How Fred VanVleet's Stepdad Made Him the Perfect Point Guard for Wichita State
By Jason King , College Basketball National Lead Writer Mar 4, 2014
Peter Aiken/Getty Images
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WICHITA, Kan. — He made drug busts and responded to gang fights deep into the night, rarely finishing his shift with the Rockford, Ill., Police Department before 2 a.m.
Still, when Joe Danforth arrived at home, his routine was always the same.
He’d remove his gun belt, doze off for a few hours and then wake up and walk to the bottom of the staircase.
"Get uuuupppp!” Danforth bellowed, his voice a virtual alarm clock. "It’s time to gooooooo!”
Half asleep in a second-floor bedroom, 10-year-old Fred VanVleet buried his face under a pillow and pretended not to hear.
He didn’t want to begin his day at 5:30 a.m., when it was still dark outside. He didn’t enjoy those silent drives in the backseat of Danforth’s two-door Pontiac Grand Am, which usually pulled into the YMCA parking lot around 6. And he despised those games of full-court one-on-one with his older brother J.D., which he played while wearing a weighted, 30-pound vest.
Other times, Danforth put VanVleet through drills at a seven-story parking garage, screaming at his fourth-grade stepson as he ran up ramps and flights of stairs while the rest of the city was still waiting for the morning paper. When it was all over, he’d drop VanVleet off at school.
Danforth’s buddies at the police station often joked with him about the workouts—”They told me I was crazy,” he said—but Danforth wouldn’t relent.
Photo courtesy of Susan VanVleet.
“You’re not going to sit around and be a bum,” Danforth would tell VanVleet. “You're not going to be average. Anyone can be average. You’re going to be somebody.”
Danforth didn’t want VanVleet to follow the path of his biological father, who was shot and killed in a drug deal when VanVleet was five.
He refused to let VanVleet fall prey to the Vice Lords, Wacos or any of the other gangs that infested their neighborhood. And he was determined that VanVleet wouldn’t suffer the same fate as his eighth-grade teammate, Spider.
Danforth was on duty the night Spider was shot in the neck. He watched him bleed to death in the street.
VanVleet listened to his stepdad’s message, but it didn’t make his prodding any easier to absorb.
“He could be so mean,” VanVleet said. “He cracked the whip on me and my brothers, and I didn’t always understand. I just wanted to be a kid. I probably didn’t smile a lot back then.”
These days, though, VanVleet couldn’t be happier.
One of 10 semifinalists for the Naismith National Player of the Year award, VanVleet is the catalyst for an undefeated Wichita State squad hoping to reach its second straight Final Four.
The Shockers, 31-0, are the first team in 10 years to finish the regular season without a loss. If it wins this week’s Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, Wichita State will become the first team in 23 years to enter the NCAA tournament without a blemish.
Shockers coach Gregg Marshall said Wichita State’s success would’ve never occurred without VanVleet. In turn, VanVleet can’t help but wonder where he’d be without those 5:30 a.m. wake-up calls, without those workouts at the YMCA before school.
Without Danforth.
“He turned out to be a blessing,” VanVleet said. “If he had never come along, who knows what would’ve happened to me.”
Joe Robbins/Getty Images
***
VanVleet’s success as history-making point guard at Wichita State brought attention to a town in desperate need of positive press.
It was only a year ago when Rockford was ranked No. 3 on Forbes magazine’s list of “America’s Most Miserable Cities.” The article mentioned Rockford’s 11.2 percent unemployment rate.
VanVleet said an “air of hopelessness” hovers over Rockford like that cloud over Pigpen, creating the tension and angst that often leads to crime.
“There are no role models,” VanVleet said. “None of your friends have parents that are doctors or established businessmen. Nobody is in the NBA. Nobody is a famous rapper.
“I’ve got friends whose parents work three jobs. They don’t know where their next meal is going to come from. When you’ve got a bunch of people living in poverty like that, bad things happen.”
VanVleet was in kindergarten when that lifestyle claimed the life of his father, Fred Manning. And there were certainly opportunities for it to engulf VanVleet.
With no metal detectors at Auburn High School, VanVleet said it was normal for classmates to tote guns in their waistbands or backpacks.
A few weeks after being shot in the leg, a student returned to school wearing a bulletproof vest. A man was stabbed to death during school hours on a vacant lot across the street, and Danforth recalled multiple times when students returning from off-campus lunch were mugged in the parking lot by a student with a .357 Magnum.
“Drugs, prostitution, friends and cousins who were shot...it was happening all around me,” VanVleet said. “It’s weird seeing how people react when I tell them the stories. To me, it was all so normal.”
VanVleet, though, never let it become a part of who he was.
Photo courtesy of Susan VanVleet.
