Background

Allen Iverson was born on June 7, 1975 in Hampton, Virginia, United States. He is a son of Allen Broughton and Ann Iverson, a factory and shipyard worker. At the time of Allen's birth, his mother was a fifteen-year old teenager abandoned by Iverson's biological father.

Education

Allen Iverson was raised by his single mother as his biological father left her before their child's birth and never had much contact with his son. That is why Allen's early and teenage years were full of constant hardship. At first, his mother depended on his maternal grandmother, but after her death the situation of a young mother with a baby worsened much more.

When Allen was still a child, his mother started relationships with a welder for the Newport News Shipyard and Dry Dock Company, Michael Freeman, and bore him two girls. Freeman was for Iverson instead of his birth father and taught him the game of basketball. At the end of 1980, he lost his job, and then was arrested and convicted for selling drugs. The young mother with three children was left to fend for themselves. The family lived in extreme poverty and sometimes there was no electricity or water in the house.

Iverson dreamed of making the life of his family better, but the surrounding circumstances weren't conducive to fulfill the goal. Eight of his friends were killed, including his best friend. Sport was the only escape for the teenager. Despite poor school attendance, frequent confrontations with teachers, and troubles at home, Iverson kept it together just enough to be eligible to participate in sports. Having football as his first love, he also excelled in baseball and basketball.

As quarterback at Bethel High School, Virginia, Iverson, dubbed Bubbachuck by his friends, led the team to the state Class AAA football title in 1992. Only after the encouragement of his mother Iverson turned more attention to basketball, and the game soon replaced football as his favorite sport. He even managed to earn the title of the Associated Press High School Player of the Year in football and basketball.

The athletic achievements were darkened by an incident on February 13, 1993. Hanging with his friends at a bowling alley, he became embroiled in a fight which then turned into a brawl divided along racial lines. A 17-year-old Iverson was accused as one of the brawl's instigators and sentenced to five years in prison. He spent four months in jail before being granted release by the governor of Virginia under the condition that he won't play organized sports until he graduate from high school. For his high school senior year, Iverson was sent to Richard Milburn High School, Lake Ridge, Virginia. The conviction was soon overturned because of lack of evidence and the crime was stricken from Iverson's record.

Allen Iverson was given a scholarship to Georgetown University after finishing high school. He joined the local Georgetown Hoyas basketball team and soon led it with 20 points and 4.5 assists per game, receiving the Big East Rookie of the Year award. By his sophomore year, he averaged 23 points per game, won two Big East Conference Defensive Player of the Year awards and the Associated Press's 1996 First Team All-American title. Although the second season at the university was impressive, Allen Iverson decided to leave the University and to make his way to professional sport in order to support his mother who still lived in poverty and his own baby daughter.

Career

Allen Iverson entered the professional league baseball in 1996 when he was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers as the first overall pick, signing a $9.4 million contract with the team. Although he wasn't tall enough as the great majority of professional competitors, he quickly proved himself as one of the most exciting players in the league. His quickness and his signature crossover dribble helped him to reach a scoring average of 23.5 points per game and to lead the 76ers, winning Rookie of the Year honors.

Successful on the court, Iverson was harshly criticized for both his manner of playing and for an unconventional appearance when out of the game. His penchant for taking off-balanced shots, sometimes before looking for teammates, combined with a poor shooting percentage for a point guard (.416), and his turnovers, pushed some, especially the league's experienced players, to consider him selfish. The status of an idol that he gained among youth wearing oversized clothes and braiding the hair into rows, provided the success of his endorsement of Reebok products, in particular, the label's signature Iverson shoe, which was in high demand in the mid-1990s. By the end of the decade, the rookie player added rap artist's ambitions to his off-court matters.

The controversies that Iverson lived through during his first seasons in the NBA didn't stop him from further proving his talent on the court. The league scoring title of 1998-99 was followed by the scoring title, the steals title, and Most Valuable Player honors the next season when he led the 76ers to the NBA finals. The rap single "40 Bars" which Iverson released under his pen name Jewelz came under fire for numerous derogatory references to women and gays. As a result, the full album titled Forty Bars wasn't issued. In 2002, Reebok extended the athlete's 10-year endorsement contract.

