# Dwyane Wade



## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/6880570.htm


*Living the storybook life* 
Heat rookie Dwyane Wade enters his first NBA training camp, the heartwarming culmination of a journey in which all his dreams came true. 

BY ISRAEL GUTIERREZ
[email protected]

Wade's a happy family man

Zaire Wade doesn't have it all figured out just yet.

When he plays basketball on a hoop set up in his living room, instead of counting down to simulate an expiring clock as he shoots, he counts up. ``Five, six.''

When he is told not to shoot, he defiantly throws the ball.

When his shot is blocked, he erupts in laughter and wants to do it again.

It's understandable. Zaire is 19 months old.

If he's anything like his dad, he will figure it all out fairly soon. After all, Dwyane Wade is just 20 years older and already has everything he ever wanted: a loving wife who he has known since he was 8, an adorable son who keeps him grounded, a close-knit family always willing to provide support and a career in the NBA that begins Wednesday with the opening of Heat training camp.

It's not that he ever planned on having this perfect an existence this soon. But with a little luck and a whole lot of faith, the shy, quiet kid from the south side of Chicago is living his version of the storybook life.

''When I was young, seeing that my mother and father weren't together, I always wanted my family to be right,'' Dwyane said. 'I didn't want it to be the way mine was. So I always said, `If God gives me the opportunity, I'm going to do it this way.' I promised God that I would do this.''

He may never have been able to keep his promise if it weren't for a bus ride he took about 13 years ago. His older sister, Tragil, took Dwyane from his mother's house on the south side of Chicago to his father's place in the suburb of Robbins, Ill.

''One day, a regular day, we just got on the bus and she took me and dropped me off at my father's house,'' Dwyane said. ``And I never went back. I thought it was just temporary, but I ended up being there the rest of my life.''

The decision was made to help keep 8-year-old Dwyane away from the gangs in his mother's neighborhood. But his sister, 13 at the time, didn't try to explain that to him.

''I didn't feel that he could understand,'' Tragil said.

All Dwyane knew was he enjoyed playing basketball with his stepbrothers and liked his new group of friends. He had no idea that one of them -- 9-year-old Siohvaughn -- would become his wife.

The two went through school together, separated by one year, and were casual friends for seven years. In 1997, they started dating. And it wasn't shy little Dwyane who made the first move.

''I had just gotten out of a little childish relationship, and I was telling her that I wasn't really ready for a relationship or whatever,'' Dwyane said. ``But she put the moves on me.''

Siohvaughn doesn't deny being the aggressor. Somebody had to be.

''Dwyane did a lot of growing up that summer,'' she said. ``He had a growth spurt over the summertime, and when we got back to school and I saw him, I was like, `Oh yeah, that's not little Dwyane anymore.'

``I liked the fact that I had already known him all this time. We were already friends. So it was like dating your best friend.''

No one, except maybe for Siohvaughn, saw the connection as anything more than a high school relationship.

''I didn't even think he was ready for girls and stuff like that,'' Tragil said.

Two years later, though, the two were still together, and they were about to experience the most difficult test of their relationship. During Dwyane's senior year in high school, Siohvaughn was away at Eastern Illinois for her freshman year of college.

''It was rough because I didn't have any form of communication to talk to her,'' Dwyane said. ``I didn't have a phone in my house, so I had to go to her mom's house when I wanted to talk to her.''

It just so happened Dwyane had some crucial decisions to make that year, and it didn't help that Siohvaughn was miles away. Dwyane eventually moved in with Siohvaughn's mother, Darlene Funches, because of martial problems between his father and stepmother. He also was struggling with the college recruitment process while trying to earn a qualifying ACT score.

An honor roll student, Dwyane still fell one point shy of the necessary score. His problems qualifying kept many of the big-name basketball schools away from him and left nearby schools such as Illinois State, DePaul and Marquette as the only serious suitors.

With help from his sister, Funches, and his high school coach, Jack Fitzgerald, Dwyane chose Marquette, becoming the first partial qualifier ever to be accepted to the school.


TIME TO PROPOSE

Even better news: Dwyane and Siohvaughn's relationship survived their first year of distance. And by the time Dwyane got to Marquette, he wanted to make sure it would survive any such challenges in the future.

A ring would do the trick.

During his first semester at Marquette, Dwyane decided he would propose to his high school sweetheart.

