I interviewed Jerrod Mustaf in 2003. At the time, he was launching a basketball minor league named Street Basketball AssociationI asked Mustaf, a former first-round pick of the New York Knicks whose own playing career was ended by a murder in Arizona years ago, whether he felt his past would hurt his chances of getting back into the game in any meaningful way. Will cause obstruction. ,
“The jury is still out,” he told me.
He spent most of our conversation blaming all his professional disappointments on his reputation as a man who had gotten away with murder. So I wasn’t sure whether his light-hearted use of a phrase was some kind of Freudian mistake, or something more sinister. Over time, I leaned more toward the latter.
Mustaf died on Monday in North Carolina. He was 55 years old. No cause of death has yet been released.
The cause of death of Althea Hayes has been public for decades. She was a 27-year-old woman who was found dead on the floor of her apartment in Glendale, Arizona, in July 1993, with multiple gunshot wounds to her body, two of which were in the head. Hayes worked at a local bookstore owned by Mustaf, who was a member of the Phoenix Suns at the time. Authorities later said that Hayes was pregnant with Mustaf’s child when she was killed. Hayes’s parents told police investigators and the media that she had told them the night before her murder that she had gone to meet Mustaf and had rejected his offer of $5,000 to get an abortion.
Mustaf’s cousin, 26-year-old Levonnie Wooten of Landover, MD, was arrested and charged as the man who pulled the trigger. Wootton was sent to Phoenix by Mustaf for reasons that were never made clear by the NBA player. Mustaf did not talk much to investigators other than to say that he did not know Hayes was pregnant. He admitted that on the day of the murder he had gone with Wooten to her apartment in separate cars. But Mustaf said he had heard from friends that she needed money and he just wanted to help. When he was subpoenaed to appear before a Maricopa County, Ariz., grand jury he exercised his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. Prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence against Mustaf to prosecute him and convicted only Wooten. According to a 1996 report Washington PostDuring Wooten’s murder trial “both the defense and the prosecution” argued that Mustaf “had arranged the murder out of frustration over Hayes’ pregnancy.” Wootton was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mustaf was in the news a lot in his childhood. He was a standout player at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, MD, as told by legendary coach Morgan Wooten. Washington Post He was “one of a handful of freshmen” to play for them, and became among the nation’s top recruits in the class of 1988. His father, Shar Mustaf, used the platform provided by his son’s talent and fame to start a righteous campaign To draw attention to the almost complete lack of black coaches in college basketball. Mustaf then played for the University of Maryland, where Baltimore High School coach Bob Wade was hired as the Terps’ first black head basketball coach following the death of Len Bias. Bade Mustaf told Washington Post He wanted Jerrod to be “not just considered a basketball player.”
Mustaf’s time at Maryland was plagued by post-bias turmoil and Wade’s greenlighting as a college coach. The school ignored Wade’s leadership position and the basketball program, along with renowned and beloved Terps coach Lefty Driesell and the entire university community are still mourning the bias that put them in a no-win situation. Transfer of many key players. Maryland forced Wade to resign after only three seasons in College Park. Mustaf left school with two years of eligibility and was taken with the 17th pick in the 1990 NBA draft. As a pro, Mustaf never lived up to the promise he showed as a prospect. After a rookie season in New York in which he averaged 4.3 points and 2.7 rebounds per game, Mustaf was sent to the suns Along with two second-round draft picks for Trent Tucker and Xavier McDaniel. Mustaf His performance as a player was not good out west.
In September 1994, when Mustaf was implicated in the Hayes murder, the Suns bought out the remaining two years of his contract and cut him down. When no other NBA team approached him, Mustaf fled to Europe and played for several seasons with teams including Strasbourg in the French League and FC Barcelona in Spain while looking for another opportunity. The Charlotte Hornets and Seattle Sonics signed Mustaf at various points during his overseas trips, but both teams released him without ever suiting up. Neither Charlotte nor Seattle publicly made any argument for a quick sign-and-cut. But seattle times It was reported that higher-ups in the Sonics organization had decided that Mustaf’s skills were not worth the excitement they were getting for signing a man who was still charged with “an alleged murder-for-hire plot.” There is doubt.” Mustaf never returned to the NBA.
At the turn of the century he returned to the DC area and ran a youth basketball business. He was given various accolades by local governments and organizations. 2017 acceptance inspired by Washington Wizards Sports Illustrated to write a story with title “Jerrod Mustaf is a community hero. Has anyone ever Googled him?”.
After hearing that he had died, I called DeMatha and asked if he was in the school’s athletic hall of fame. He is not. A school official said the non-induction comes down to “ethics”, and referenced Mustaf’s history of domestic violence arrests, paternity and child support civil lawsuits, and, well, as a person who His reputation survived the assassination. Ultimately, as his father wanted throughout his childhood, Mustaf was not just considered a basketball player.