Eddie Griffin's terrible end
The Roman standout was a superior talent with serious troubles.
HOUSTON - It's a nondescript four-lane street, nothing fancy, with a post office and a self-service "Car Spa" on one side of the railroad tracks. The Lawndale Avenue Baptist Church sits just over on the other side.
There are no visible skid marks, old or new, by the tracks, no signs that Eddie Griffin - former Roman Catholic High School basketball star and NBA player - and his Nissan SUV slowed down on Aug. 17 before slamming into a southbound Union Pacific freight train.
TOM GRALISH / Inquirer Staff Photographer
Eddie Griffin during his Roman Catholic days. He was expelled before the end of his senior year for fighting with a teammate.
That collision ignited a blaze and instantly killed the 25-year-old Griffin in a crash so horrific that it took four days for authorities to identify his 6-foot-10 body from dental records.
Nobody seems to know why Griffin crashed into the train, whether it was a terrible accident or something that spoke to what friends called Griffin's "inner demons." Griffin had a tangled, long history of depression and alcohol and drug abuse, and he had become more famous lately for his scrapes with the law than for his basketball skills.
Were drugs or alcohol involved in the crash? Toxicology results are pending. Was he depressed in his final hours? No one knows.
One thing is certain. The problems Griffin grappled with throughout his life ruined his NBA career and left his family and friends struggling to make sense of his terrible end.
"He'd give you the shirt off his back," said John Lucas, the former NBA player and coach who has turned to counseling troubled athletes. "I had two friends put out of their house. Ed took them in. They slept on his sofa. He put blankets on them. A lot of ways, he was selfless to a fault."
Then there was the time Griffin's Roman Catholic team was set to play Dajuan Wagner and Camden in a classic battle of the titans in a tournament at Temple.
Earlier that day, as tickets went on sale, promoter Jeremy Treatman glanced at the line of about 100 people at the ticket window. Eddie Griffin was second in line.
Treatman said, "What are you doing out here?"
Griffin, who went on to score 29 points in a dominating performance, replied, "I've got to get tickets for a lot of people."
Kindness was not his problem, Lucas said.
"His problem was dealing with life on life's terms," he said. "He couldn't find the 'on' button. . . . We could never find that 'on' button to say, 'This makes me happy.' "
Even if Griffin had made it to the top of the NBA, Lucas said he wasn't sure whether Griffin could have maneuvered through the potholes there, either.
"He never grew as an adult," Lucas said. "As an athlete, ever since you were 10 years old, everything was done for you.
"And now [we're] finding out that we are normal people with real living problems. But how we cope with those problems is different because we don't get those coping skills."
Despite that superior basketball talent, Griffin never had a smooth run through life.
His Houston-based attorney, Rusty Hardin, said he believed that Griffin's drinking began in high school but spiraled out of the control after Marvin Powell, his 34-year-old half brother and father figure, died of a heart attack three months before Griffin was selected No. 7 in the 2001 NBA draft.
Even Griffin acknowledged that Powell's death traumatized him.
