Bryon Russell was a student-athlete at Long Beach State when he got the first glimpse of his future life, although he didn't know it at the time. The 49ers' basketball team was playing in the NCAA tournament in Salt Lake City, and Russell was not impressed with his surroundings. During an idle moment one day he told a teammate, "Man, I hope I never come to Utah again. This is some boring town."
So here he is, a few years later, sitting at a table in his Sandy home, bouncing baby Britnee on his knee, feeding her fries from a McDonald's sack, right smack dab in the middle of a white, suburban, fully domesticated Utah neighborhood. It's a strange new world. The first couple of days after Russell moved in, neighbors began bringing things to the door -- cookies, plants, pies, bread."Man, what's all this for?" he asked, completely perplexed.
"It's to welcome you to the neighborhood," they explained.
"It surprised the heck out of me," says Russell, looking back, smiling The Smile. "They were the nicest people. You'd never get that back home."
Russell, a survivor of the streets of both Los Angeles and Chicago, a man only a few years removed from looting and a street riot, spends most of each year in Utah, surrounded by his three small children, his wife, his nanny, his housekeeper, his two dogs, his cell phones and often one or two friends from his old California neighborhood.
Russell is a long way from home in more ways than mileage. "I think about it all the time," he says. "I'm blessed. I'm one of the fortunate ones to make the NBA and stay for a long time."
In his words, he received the "best of both worlds" when it came to an education, a chance to see both sides of life.
He has studied with teachers and professors; he has hung out with dope dealers and gangstas. He has been to college, he has been on the street. He has studied literature and math, he has dodged bullets and drugs. In the end, he might have succumbed to the temptation of the streets if his buddies hadn't looked out for him.
"They took care of me," he says. "They didn't want me around that stuff. I see them making money. They got nice cars, and they're dressin' nice, and they got a pocketful of cash. I said, 'I might want to try that.' They said, 'No, this is one thing we're gonna make sure you don't do. You got basketball. You can do better.'"
And so he has. Russell, 29, is a multimillionaire basketball player for the Utah Jazz whose star continued its gradual rise this season. He is famous for the brash statement he made when, as the relatively late 45th pick of the 1993 NBA draft, he announced, "This is going to be my team someday." He saw frequent action as a rookie, then slipped to the end of the bench for two seasons. In his third season he didn't play a minute in 22 games. Even as recently as the 1997-98 season, he was demoted to a reserve role for 75 games (he was made a reserve for a brief time this season but only because the Jazz thought it would be an effective strategy).
For the second straight season, Russell ranked second on the team in minutes played and scoring. In short, Russell is the small forward the Jazz lacked for so many years, as well as the future star of the team after the Malone and Stockton era ends.
Says coach Jerry Sloan, "I've always said this: If you go back and check the record for as long as Karl Malone and John Stockton have been here, this team is hard to beat if we get a great player at the (small forward) position. Bryon has been our most consistent performer at that position."
"Riiiingggg. Riiiingggg!" The phone rings at the Russell residence. And rings and rings and rings. During one 90-minute conversation, Russell is interrupted every few minutes by another call.
"It always does that," says Russell, staring at the phone. "I could be the AT&T operator." Russell, between bites from a burger, checks the caller ID to decide if he should answer. It's a friend from California, and he slips easily into street talk as the two banter briefly on the phone.
"He gets lots of calls, mostly friends from home," says his wife, Kimberli. "They call all the time, especially during playoffs -- you know, 'What's going on?' and giving him advice."
"I just got into phones," he says, looking over several wireless types lying on the table in front of him. "I had one at the house when I was growing up, but I never talked on it. I talk on the phone now. I'm a businessman. I call my (money managers) every day. I made this money; I want to know what they're doing with it. I never had much money, and I'm not trying to get rid of it. I learned about money growing up. Most people who get money blow it. Not me. I want to keep it. My friends and I used to talk in high school about what we would do with our money if we made the NBA. The first thing they'd say is, 'I'd buy a car.' I said, 'Man, I'd rent me a car.' I didn't buy a car my first year in the league. Larry (Miller) gave me a car."
But if Russell is careful with his money, he is also careless and carefree with it in some ways. Once, when his longtime pal and former college teammate, Carlos Dew, was staying at the house, he borrowed Russell's Land Cruiser to get around town. One day Russell gave him the car.
