zzLives Forever Changed: The costars of Hoop Dreams didn't make it to the NBA, b

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If there's a drawback common to most documentaries, it's the absence of closure, the lack of a sequel. No matter how engrossed an audience becomes in a subject, there is lingering curiosity. Take Hoop Dreams, the award-winning film that laid bare the myth of salvation through basketball. Neither 威廉 Gates nor Arthur Agee, the two 芝加哥 hoops virtuosos whom the movie shadowed through their teenage years, ever made it to the NBA. That much most folks know. But five years after the release of the highly acclaimed film, what has happened to the two principals?

A hoop dreamer emeritus, Gates, 27, laughs self-effacingly when he recalls the intensity of his adolescent aspiration to make it to the pros. "Don't get me wrong, I still love basketball," he says. "But sometimes I can't believe how big a role it played in my life, how that guy in the movie was me."

As his well-upholstered midsection attests, basketball has slid precipitously on Gates's list of priorities. He is far more concerned with providing for his wife, Catherine—who was his high school girlfriend—and their three children, ages one, four and 10. Gates commutes 100 miles a day from the family's home in Wisconsin to Mt. Prospect, Ill., where he works for the Community Economic Development Association (CEDA). He plans to attend law school next fall. He is also on the board of directors of the fledgling Collegiate Professional Basketball League. "I'm just a normal, middle-class guy now," he says, "and that's fine with me."

At the end of Hoop Dreams, before Gates's freshman season in college, his basketball career had already peaked. Having never fully recovered from a knee injury he suffered in high school, Gates averaged less than eight points a game in his four years at Marquette. After taking a break from school to work full time, Gates received his degree in communications last spring. As the first member of his family to finish college, he had to approach the dean's office three times to ask for extra graduation tickets. "I had about 40 people cheering me on, including my three kids," he says. "Getting that piece of paper felt as good as any game-winning basket I ever made."

He doesn't want for anything, but 威廉 Gates will never be mistaken for Bill Gates. "Like most people," he admits, "I wish things were a little better for me financially." That said, does he resent that players such as the 華盛頓 Wizards' Juwan Howard and the 達拉斯 Mavericks' Michael Finley, both of whom he lit up in high school, make millions in the pros? "Not at all," says Gates, surprised by the question. "I root like crazy for those guys, and one day I'll tell my kids, 'I was part of that class.' They just went in one direction, and I went in another."

Hoop dreams have lingered longer for Arthur Agee. In the middle-class 芝加哥 suburb of Berwyn, Ill., where he lives with his parents, Agee wakes up early to lift weights and do sit-ups before going to shoot jumpers in an empty high school gym. Several times a week he plays in basketball leagues around the city, including one with NBA players at the Moody Bible Institute. After playing college ball at Arkansas State, Agee did hard time in the IBL, the CBA and the USBL but claims he never got a fair shake. At each stop, he says, the team was more interested in his familiar name—"I was always the guy who had to go to car dealerships and sponsor lunches"—than in his skills. Still, there's no extinguishing his flame. "I try to be realistic," he says, "but I've still got a lot of game left in me, and I'm just hoping to catch my break."

While Agee, 26, has yet to wean himself from basketball, it is no longer his exclusive passion. Trading on the publicity he received from Hoop Dreams, Agee has embarked on an acting career. Two years ago he was asked to read for the part of Jesus Shuttlesworth—which went to Milwaukee Bucks guard Ray Allen—in Spike Lee's He Got Game; he instead landed a cameo. Earlier this year Agee played a prominent role in the TNT basketball movie Passing Glory. On the first day of shooting, Andr� Braugher, the movie's star, sought out Agee to tell him that he was a natural actor. "Maybe it was being in front of the camera so much when I was growing up," says Agee, "but taking on different roles and portraying different people comes easily to me."

True to the irrepressible personality he displayed on film as a teenager, Agee remains enormously sociable and is exploiting his quasicelebrity status to the hilt. He delivers motivational speeches to groups several times a month; he is planning to market a Hoop Dreams clothing line; and he has a consulting agreement with a 芝加哥 health club. The unmarried father of three children, all of whom he sees regularly, Agee also runs the Arthur Agee Role Model Foundation, which provides scholarships and services to underprivileged kids. This fall the foundation has teamed with 芝加哥 ophthalmologist Barry L. Seiller to provide visual performance testing and free contact lenses to athletes at Marshall High, Agee's alma mater. He spends the balance of his days "networking," as he puts it; his cell phone and pager play a constant symphony of beeps and buzzes.

The unexpected commercial success of Hoop Dreams brought Gates and Agee nearly $300,000 apiece in royalties. When Agee received his first check, he purchased a house in Berwyn for his parents. It's only a 10-minute drive from the family's previous, decrepit apartment in the West Garfield Park neighborhood of 芝加哥—where their lights were once turned off when they couldn't pay their electric bill—but it may as well be in another country. The Agees' tree-lined street is quiet; they have a small pool in the backyard, and there are excellent public schools nearby. It has been years since the move, but 席拉 Agee nearly implodes with pride when she gives visitors a tour of the house. "With all the tough times we went through," she says, struggling valiantly to restrain tears, "I still can't believe this is ours?

As for other epilogues, Curtis Gates, who got as far as junior college basketball but was living vicariously through his younger brother, works for FedEx. Arthur's father, Bo Agee, has kicked his cocaine habit and, after serving time in prison, has remarried 席拉. He is self-employed as a motivational speaker. Arthur Agee and 威廉 Gates both chuckle when they report that their crusty coach at St. Joseph High, Gene Pingatore, finally made it to the Promised Land "downstate" last season. Pingatore sued the filmmakers over his portrayal in Hoop Dreams and later dropped the suit in exchange for the filmmakers donating scholarship money for students at both St. Joseph and Marshall high schools.

Though inextricably intertwined in our minds, Agee and Gates scarcely keep in touch. The last time the two saw each other, in 1998 at a party hosted by the movie's director, 史蒂夫 詹姆士, Agee asked Gates if he had any interest in helping to launch the Hoop Dreams clothing line. Gates, who is so determined to move on that he initially declined SI's interview request and didn't want to pose for a photographer, smiled and shook his head in disbelief. "Arthur," he said, "why would anyone want to buy basketball jerseys with our names on them?"

Says Agee, "I told 威廉 we have to be creative and seize the opportunities. We're just different, I guess."

They do, however, agree that fate intervened when they consented to let a team of filmmakers follow them for nearly 4� years and thrust their lives into the public domain. "You have to remember," says Gates, "when you're in middle school and live in Cabrini-Green and three guys say they want to make a movie about you, it made you feel special." Likewise, not a day goes by that Agee doesn't think about where he'd be if not for Hoop Dreams. "I've met the President, I've been to the NAACP Image Awards, I've signed an autograph for Magic Johnson, I still get noticed in airports," says Agee, who, when folks can't quite place his face, likes to say he's a golfer. "Things like this don't usually happen to guys like me."

In a wonderfully poignant scene in the movie that critic Roger Ebert called "one of the best films about American life I have ever seen," Gates tells how a friend said to him, "When you get to the NBA, don't forget about me." Without missing a beat Gates responded, "Well, if I don't make it, don't forget about me." At two vastly different coordinates, a million miles removed from the NBA, Gates and Agee are making it just fine. Funny how a low-budget documentary funded by piecemeal grants can provide a slam dunk of a Hollywood ending.