MOBILE, Ala. – Sometimes it takes a mother to see the truth in her child’s eyes, to hear the hurt in his voice. • Monique Cousins knows her oldest son, DeMarcus, well. • Even in casual conversation, she is comfortable standing. And she has stood up for her son enough to know the criticism he has heard doesn’t fall on deaf ears. • The DeMarcus Cousins Monique knows is the one she sees in a slew of family pictures on the dinner table in her new home in Spanish Fort, a Mobile suburb.
Cousins, whom the Kings drafted No. 5 overall in June out of Kentucky, recently purchased her new home after signing his rookie contract.
There are photographs of Cousins playing with his five siblings – four sisters and a brother. Snapshots of Cousins as a toddler, with the familiar look that is now his game face.
Bad attitude? Lazy? Immature?
The criticism just doesn’t mesh with the image she has of her son. And Monique, who raised him without his father in the picture, has watched how he has dealt with being told he has the kind of disruptive personality that can kill a team’s chemistry.
Before the draft, pundits talked about him being uncoachable. All along, Cousins said the talk didn’t bother him.
But mom usually knows better.
"Sometimes when you hear it so much you don’t give yourself enough credit," Monique said. "Not that you act upon it, but it kind of gives you a low self-esteem in a way. So you make yourself OK by not worrying about it. So a lot of times you might hear him say ‘I don’t care’ when he really does. … ‘I don’t care’ is just a Band-Aid on that situation."
Hiding his playful side
Here in his hometown, Cousins isn’t a problem child. He’s considered quite childlike – a fun-loving kid in a man’s 6-foot-11 body. This is where you see glimpses of the off-court persona that is the opposite of what the Kings want to see on the floor as they open training camp this week.
This 20-year-old "teddy bear" will sit on the gym floor at LeFlore High School and laugh when former classmates suggest he now has the money to treat them to McDonald’s. He enjoys the banter with former teachers and administrators.
These are the same teachers who smile when discussing how well Cousins works with children, even playing duck, duck, goose with them.
Yes, this is a side of Cousins rarely seen. Perhaps you might call it the real Cousins. Just don’t expect him to go out of his way to show you this side. He has grown accustomed to detractors who bring up past incidents while not citing the fact he hasn’t had any major problems since he was in the 10th grade.
"It does bother me, but at the same time it really doesn’t," Cousins said. "I know what type of person I am. Everybody makes mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. But to hold something like that over somebody’s head when they was such a young age, that’s crazy – that’s petty, really. But it really doesn’t bother me."
To better understand why Cousins takes this approach, you first have to understand his early high school years.
He wasn’t big on the Amateur Athletic Union circuit in middle school. But by the end of his freshman season at Erwin High School in Birmingham, Ala., some were already rating him the top player in his class.
"That was the crazy," Cousins said.
Attitude adjustment
Monique Cousins said the family was private and close-knit. But raising one of the best high school players in the country without his father around changed things.
Cousins said that was the start of adults taking credit for his oncourt success. Some promised to "deliver" him to schools in exchange for favors.
Then during his sophomore year at Erwin, there was an altercation on a school bus with a faculty member. Cousins was suspended for the rest of his sophomore season.
He enrolled at Clay-Chalkville High in Pinson, Ala., as a junior but was ruled ineligible when state school officials said coach Robi Coker recruited Cousins. Coker and Cousins deny any recruitment.
Monique said she was told her son could attend school anywhere in Alabama but couldn’t play for Clay.
So Monique moved her family back to Mobile, where Cousins was born and Monique was raised.
And it’s where things began to change for Cousins.
"After making my mistakes in Birmingham, I knew I really had to change if I’m trying to make it," Cousins said. "I started listening a lot more, surrounding myself with better people, better role models if you want to say that. Just changed my whole mind-set on life and tried to be a better person."
LeFlore had the right people in the right places to help Cousins begin to change.
Getting on track
Sitting in her office adjacent to the gym, LeFlore physical education teacher and former athletic director Sherry McDade recalled the first time she met Cousins.
It was homecoming, and McDade was in charge of the motorcade. Along the route, the motorcade was blocked by Monique Cousins’ truck while she registered Cousins for school.
McDade still smiles when she recalls walking into the school office, where Cousins told her it was his mother’s truck that was blocking the path and that he was an incoming junior who wanted to play on the basketball team.
"I said, ‘Well, bend down,’ " McDade recalled. "And he bent down, and I hit him upside his head and said, ‘I’m Sherri McDade, I’m the athletic director here at LeFlore, and we want to welcome you.’ "
LeFlore was already a basketball power in Alabama. The school had won a state championship the season before Cousins arrived.
And after the drama in Birmingham, LeFlore proved to be the perfect landing spot.