"I was tired of it anyway," he explains. "I wanted something new. I'm having a low-rider built, a '64 Chevy."
Russell estimates he has given maybe $100,000 to friends, many of them after they have asked for help.
"I have to worry about that sometimes," says Kim. "He tries to give everybody a chance, whether they've been bad or good in the past. Sometimes he gets taken advantage of because people know how generous he is. They keep borrowing, borrowing, borrowing, and they never pay it back. He gives it now and doesn't expect to be repaid. He'll be blessed in other ways. But I don't like when people take advantage of him. Come on, do something for yourself. It's getting better. He's starting to slow down. But (the truck to Carlos) -- that was worth it."
Russell and Kim met when they were freshmen at Long Beach State. She had noticed him around campus. He was charismatic, charming, and possessed that killer, devil-may-care smile. He was playful, teasing and fun, and people naturally gravitated toward him. He was an odd combination of a street-wise kid and a college kid, and he relished both roles. He wore his hair long -- "permed," he says -- and favored old jeans or khakis and T-shirts. On the court, he wore one sock long, the other short. He was also laid-back in a way that let the world and its business come to him. He was and is so easy going that he's almost languid.
"He has the best personality of anyone I've ever met," says Kim. "Things don't get to him. We met at a party. He was funny and had a lot of friends. He introduced himself, and we ended up in a class together. He turned on the charm. But all the girls liked him. I told him, 'I don't know if I can deal with this.' "
So she didn't. For a couple of years they didn't see each other much, and then Russell called on her again; after some resistance, they began dating seriously.
"The first time he was just too much -- too many girls liking him," says Kim. "He was not ready to be settled down with one woman."
They dated for a couple of years and then married early in Russell's NBA career. "There's no way I would marry anyone I didn't meet before I went to the NBA," he says. "I would've been a single man."
They have three children -- Kajun and the twins, Britnee and Brandon -- and divide their time between two houses -- the two-story in Sandy and their off-season home in California.
"He wanted kids immediately," says Kim. "He wanted a family right away. He likes kids. He's always been hands-on -- changing diapers, getting up at night, feeding them. (Kajun) is Daddy's girl. He takes her to the car wash and to run errands."
Kim and Bryon both grew up in California, but in neighborhoods that were worlds apart. Kim was reared in a "nice middle-class neighborhood" in Los Angeles, with both parents in the home. "That made a big difference," she says.
Russell and his siblings -- Maurice Jr., and Sonye -- were raised by their mother, Norma. Their father, Maurice, left the family when Bryon was still young, and he was never around much. During the Chicago years, they lived across the street from the projects. The Russell brothers were a rough crowd in a rough neighborhood.
"We always stayed in trouble," says Russell. "Me and my brothers. We'd fight all the time. All we did was fight. Every day after school. Back then we'd just fight and steal. We used to steal everything. I was bad. I'd shoplift like a mother. I can hot wire a car if you want me to."
Worried about the direction Bryon was heading, Norma sent him to live with his grandmother in Los Angeles for new scenery and new friends and then joined him six months later.
"L.A. was a different scene," he says. "I didn't know anyone. It changed me for better. Who knows what I'd be if I had stayed in Chicago. After a while I met people, and I didn't get in as much trouble."
But he did continue to hang on the periphery of street life. He watched his friends sell drugs but says he never did so himself, and there was more fighting and violence. "I've been shot at," he says. "I got in a fight with this guy one time. His friends and my friends had guns, but they all said, let these two fight. I had him on the ground and was getting the best of him. Then he grabbed a friend's gun, and I ran -- pow! pow! pow! . . . It's bad now. If I go back there now, I go during the day.
" . . . I didn't grow up like you grew up," Russell continues, eyeing a visitor. "Chicago in the '70s. We had family fights in the park playing baseball! My family against another family. They were punching, and oh, man!"
Russell continued to walk a fine line between street life and straight life. Ironically, the Jazz were in his hometown playing the L.A. Clippers in the playoffs when Russell, their future teammate, was participating in the Rodney King riots. The Jazz were hiding out in their hotel room because of the violence in the streets, little realizing that in two months they would draft one of the rioters.
