Bodyguards Set Picks For High-Profile Players -- For Many, Personal Security Is Way To Go

NEW YORK - Charles Barkley likes to refer to it as "open season."

Each time he takes a step out into the public, the Houston Rockets' star is an open and easy target for harassment. The same thing can be said for many of his NBA companions.

Too many times, Barkley has been a victim of some fan who pushed his buttons to the limit. The most recent incident occurred during the preseason, when Barkley tossed a bar patron through a plate-glass window in Orlando after the man threw a glass of ice at him.

"This stuff keeps happening," Barkley said in late October. "It is very frustrating to me that I cannot go out and have a drink without somebody bothering me. But, when you are famous, that's just how it is."

Well, the NBA has found a remedy for Barkley's grief. Rather than risk another potential legal embarrassment, the league assigned Barkley, 34, bodyguards to accompany him any time he ventures into the public.

Apparently, a growing number of NBA players feel personal security is the way to go. It seems that more and more of Sir Charles' NBA peers are growing tired of finding themselves in the middle of multi-million dollar lawsuits. That is why Chicago's championship trio of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman, Miami's Alonzo Mourning, Orlando's Penny Hardaway and Horace Grant, Philadelphia's Allen Iverson and the Los Angeles Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal are among those who have bodyguards.

Even a few NBA teams - Houston, Orlando and the Lakers - have hired additional security.

As Washington's Chris Webber puts it: "Trouble looks for us every day. Every second of the day, trouble looks for us."

So, hiring an ex-cop or ex-FBI agent to keep overzealous fans at bay seems like a plausible solution. The player enjoys his night out, owners get to sleep a little better and agents don't have to worry as much about their clients' extracurricular activities ruining their marketing image.

"One of the reasons why they hire us is that they want to go anywhere they want without feeling inhibited to go out to different places," said one bodyguard, who requested anonymity for his client's safety.

"A lot of professional athletes who hire security have their own reasons," the bodyguard said. "It might be as simple as having a buffer when they go out to eat or when they go out with their family and they don't want to be bothered by signing autographs or pictures."

For the most part, athletes feel that approximately 90 to 95 percent of the public is harmless. Yet, there is still that small percentage that remains and must be dealt with.

Washington's Rod Strickland, 31, knows all too well about getting into trouble. Like Barkley, he's had one too many scuffles. As of now, the 6-3 guard, born and raised in the Bronx, doesn't employ bodyguards. He, like many players in the league, prefers the company of longtime friends or "boys."

"Not that (having bodyguards) isn't a bad idea," said Strickland, who recently did some Christmas shopping, unnoticed, at a crowded Washington mall with a few friends.

"I don't want to go into specifics, but there's been plenty of times when guys try you out at parties. I've been at restaurants where people approached me and said some things to me. And sometimes, just like a regular person, you react to it. Then later on you say, `Man, I should have just not have said anything.' But it's not always that easy.

"I know I have people around me who try to settle things down if something happens," Strickland said. "But I definitely thought about the bodyguard thing . . . just in case, you know what I mean? It's like I've been through so many incidents . . . just for it not to happen again, to know it won't happen again."

Bodyguards, according to some players, attract too much attention. They create a rock-star atmosphere most players would rather stay away from. Take Jordan, for example. He has three bodyguards - ex-Chicago policemen - who accompany the world-famous athlete wherever he goes in public. A guard is assigned to his wife, Juanita, as well.

After practice, most players have wives and families to go home to. Not Minnesota's Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury. Both are under 21, popular and rich. Both are also new to their Minnesota surroundings, having grown up in Chicago and New York, respectively. Despite that, Timberwolves Coach Flip Saunders says his two franchise players don't need 24-hour baby sitters.

"You need them to go through the process of being a young player," Saunders said. "Having a bodyguard, it inhibits your space - what you're doing or where you're going. KG knows that they don't need a bodyguard to go to the mall or to the arcade. Both have a lot of their friends around them all the time, so it's not like they are totally alone a lot. They know how to deal with the pressures of people coming up to them."

Detroit's Jerry Stackhouse, 23, is another young, popular player who chooses not to have a bodyguard. Instead, Stackhouse has a close buddy from high school who lives with and cooks for Stackhouse.

"Most people only want five seconds of your time, just to say hello and that's it," Stackhouse said. "That's the way I like to keep it. That (personal security) is extreme measures."

Yet, they are measures that Philadelphia owner Pat Croce and agent David Falk chose for their young star, Iverson. After Iverson, 22, ran into some legal trouble over the summer, he was asked to have personal security with him at all times.

After a game against the Nets last month, Iverson was signing autographs while his bodyguard shadowed his every step. Iverson's guard surveyed the scene as if he was one of the president's secret service agents.

That is a comforting sight for Croce.

"It's great because it helps keep the environment around him a little more safer than it would have been otherwise," Croce said. "In Allen's case, it gives him a designated driver at all times. It gives him someone who is accountable. Even his driver knows he's got to be at practice at 9:30 a.m. Allen might be sleeping and he'll make sure he's not late.

"In addition, (a bodyguard) gets him out of environments where trouble might occur, things you can't control, like in a nightclub or anywhere. Boom! Out of there."

Croce isn't exaggerating. In November, Iverson was at a club in Philly where shots were fired leaving one dead and two injured. Iverson was swept away to safety by his two bodyguards.

Like most of his peers, Iverson had an entourage of his friends surrounding him when he came into the league last season. However, Croce says surrounding oneself with longtime friends can have its negatives as well.

"I believe that sometimes boys can cause trouble," Croce said. "If these guys are smart and got it together, that's great. But what if they don't? And when they get in trouble, that rubs off on the player because they have no credentials. My friends care about me, but then again they might care too much about me and get a little too rough.

"When he walks with a person who is accountable and disciplined and someone who has a good presence, it rubs off," Croce said. "A bodyguard isn't just a guy with big muscles, (he's) got to be a smart professional. It gives me a little more security that I know (Iverson) is in good confidence. It's an insurance policy."

Or is it? According to Detroit's Grant Hill, if somebody is out to really get him, bodyguards might not do him any good.

"I pretty much do everything by myself," Hill said. "If they want to get to you, they'll get to you. That is my approach. Two people that a lot of people our age admire - Tupac (Shakur) and Biggie (Notorious B.I.G.) - they got unfortunately killed and they had bodyguards with them."

But Hill, 25, also added some words of wisdom that every NBA player, young or old, should heed.

"If you hang out where trouble is, then you're going to be in trouble," Hill said. "If I can't go someplace by myself or with a friend, then I won't go. I don't try to go places where there will be trouble."