2004 turned to be particularly prolific in Iverson's career. He contributed to the qualification of the USA Basketball Men's Senior National team to the Summer Olympics. Two personal records were set up by Iverson that same year. He became the tenth fastest player to score 14,000 points in NBA history and reached 40 points in a single game for the fiftieth time.

In the middle of the 2006-07 season Allen Iverson was traded to the Denver Nuggets, where young superstar Carmelo Anthony was among his teammates. An extremely proficient scorer, Iverson soon advanced his previous record and became the sixth fastest player in NBA history to score 20,000 career points. With the Denver failing to pass beyond the first round of the play-offs, the athlete decided to compete for a rival team. The athlete played for the Detroit Pistons from 2008 but left the squad at the end of the season in 2009.

After competing for the Memphis Grizzlies in the three games in 2009, Allen Iverson announced his retirement from professional basketball but eventually resumed his place in the Philadelphia 76ers. He signed with the team at the end of the year and left it right in February 2010 to spend time with his ailing daughter. His membership for the rest of the season wasn't approved by the team management.

Allen Iverson then tried himself overseas signing with the Turkish professional team, Beşiktaş J.K., in October 2010. He played in ten games for the squad till the leg surgery in early 2011. He was proposed to join the Texas Legends some time thereafter, but he denied, the same as the offer to compete in a professional indoor soccer league. Two years later, on October 30, Iverson announced his retirement from sport for good.

In addition to being the first great athlete strongly identified with the hip-hop movement, Iverson Also made his appearance on the screen. He has starred in two comedies, Like Mike and Imagine That, as himself, and also played in a 2017 biopic on American basketball player Stephon Marbury. That same year, Allen Iverson was invited as a player and coach to 3's Company team of the 3-on-3 professional basketball league BIG3 established by hip-hop musician and actor Ice Cube and entertainment executive Jeff Kwatinetz. The first game of the league took place on June 25, with the Ball Hogs as a rival to 3's Company.

Achievements

• 

  Allen Iverson went down in the history of basketball as one the most explosive and fastest players, controversial away from the game at the same time.
  
  An 11-time NBA All-Star, Iverson was a league leader in scoring four times and in steals three times. He is on the seventh place with regular season career scoring average of 26.7 and on the second, after Michael Jordan, with his playoff career scoring average of 29.7 points per game. The athletic achievements of Iverson were marked by the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player Award (twice) and the National Basketball Association Most Valuable Player Award, among other major basketball accolades. Iverson was also a recipient of the bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics (team competition).
  
  His first NBA team, the Philadelphia 76ers, honored their former member by retiring his No. 3 in 2014. Two years later, Allen Iverson was included into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Imagine That

    (A financial executive who can't stop his career downspira...)

    2009
  • Like Mike

    (A 14-year-old orphan becomes an NBA superstar after tryin...)

    2002

Religion

Iverson appears to be a Christian believer, but there are few details about his faith. A couple of things indicate an affinity to the Christian tradition, like the photo on this website in which Iverson is sporting a large cross around his neck.

Politics

Iverson is a largely non-political person.

Views

The most important things in Allen Iverson's life, apart from basketball, are family and friends. He has financially supported about a dozen relatives and several longtime friends. He sent his stepfather to a substance-abuse rehabilitation clinic. When the NBA expressed distrust towards the friends who remained with him from his early years, Iverson stated that he would never turn his back on them.

Iverson has always explained his uncommon look off the court as a part of who he is and as a reminder of the area where he came from.

Quotations: "If I don't believe it, then they don't need me on the court. I've just got to believe that in my heart."

"Being an All-Star is everything."

"I gave everything I had to basketball. The passion is still there, but the desire to play is not. It was a great ride."

"If that many people recognize how hard I go every night and what I put into my game, to make myself and my team better, it means a lot to me. I'm fortunate; I'm blessed to be in the situation that I'm in right now."

