BY: SARAH ROTHSCHILD (MiamiHerald.com) -

DAYTON, Ohio — There are moments when Heat guard Daequan Cook looks like a rising star, such as when he won the All-Star three-point shooting contest.

Then there are times when his shot is not falling, and instead of being the Heat’s sixth or seventh man, he gets sparse playing time.

Cook, 21, has overcome hardship all his life. His father spent several years in prison. His mother raised four children while on disability. He was a father before finishing his junior year of high school.

So anything that happens on the court hardly discourages him.

What keeps him going? He is motivated to give his mother a better life, avoid a similar fate as his father and provide for his 4-year-old daughter.

”The hardest thing was growing up without my father,” Cook said, “and having to become a man at an early age.”

Cook’s mother, Renae, was 16, and his father, Fred Sneed, was 17 when he was born. Sneed dropped out of high school around that time and said he began selling drugs on the streets of Dayton. He was arrested in 1994 and convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute in excess of 100 grams of heroin. He was sentenced to 120 months in prison.

BACK IN JAIL

Sneed was freed in 2003 and had to complete five years of supervised release, 150 hours of community service and substance abuse treatment. He violated his supervised release when Dayton police pulled him over for failing to use a turn signal. They discovered nearly 5 ½ pounds of marijuana in his Buick LeSabre, and he served an 18-month sentence. He was released in October 2007, weeks before Cook made his NBA debut.

”I missed out on so much,” Sneed, 38, said. “I let him down.”

He missed his son’s high school graduation, his one year at Ohio State, when the Buckeyes reached the national championship game, and he missed Cook being drafted by the Heat.

Through it all, Renae never wanted her son to shun his father.

”How can I preach family is the most important thing but I’m dividing another part of a family?” Renae said.

‘ `That’s your father, he loves you, son, and don’t let anybody tell you different,’ ” Renae said she would tell Cook. ‘ `If you don’t want to deal with your father, that is because you chose not to.’ ”

Cook maintained a relationship with his father, even when his father was in prison, and Sneed said he regularly advised his son.

”This ain’t where you want to be,” Sneed said over lunch recently, recalling his advice to his son. ‘When you’re somewhere people are telling you what to do all day, every day, and you ain’t in control of your life, I told him, `You have an opportunity of a lifetime and you need to take advantage of it.’ ”

By middle school, Cook established himself as a standout player. He played AAU for the Dayton Airmen and the Spiece Indy Heat. On the Indianapolis team, he played with prized amateurs Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr., who became fellow Buckeyes and then first-round draft picks with Cook in 2007. Cook played varsity his freshman year at Dayton Dunbar High.

It wasn’t easy for Cook, though. He thought about abandoning his basketball dreams because his family struggled to stay afloat financially. It wasn’t unusual for Renae to skip meals so her children could eat, and sometimes they had fewer than three meals a day.

Al Powell, an assistant coach at Dunbar who has been a father figure to Cook since Cook was about 13, told him not to give up.
”Stay focused, God has a plan for you,” Powell said. ‘I said, `My son would love to be able to jump as high as you, shoot as well as you. You think my son is lucky because I’m here? My son thinks you’re lucky because you have so much talent.’ ”

Renae’s family and friends helped support her family, and she constantly told her son that if he persevered, it would pay dividends.

”I always tell him, ain’t nothing in this world for free,” Renae, 37, said. “You can’t sit around thinking someone is going to feed you with a silver spoon. If you think it comes like that, you are never going to get anywhere in your life. You go get what is yours.”

Cook did. He was a McDonald’s All-American, and his commitment to Ohio State convinced Oden and Conley to sign there, too. Since joining the Heat, Cook has shown promise. He overcame a tumultuous rookie season, as the Heat went 15-67. Injuries to others gave him more playing time, but toward the end of the season, he hit the rookie wall. He was exhausted.

This season, he is averaging 9.2 points and shooting 39.2 percent from three-point range, although he recently has been hampered by a shoulder injury.

`DADDY’S ANGEL’

Although family members are pleased with his progress, they are just as impressed with the way he carries himself off the court.

Cook has about 10 tattoos, including one with his daughter’s name and the words ”Daddy’s Angel.” He tries to see Ja’Kyia regularly — Cook and Ja’Kyia’s mother are no longer together, but he said they have a cordial relationship. When the Heat is in Miami for a stretch of several days, Ja’Kyia comes from Dayton. Last month she spent nearly a week with Cook, so he got to celebrate her birthday.

Those close to Cook gush about how much he adores his daughter.

”He’s crazy about her,” Powell said. “He’s doing an excellent job.”

One thing Cook loves is how Ja’Kyia reacts to seeing him play.

‘She’s always screaming `Daequan Cook,’ ” Cook said, his face lighting up. “It’s hilarious knowing she’s in front of the TV yelling my name.”

Following his mother’s parenting style, Cook acknowledges being strict with Ja’Kyia. He corrects her English and tries to teach her manners, such as not reaching to take food off of someone else’s plate.

Renae was a disciplinarian, and if Cook got a bad grade at school or if he stayed out playing basketball after dark, she would ground him.

”That really made me buckle down,” Cook said.

So did seeing his mother in pain. In 2000, while working with special needs children, one of them ran over her right ankle while in a wheelchair. She sustained reflex sympathetic dystrophy, a chronic neurological syndrome.

Renae still feels the effects of the nerve damage, which includes a burning sensation and numbness. She walks with a slight limp.

`DON’T GIVE UP’

Even though she had to stop working, Renae said her resolve taught her son an important lesson.

”Him seeing me get up every morning to get them up to go to school, it kept the pilot lit in him,” Renae said, while sitting on a couch below a huge framed photo of Daequan. “In kids, we want to keep that pilot lit, so when we go to flick it up, they’ll blossom.

“I wanted to show my kids no matter what, you’re going to have trials and tribulations, don’t give up. You can conquer it.”

Cook doesn’t need to search long for proof of his success. He bought his mother a 4,500-square-foot home that has five bedrooms, a three-car car garage and a movie theater in the basement with an approximately 100-inch screen. She moved in February. He also got her a black BMW. Cook supports his father and daughter, and despite living more than 1,100 miles away, manages to visit Dayton several times a year.

After winning the three-point contest in Phoenix during All-Star Weekend, Cook returned to Dayton and gave Renae his trophy. He plans to spend at least part of the offseason at home, and throw a charity gala there. Cook wants to raise $10,000 for scholarships that would be awarded to 10 college-bound high school students in his hometown.

Cook’s family and friends insist that although they are thrilled about his accomplishments and generosity, they want to see more on-court production.

”I know what he’s capable of doing, and he ain’t giving it to me on the level he’s capable of,” Sneed said. “He’s got what it takes to be a dominant player in the league.”

Powell said one challenge for Cook will be to develop staying power in the league and become marketable off the court.

‘The focus is to try to make him think, `What am I going to be doing at 31?’ ” Powell said. “He could get hurt, he could be gone tomorrow, he could be a great could-have-been, would-have-been. He could be dead broke at 30.”

Powell stresses to Cook that he can assure himself and his family a comfortable lifestyle long-term.

Despite his responsibilities and expectations, Cook — who turns 22 on April 28 — is unfazed. He remains the guy whose most important game-day meal is a pack of Skittles, the guy who razzes the rookies and who helped to orchestrate a team prank by hiding the veteran players’ hotel room keys on a road trip.

”The kid is still in me,” Cook said. “I know when to be funny and have fun, and when to be serious.”

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