"I was mad that (the cops) got off," says Russell. "I was looting with everyone else. Tapes. Phones. A TV."
All this notwithstanding, Russell says he has never felt racial hatred and has felt at ease with all races, which would explain his comfortable home in Sandy. "I had all sorts of friends growing up," he says. "White, Mexican, Black, Latino. Race was no big deal. Then I went to college and the teacher tells us about (and here Russell lowers his voice to imitate the professor) the way we all struggled (because of race.)"
Russell continues to maintain close ties to his old friends and to his family. They have a standing invitation to visit any time they want, his treat. All they have to do is give the word, and Russell calls the airlines, buys a ticket on his credit card and leaves it at the counter for them. He has a steady stream of house guests at his Sandy home, and it's all on him.
"If they come with $100 in their pocket, they leave with $100 in their pocket," he likes to say.
It wasn't until Russell reached the NBA that things began to thaw between him and his father, who has remained in Chicago. For years there was little contact between them, but that changed, "When I realized what's the use of being mad," says Russell. "Why am I being mad? We both started calling each other. We're close now. I bought him an apartment complex out there to run."
Russell always maintained a close relationship with Norma. Throughout his school years he would come home every afternoon and simply talk to her -- about girls, school, problems. "I still talk to my mom every day," he says. When Russell came into money -- he signed a four-year, $20 million contract three years ago -- he bought Norma a house in Corona, complete with a satellite dish so she could watch his games. For Mother's Day he bought her a diamond tennis bracelet set with the birthstones of her children. Actually, he gave it to her before Mother's Day because "I like to give her things on any day, not just a special day."
"My Mom taught me everything," he says. "Even about women, and that's not easy for a mom to tell you about a woman. All we had to grow up on was her. She taught me to be responsible, to be a gentleman, to conduct myself properly."
She also taught him always to "keep a smile on his face," which has become the Bryon Russell trademark. Not only does Russell smile frequently -- but he is blessed with The Smile. There's something about the combination of dimples and teeth in Russell's face that always held a certain charm for people.
"Growing up, I always heard it," he says. "'That's a nice smile, you got.' 'You got some pretty dimples.'"
"Everybody talks about his smile," says Kim. "Everybody. His friends watching on TV will call and say, 'Bryon's not smiling enough; what's wrong?'"
If Russell isn't smiling, it's probably because the media is asking him questions. Russell can turn on the charm, or turn it off, cold. Some reporters say he can be the biggest jerk on the team, but when the mood strikes he can be funny and accommodating.
Mostly Russell remembers his mother's admonition. Even when things weren't going well and he was in Jerry Sloan's doghouse, he kept smiling.
"People wondered how I could smile when there's turmoil on the team," he says. "Hey, I was blessed already to be in the NBA; why get mad? I wanted to play, but all I could do is keep working hard."
Russell's smile turns a blase face into a radiant, handsome visage. Some suggest he would make a fine model -- "and he thinks so, too!" says Kim.
"I'd be a cold model, man," says Russell. "Cause I look good, and I dress nice."
The scars only serve to add character to his look. The deep gash behind his left ear was the result of an accident in which he was cut by a fence. "I didn't even know I was cut," he says. "I started running, and I thought I was sweating. I felt back there and felt something wet. It was blood." Russell pulled the stitches out himself -- prematurely, as it turned out -- which helped form a large and permanent welt. Then there is mark under his right eye, the result of an elbow from Arizona's Ed Stokes.
Russell answers the phone again. And again. The calls keep coming. Mostly, he ignores them, but some of them he feels obliged to answer. "Sorry," he says. Russell hangs out at the house between games and practices, answering the phone or retreating to the basement where he listens to music, plays PlayStation or shoots pool.
"He'll stay there all day if he's got someone in town who'll play with him," says Kim. "He's very competitive."
Russell would like nothing more than to win a championship with the Jazz. He is remembered by many as the guy who was covering Michael Jordan when Jordan made the final shot of his career and beat the Jazz in Game 6 for the world championship. Just don't ask him about it.
"All the time people ask about Jordan," he says. "They say, 'Why'd you let Mike do that?' I didn't let him do nothin'. They ask me if it haunts me. Why would I let it haunt me? It's basketball."
And then he smiles The Smile.