah 46:4 is inked above a cross, and the names of his parents, Sherry and Steve, appear alongside.
Isaiah 46:4 reads, "Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am he, he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you."
The tattoo-which Dockery got during his junior year-serves as a constant reminder for him to love and cherish his parents, who not only convinced him to stay at Duke, but who helped him avoid trouble long enough to make it there.
"This is somewhere where I can just look," Dockery said. "My mother and father-that's me, that's my passion that's my everything."
At an inner-city school like Dockery's Julian High School, the temptation to do anything but attend class and study was strong. Dockery said he recalled classes in which all but five students were absent. The graduation rate at Julian is only 62 percent, and in 2002-2003, less than 25 percent of students met standard reading levels.
In that environment, Dockery needed guidance to make sure he persevered. Loren Jackson, Dockery's coach at Julian, made sure his star guard attended class. And Dockery's parents emphasized the tangible reason for their son to do his best.
"They just raised me the right way," Dockery said. "They showed me that through basketball I could go to school-I could be successful in life.
"They were just role models, being there, being strict and guiding me all the way."
Big brother
When he got to Duke, the freshman's previous role models were 800 miles away in Chicago. Into their place stepped Krzyzewski, a larger-than-life figure for a 19-year old that had dreamed of going to Duke since the fourth grade.
"Seeing Coach K was like meeting the president-[Sean] didn't know his attitude or anything like that," Steve Dockery said. "He was just star-struck seeing Coach K on TV all the time, and now he's your coach so [Sean] just had to get used to him a little bit."
Krzyzewski's legendary ability to form relationships with his players helped break down the barrier, but not without help from the man that Dockery calls his big brother.
When Dockery met former Blue Devil guard Chris Duhon at a high school ABCD basketball camp, Duhon had already won a National Championship. The two spent a lot of time together at the camp, hanging out, playing PlayStation and laying the foundation for their relationship at Duke.
Dockery came to Duke needing help relating to Krzyzewski and adjusting to the new culture of college life. Duhon, who had spent two seasons living at Duke and playing for Coach K, became Dockery's mentor.
"I say he's like my big brother-if I do anything bad or anything stupid, he's going to be the first to let me know," Dockery said. "He told me how to come at Coach and how to approach him."
Duhon has since moved on to the NBA's Chicago Bulls, but the two still talk almost every day. Duhon has always pushed his former teammate to take more shots. Dockery said Duhon's counseling has been instrumental in his transition from a freshman who scored less than four points per game to the senior who takes-and makes-some of Duke's biggest shots.
Along the way, Dockery's relationship with Krzyzewski blossomed.
"I love Sean," Krzyzewski said. "I don't think any kid has ever loved me more or listened to me any better. He has accepted anything that would be good for the team without flinching. Coming from his background and some of the opportunities that he missed out on-whether it be educationally or whatever-he has worked hard to where he is going to graduate on time."
'That's someone who did it'
Four years ago, Dockery told a reporter from Blue Devil Weekly he was happy just to be at Duke talking to him. The implication was that Dockery knew how easy it could have been for him to be in a much worse place.
Four years later, Dockery has reached a place that his freshman-year detractors said he never would. He's on pace to graduate; he's starting for one of the best teams in the country; and Krzyzewski said he's the best teammate he's ever coached.
"You come in here worrying that people think you're coming here just for the game of basketball," Dockery said. "I talked to my father about it, and he said, 'This is a great step-you've got a chance to prove someone wrong.' And that's what I did my four years here-every year just proving someone wrong.
"Kids can see me in my neighborhood and look at me and say that's someone who did it, so they can do it now.... I'm that guy telling them basketball's cool, but school's more important.... I know I'm touching someone."
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