''I went and got him from up in Marquette one weekend and took him over to Montgomery Ward jewelry and picked out the ring he wanted to get,'' Funches said. ``That was around Thanksgiving. We kept that a secret, and when they all got here for Christmas, she still had no clue.''

That night's dinner included T-bone steaks, baked potatoes, vegetables and an elegant proposal.

''They were sitting there having dinner, and I was trying to stay out of the dining room,'' Funches said. ``I was peeking out of these shutter doors, and she had not a clue. He told her he loved her and that she stuck by him and everything. He said even though we're apart and it's really hard, it's worth it. He got down on his knee and he grabbed this box from his pocket and said, `Will you marry me?'

``She just burst into tears.''

The following spring, it was Siohvaughn who would provide the surprise. Dwyane was in Italy with a group of American college basketball players trying to gain experience by playing on an overseas tour.

One night, Siohvaughn called to tell her fiancé they were going to have a baby.

''When she called me, it's crazy, but I had a dream the night before that she was pregnant,'' Dwyane said. 'When she called me, she said, `I have something to tell you.' I said, 'I already know.' ''

FINDING A WAY 

Dwyane was about to start his first year of college basketball, and Siohvaughn was still a sophomore at Eastern Illinois, so there were concerns about how they could handle the responsibilities of a newborn. Once Siohvaughn received her mother's full support, she knew they'd find a way.

''We make plans, but we're not the ultimate planners,'' Funches said. ``So if it happened, it must be meant to be.''

Siohvaughn stayed in school through the pregnancy, and Dwyane was in the middle of his first season of basketball at the time. On Feb. 4, 2002, a couple days after a big conference game against Cincinnati, Zaire Blessing Dwyane Wade was born.

When he was younger, Dwyane joked with his father that he would have a son by the time he was 20. And here he was, 20, and already he had the family he knew he wanted.

It wasn't complete, though. Not without the wedding.

So on May 18, 2002, in a Chicago church, Siohvaughn, wearing the same silver dress she wore to Dwyane's high school prom two years earlier, and Dwyane, in a rented black tuxedo, completed their fairy tale.

And it only got better.

Siohvaughn transferred to Marquette the next fall, and the family of three was together to experience Dwyane's rise to national prominence. With his wife at every game, Dwyane led Marquette to a berth in the NCAA Tournament's Final Four and was arguably the nation's best college player. His run through the tournament included a triple-double in the regional final against Kentucky and a ferocious dunk over Wildcats center Marquis Estill.

All the attention Dwyane never really received coming out of high school he was getting now, and the world was getting to know this mature, humble, settled family man. That world included NBA scouts, so once his season was over Dwyane had to decide whether or not to enter the NBA Draft and prepare his family for another life-altering adjustment.

''I was a little nervous,'' Siohvaughn said. ``We had just gotten settled in, and our marriage had just like a year of foundation and all this stuff was going to be new. But we prayed about it, and as time went on I got more and more confident.

``We figured we had made it this far, so . . .''

Why not trust his instincts again? As it turned out, it was his basketball instincts that got him drafted No. 5 overall by the Miami Heat.

NEVER FLUSTERED 

''In the workout we had over here, he wasn't good at all,'' Heat coach Pat Riley said. ``He missed shots, he looked a little bit nervous and tentative, and he started to miss more shots. But when you watch him on tape, you see a guy who reads the game, has patience, never gets flustered, he doesn't change his expression.''

Dwyane's expressions changed quite a bit from the time his name was called at No. 5 to the time he and his family were whisked away in the Heat team plane to the moment in Miami when his sister reminded him what this all meant.

'We were sitting there and I said, `You know, you're a millionaire now,' '' Tragil said. 'And he was like, `Who?' ''

Being financially secure is just a bonus for Dwyane. He's rich because he has a wife who makes him broccoli and cheese Rice-A-Roni, watches The Golden Girls on the Lifetime Network and sings along to the theme song of The Nanny. Because he has a son who has so much free-flowing hair he calls him '' 'fro.'' Because his nights out on the town often include a stroll pushing a stroller through Coconut Grove. Because he'll soon be able to play basketball in front of thousands of fans and then come home and play basketball with his son in the living room.

And because, as his sister simply states it, for Dwyane, ``the blessings just keep flowing.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)




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## Priest (Jun 24, 2003)

what a nice story...atleast he is with someone who will be with him in the long run not some girl who wants him for the $$$$$$


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