"My mom always told me that I could be anything I wanted to be. And I truly, actually believed it. And I fought."

"Football was my first love. Still is. I was going to go to one of those schools and play both. I just loved running the option, faking, throwing the ball, everything about football. I didn't even want to play basketball at first. I thought it was soft. My mother's the one who made me go to tryouts. I thank her forever. I came back and said 'I like basketball, too.'"

"When you lose, there is a whole bunch of room for negativity and I don't feed into this stuff and I do not do any talking. I don't run my mouth."

"I may not know everything about physical talent or anything like that, but I have a sharp mind when it comes to that look: being able to look into somebody's eyes to tell if they are going to be in the foxhole with you tonight, or if they are not."

Personality

Allen Iverson took the last name of his mother after his biological father left his mother before his birth.

At the beginning of his athletic career in the league, Iverson was criticized by the official NBA for his appearance uncommon with the league standards. Wearing baggy clothing, heavy jewelry coupled with braided hair and tattoos, instead of suits and ties, Iverson was much like many other young people of his generation rather than the NBA player. The Answer often had conflicts with coaches, including Larry Brown, and team officials about it, and was shown in the media as a selfish, disruptive player. Such a rebellious image was completed by his several run-ins with the law. Yet Iverson was highly appreciated by young fans for his style.

Physical Characteristics: Allen Iverson is 1.83 meters tall.

Quotes from others about the person

• Johnny Davis, former basketball player, Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach: "He's as quick with the ball as anyone in the history of the league. He's a combination of Isiah Thomas and Tiny Archibald. Fast guys in this league, he makes them look as if they're slow. He has a level beyond their quickness."
  
  Charles Barkley, former basketball player: "Me-Myself-and-Iverson."

Interests

• family

• Athletes

  John Thompson, Larry Brown

• Music & Bands

  rap music

Connections

Allen Iverson married his long-time girlfriend Tawanna Turner on August 23, 2001. The family produced five children, Tiaura, Allen II (both born out of marriage), Isaiah, Messiah, and Dream.

Tawanna filed for divorce after nine years of a family life. Although the divorce was finalized in 2013, Iverson stated that the couple reunited a month later.

Father:

Allen Broughton

Mother:

Ann Iverson

ex-wife:

Tawanna Turner

Daughter:

Tiaura Iverson

(born 1995)

Son:

Allen Iverson II

(born 1998)

Son:

Isaiah Rahsaan Iverson

(born August 8, 2003)

Daughter:

Messiah Iverson

(born 2005)

Daughter:

Dream Alijha Iverson

(born 2008)

coach:

John Thompson

(born September 2, 1941 – died August 30, 2020)

John Thompson, in full John Robert Thompson Jr., was an American college basketball coach who trained the basketball men's team of the Georgetown University, Georgetown Hoyas. Under him, the team made it to the first National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Men's Basketball Tournament in 1984. Thompson is an inductee of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

References

• Iverson The rise of basketball great Allen Iverson, told largely in his own words. From a turbulent childhood to controversial run-ins with the law to iconic Philadelphia 76ers all star, his unapologetic style influenced an entire generation.
  2015
• Allen Iverson: Fear no One Acclaimed sports journalist John Smallwood shows readers the Iverson they never knew: the boy, the man, the rapper, the player, the role model, and the icon.
  2001
• Allen Iverson The book explores the inspirational story of basketball's premier shooting guard, Allen Iverson, and explains what made him great, and what we can learn from his hard work.
  2014
• Not a Game: The Incredible Rise and Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson Through extensive research and interviews with those closest to Iverson, acclaimed Washington Post sportswriter Kent Babb gets behind the familiar, sanitized, and heroic version of the hard-changing, hard-partying athlete who played every game as if it were his last.
  2015
• Only the Strong Survive: The Odyssey of Allen Iverson Filled with exclusive interview material and unprecedented access to many of Iverson's inner circle, it is the in-depth look at the truth behind this newly minted legend.
  2002
• Official Twitter of Allen Iverson