Bulls' Gibson well-grounded before taking off as rookie

There's a reason why Bulls forward Taj Gibson has been playing more like a seasoned veteran than a rookie chosen with the No. 26 pick of the first round.

Before becoming one of the Bulls' steadiest performers, Gibson learned to keep working through tough circumstances as a teenager living in Brooklyn.

For a while, he gave up playing high school basketball, even though he was growing into one of the city's top prospects. More precisely, he gave up high school altogether.

He was assigned to a distant school, which would have required a daily round trip on a bus and train through rough, gang-infested neighborhoods.

Rather than worry herself sick about whether Taj would make it back safely each day, his mother, Sharon, chose to keep him at home.

"There was such a phenomenal baby boom in the year he was born (1985)," Sharon Gibson explained in a phone interview. "All the ninth-graders were sent to different high schools because of overpopulation. I wasn't accepting that."

So Gibson home-schooled her son for a few months. When she finally straightened out the situation and got him enrolled at nearby Telecommunications High School in Brooklyn, he was about a year behind the others in his class.

Before long, though, the family faced another obstacle - destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Gibson's father, Wilbert, had been working as a carpenter in the Twin Towers, for a company that bought office furniture from defunct businesses, then refurbished and resold the pieces.

"We probably had 11 floors of furniture in that building at one point," Wilbert Gibson said.

It had all been cleared out a few months before the terrorist attacks, but on the day it happened, his family wasn't sure whether Wilbert was inside one of the buildings.

"It was a nightmare," Sharon recalled. "We didn't know for most of the day. The phone systems were down. It was very crazy. When he finally got within range, he called me on the Nextel two-way radio."

Mr. Gibson was elsewhere on Long Island that day, far from the chaos and tragedy that struck lower Manhattan. But the destruction had an effect on the New York economy and his carpentry work slowed down considerably.

With his family facing a financial crunch, Taj decided to step up and help bring in some money. So he put basketball on hold and took a series of part-time jobs.

"It was tough, seeing everybody else get to play. Me, I'm going to work," Taj said. "I'm doing things grown-ups are doing at a young age. I had to convince myself that I had to keep sticking with it.

"A lot of times I just felt like giving up. I just kept the mind-set, kept going to church and stuck with it.

"The worst job I ever had was for a moving company. I'd be on the shift for 12 hours. I was in hot cellars picking up filth and was moving furniture, taking apart furniture. It kind of taught me how to be responsible."

Taj remembers his parents even telling him to slow down, but he stuck it out.

"I felt that since I was the next man in the house, I needed to take most of the responsibility," said Taj, who has an older sister and a younger brother.

"So I just stepped up, told my dad I was going to help him. My dad was like, 'No, no, don't do that.' But any other kid who was in dire need to help his family would do the same thing."

Things got better, but Gibson still was behind in school. His mother remembered educators encouraging him to get a GED, but he wanted to play basketball. Eventually, he went across the country to attend Stoneridge Prep in Tarzana, Calif., where he spent two years, before switching to nearby Calvary Christian.

"He was very focused, had no problems," Sharon Gibson said. "Even though I wasn't there, I was always on the phone with them every week, getting a weekly report.

"I always put on my children, 'I want you to be someone because you deserve to be it, not because someone was giving you something.' Taj is very mature for his age."

Moving to California proved to be a smart move as Gibson was recruited by Tim Floyd to USC. After a productive college career, he was drafted by the Bulls and became one of this year's most surprising rookies.

In December, he has averaged 10.3 points and 7.6 rebounds, while shooting 53 percent from the field.

"He had some tough times, but he endured it and his dream came true," Wilbert Gibson said. "I remember when he was a little boy, 9 years old, we were on the basketball court and he's telling me, 'Dad, I'm going to be in the NBA one day.'

"I said, 'Yeah, right. There's more to life than playing ball.'

"He said, 'I'm going to prove it to you dad. I'm going to make you happy and make it to the NBA.' And look what happens - his dream came true."