Anthony was born in 1984 in New York City, in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, which, four years later, Life magazine described as “a community ruled by crack.” His Puerto Rican father, Carmelo Iriarte, died of liver cancer when Anthony was 2. It was a tough beginning for the future superstar, and circumstances would only get harder.
When he was 8, Anthony and his mother, Mary Anthony, moved to one of Baltimore’s toughest neighborhoods, the blighted, drug-ravaged landscape portrayed in HBO’s The Wire. There, he surrounded himself with a tight circle of friends, and they hung together like a protective shield. Instead of getting caught up in the drugs and violence that marred their community, they earned money by scraping grime off the windshields of passing cars. They played sports together. They held each other up, Anthony says.“We’d all push each other. We’d get each other in the morning, walk to school, walk to practice, like a little breakfast club,” he recalls. “I didn’t have anyone to show me which steps to walk, which way to go. I didn’t have that in my neighborhood. But I had my peers, and we pushed each other, we motivated each other.”
This the 'tight circle' that was around him on Punk'd.
Matt McMillen also reveals that Anthony's first love was baseball...until he added 5 inches in high school. And Carmelo states he may return to Syracuse at some time in the future:
“At the end of my basketball career, life will just be starting for me,” Anthony says, adding that he may contemplate a return to college. “But right now it’s basketball. I love what I do, and I love the fact that every day I have a chance to get better at something I love to do and have the opportunity to grow. That is important to me, that pushes me, that motivates me.”
We'll see about that...
[WebMD]
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