James Payne lost his mom to murder at age 6, 16 days of his life to jail at 21 and his dad to lung cancer at 22.
He slept on his friends' couches and the floors of their houses for two years in junior college, often not knowing what he'd eat for his next meal. And he struggled for years to overcome a learning disability that wasn't diagnosed until last year.
Payne almost lost his way, but he never lost his dream: a college diploma.
The 29-year-old former Sacramento State basketball player is set to walk across the stage today in graduation ceremonies at Arco Arena, the organizational communication degree he has earned representing a peak in his arduous climb through life.
"I've just been waiting for this for a long time," he said, his voice filling with emotion. "It's a dream to finish, you know what I'm saying?
"It's something I always knew I was going to be able to do and I knew I wasn't going to quit until I got it done."
Even if the climb to graduation felt like an ascent of Mt. Everest.
An uphill childhood
Payne doesn't remember much about his mother, Andrea Murphy, who was shot and killed by her boyfriend. He and one of his two brothers moved in with an aunt, their father stepping in and out of their lives as they grew up in Detroit.
"That was the hardest thing," Payne said. "I'm not blaming my mom's death for the way my life went. It had an effect on it.
"In school, I couldn't focus."
His older brother, Syracuse assistant basketball coach Rob Murphy, tried to help, but he was only 13 at the time. Payne's aunt, Gloria Cottrell, found herself raising two nephews and her three children.
"I just had five kids; that's the bottom line," Cottrell said. "He's come a long way. I'm very proud of him."
As Payne grew up, Murphy served as brother and surrogate father. But when Murphy left to go to college at Central State University in Ohio, Payne was on his own.
Payne admits making bad choices and hanging out with the wrong crowd. He went from high school to working at Chrysler and then a variety of other jobs. And then he found himself out of work.
A number of unpaid traffic tickets landed him in jail, Payne said. He recalled spending 16 days in the Wayne County jail, sharing a cell with a revolving cast of four other offenders.
"I did some things that I wish I had never done," he said of his pre-incarceration life. "That was a tough situation. I'll never forget it."
Payne said his family had raised enough money to get him out of jail after four or five days, but wanted to teach him a lesson. His older brother, who had been helping Payne financially, delivered a now-or-never speech.
"I do remember telling him, 'Keep looking at me; I went through the same things you went through,' " Murphy said. " 'Make the right decisions. I made the effort.
" 'You're not making the effort. You want to go to clubs and party. Your life is progressing toward zero. You're never really going to grow up and be a man until you go away from Detroit.' "
Payne recalls heading home, taking a shower and going over to Wayne County Community College to inquire about registering for classes.
"It was time for me to make a decision on what I really wanted to do with my life," he said. "So it was a wake-up call. I needed it."
Junior college coach was impressed
His family wanted Payne to make it on his own, so he spent his junior college days sleeping on a friend's couch here, another friend's floor there. And though he lived out of his car, first a 1985 Ford Escort, then a 1986 Chevrolet Nova, Payne said he never had to sleep in it.
"I had stuff everywhere," he said. "I had clothes here, clothes there."
Wayne County head coach Rogeric Turner and Dwayne Canada, then the associate head coach, kept an eye out for Payne, a feisty, relentless, 5-foot-9 point guard with a knack for creating energy on defense.
"You could see how hard he had to work," Turner said. "He wanted to be successful.
"Sometimes I don't know how he made it to practice, but when I got here, he would always be sitting at the gym door. He didn't know where his next meal was coming from. I would take him out and feed him."
Call The Bee's John Schumacher, (916) 326-5523.