Eric Lovett was an assistant basketball coach. He was also Cousins’ algebra 2 and precalculus/trigonometry teacher.
Lovett had heard plenty of negatives about LeFlore’s newest player. And when Cousins ducked his head to enter his math class, Lovett recalled seeing a teenager who had been worn down by the rumors and attacks on his character.
"You only hear so many negative accounts, so it seemed like a situation where they were forcing his back up against the wall," Lovett said. "So it’s a ‘who can I trust?’ kind of thing.
"I don’t think people realized you’re talking to a 16-year-old kid. He has a talent, and I think they were putting the expectations on him because of his talent and not realizing this is a 16-year-old kid that has to grow up."
So the plan at LeFlore was to treat Cousins like a kid. The coaching staff was cautious not to jump at every rumor and not to hold the past over his head.
"You hear some stories, and you get concerned, but once I met his mom and met him, it didn’t reconcile," said then-LeFlore head basketball coach Otis Hughley. "I would have taken him 10 out of 10 times."
Managing his emotions
When he wasn’t getting bombarded by allegations off the court, Cousins took a physical beating on it. Smaller players would hit him, and because of his size, officials allowed the rough play.
But instead of fighting back, Cousins learned to let Hughley and the staff fight for him. They dealt with the officials while teaching Cousins how to control his anger.
"If someone inflicts pain on you, what do you do?" Monique said. "So it’s also a discipline to feel pain and not to retaliate and put the energy in its right place. No (previous coach) was teaching him that. (They) were like, ‘Just suck it up.’ … Eventually (his anger has) got to go somewhere."
Cousins wanted the discipline Hughley and his staff provided. He liked the fact Hughley treated him no differently than he did other players.
Hughley will continue to play a major role in Cousins’ career. He will join his former star in Sacramento as an assistant coach on Paul Westphal’s staff this season.
" ‘Marc’ is misunderstood in a lot of different ways," Hughley said. "And he’s like a lot of good kids. He wants discipline, and he wants a good environment. I think it was just a good fit. He was with someone who was going to care for him as much as the last guy on the bench."
The challenge for Cousins in high school was how to channel his emotions. Hughley’s approach helped. No one wanted to see Cousins become meek on the floor. But it wasn’t easy for Cousins to manage those emotions in the face of constant criticism.
"We were walking down this hallway," Cousins said, referring to the hallway outside his former driver’s education class. "And I said (to assistant coach Dion Lawson), ‘Lawson, I’m going to stop playing the way I play. I’m just going to be quiet.’ He said, ‘Marc, you can’t lose that fire. That fire is what’s going to get you to the next level. You’re going to have to learn how to tame it, but you can’t lose that fire because a lot of people don’t have it.’ "
Cousins showed some of that fire during the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. He channeled that into an impressive spin move and dunk, not a technical foul.
It’s now part of his persona. He didn’t lose the fire at Kentucky, where he was the Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year, and he doesn’t plan to lose it with the Kings.
"When I get going, I zone out," Cousins said. "So somebody might start talking trash, and I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, let’s go.’ I’m fired up, and I guess you can say that gets me in a little trouble, but I’ve just got to control it. Then again, anytime I play with no emotion, it feels like I’m going through the motions and I’m just another player on the floor."
Finding motivation
The fire is usually out away from the court.
As he made his way through the hallways of LeFlore earlier this month, Cousins was greeted with hugs by faculty. He shook hands and told jokes to anyone he bumped into.
If not for the uniforms worn by LeFlore students, Cousins would blend in on campus. Dressed in a baseball hat (before a trip to the barber), a white T-shirt and basketball shorts and shoes, Cousins enjoys being part of the crowd.
There were countless stories of how "Big Marc" or "Big Cuz" took time to play or speak with children in his hometown.
It’s a contrast to what many have heard about Cousins. And even though she probably knows this side of Cousins as well as anyone, Monique admits that sometimes she has heard so much negativity, the positive stories can catch her off guard.
Cousins calls himself "a family-oriented guy" and says, "I just like kids." It’s not something Cousins goes out of his way to disclose, even for his critics.
"I care, but if you just go by what you read, that’s not really getting to know a person," Cousins said. "Me going out my way (to show a different side) is pointless because they’re not trying to see it anyways. Because the people that want to get to know me, they’re going to go the extra mile to get to know me."
Cousins isn’t shy about his goals for his NBA rookie season. He wants to play well and be recognized.
Cousins won’t beg his detractors to like him. But he won’t completely tune them out, either.
They are part of his motivation.
"When I’m on the court, I’m trying to show you – especially the people that doubted my basketball skills," Cousins said. "I want to be the Rookie of the Year. I didn’t get a chance to be the Player of the Year in college. I need my own individual award. I want mine."