His family wouldn’t let him.
By Jason King , College Basketball National Lead Writer Mar 4, 2014
Peter Aiken/Getty Images
142.9K
Reads
44
Comments
WICHITA, Kan. — He made drug busts and responded to gang fights deep into the night, rarely finishing his shift with the Rockford, Ill., Police Department before 2 a.m.
Still, when Joe Danforth arrived at home, his routine was always the same.
He’d remove his gun belt, doze off for a few hours and then wake up and walk to the bottom of the staircase.
"Get uuuupppp!” Danforth bellowed, his voice a virtual alarm clock. "It’s time to gooooooo!”
Half asleep in a second-floor bedroom, 10-year-old Fred VanVleet buried his face under a pillow and pretended not to hear.
He didn’t want to begin his day at 5:30 a.m., when it was still dark outside. He didn’t enjoy those silent drives in the backseat of Danforth’s two-door Pontiac Grand Am, which usually pulled into the YMCA parking lot around 6. And he despised those games of full-court one-on-one with his older brother J.D., which he played while wearing a weighted, 30-pound vest.
Other times, Danforth put VanVleet through drills at a seven-story parking garage, screaming at his fourth-grade stepson as he ran up ramps and flights of stairs while the rest of the city was still waiting for the morning paper. When it was all over, he’d drop VanVleet off at school.
Danforth’s buddies at the police station often joked with him about the workouts—”They told me I was crazy,” he said—but Danforth wouldn’t relent.
“You’re not going to sit around and be a bum,” Danforth would tell VanVleet. “You're not going to be average. Anyone can be average. You’re going to be somebody.”
Danforth didn’t want VanVleet to follow the path of his biological father, who was shot and killed in a drug deal when VanVleet was five.
He refused to let VanVleet fall prey to the Vice Lords, Wacos or any of the other gangs that infested their neighborhood. And he was determined that VanVleet wouldn’t suffer the same fate as his eighth-grade teammate, Spider.
Danforth was on duty the night Spider was shot in the neck. He watched him bleed to death in the street.
VanVleet listened to his stepdad’s message, but it didn’t make his prodding any easier to absorb.
“He could be so mean,” VanVleet said. “He cracked the whip on me and my brothers, and I didn’t always understand. I just wanted to be a kid. I probably didn’t smile a lot back then.”
These days, though, VanVleet couldn’t be happier.
One of 10 semifinalists for the Naismith National Player of the Year award, VanVleet is the catalyst for an undefeated Wichita State squad hoping to reach its second straight Final Four.
The Shockers, 31-0, are the first team in 10 years to finish the regular season without a loss. If it wins this week’s Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, Wichita State will become the first team in 23 years to enter the NCAA tournament without a blemish.
Shockers coach Gregg Marshall said Wichita State’s success would’ve never occurred without VanVleet. In turn, VanVleet can’t help but wonder where he’d be without those 5:30 a.m. wake-up calls, without those workouts at the YMCA before school.
Without Danforth.
“He turned out to be a blessing,” VanVleet said. “If he had never come along, who knows what would’ve happened to me.”
***
VanVleet’s success as history-making point guard at Wichita State brought attention to a town in desperate need of positive press.
It was only a year ago when Rockford was ranked No. 3 on Forbes magazine’s list of “America’s Most Miserable Cities.” The article mentioned Rockford’s 11.2 percent unemployment rate.
VanVleet said an “air of hopelessness” hovers over Rockford like that cloud over Pigpen, creating the tension and angst that often leads to crime.
“There are no role models,” VanVleet said. “None of your friends have parents that are doctors or established businessmen. Nobody is in the NBA. Nobody is a famous rapper.
“I’ve got friends whose parents work three jobs. They don’t know where their next meal is going to come from. When you’ve got a bunch of people living in poverty like that, bad things happen.”
VanVleet was in kindergarten when that lifestyle claimed the life of his father, Fred Manning. And there were certainly opportunities for it to engulf VanVleet.
With no metal detectors at Auburn High School, VanVleet said it was normal for classmates to tote guns in their waistbands or backpacks.
A few weeks after being shot in the leg, a student returned to school wearing a bulletproof vest. A man was stabbed to death during school hours on a vacant lot across the street, and Danforth recalled multiple times when students returning from off-campus lunch were mugged in the parking lot by a student with a .357 Magnum.
“Drugs, prostitution, friends and cousins who were shot...it was happening all around me,” VanVleet said. “It’s weird seeing how people react when I tell them the stories. To me, it was all so normal.”
VanVleet, though, never let it become a part of who he was.
His family wouldn’t let him.
but you gotta know there were some days he absolutely dreaded a trip to the Y, all like :deadshocker: "Not today! 
"
