Ex-SHU star embracing role of mentor
STIX MITCHELL IS back on familiar ground: His feet inside a gym, his hands around a basketball, his eyes on two hoops prodigies.
His eight-year odyssey to this cramped court was by turns excruciating and exhilarating. On this cold spring morning, as Mitchell walks toward the foul line, the journey continues.
The ex-Seton Hall forward puts the teens through a brisk 75-minute workout, sharing kudos and critiques in his role as coach/mentor for kids in his home borough of Brooklyn.
His insights range far beyond the 94-foot floor as he shares tales from a tumultuous past of sadness, success, regret and redemption.
“They have heard all my stories,” said Mitchell, now 31. “I try to keep the guys sharp and ready for life’s challenges. That is the greatest gift I can give.”
The Bedford-Stuyvesant product still smiles at his college success: Atlantic 10 freshman of the year in 2007, a transfer to the Pirates, a breakout sophomore year averaging nearly 15 points and 8 rebounds.
His eyes well with tears when recalling his precipitous plunge from grace: Tossed off the Hall’s hoops team in 2010, arrested in a holdup of college classmates, a 208-day jail stint — and a guilty plea that still eats at Mitchell’s soul.
“Things were tumbling out of control,” recalled Mitchell at an earlier meeting, dressed in black sweats with a matching hoodie inside a Starbucks at the Barclays Center.
“And I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t change the narrative. I couldn’t walk out of that cell and say, ‘Hey, this is not me. This is not who I am. This is not how I was raised.’ ” He’s ready to do that now.
lll Robert Mitchell arrived on the South Orange, N.J., campus as a hot-shot baller from Duquesne University — an instant starter for Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez’s 2008-09 squad.
With just 180 pounds on his 6-foot-6 frame, Mitchell played power forward and thrived in a nightly mismatch against the best of the Big East.
He started 29 of 30 games, played 36 minutes a game and became a fan favorite. The future was bright for the kid with spider-skinny legs and a heart like a lion.
“After making that sacrifice, I pretty much thought going forward that I would have a certain amount of equity and loyalty going into the next year,” recalled Mitchell.
His junior year instead became a season in hell.
The team captain became buried on the temperamental Gonzalez’s roster — benched for half the Hall’s games, his numbers dipping to 8 points and 4 boards per game.
Everything came to a head at season’s end, a week of true March madness.
On March 14, 2010, Mitchell’s public gripes about playing time led Gonzalez to boot him off the team. The Pirates ended their season with an 87-69 first-round NIT beating from Texas Tech.
“We want Stix!” the student section chanted during the March 16 loss. “We want Stix!”
At that moment, the missing Mitchell was locked up less than a half-mile from Newark’s Prudential Center, arrested hours earlier on an armed robbery charge.
One day earlier, Mitchell was invited to a meeting by Seton Hall President Msgr. Robert Sheeran. Stix, though due to graduate in two months, had a year of basketball eligibility left and hoped to return despite his spat with Gonzalez. Mitchell acknowledges that he wanted to smoke some marijuana and calm his nerves before meeting with Sheeran. Around 2 p.m., he drove former Hall hoopster Kelly Whitney to an off-campus residence to buy some weed. Mitchell parked the car as Whitney went inside. By the time Stix followed, a robbery was underway — with some of the eight victims being Mitchell’s friends and fellow SHU students.
Mitchell tears up, his lower lip quivering, in recounting the tale. He tells the same story that he told police after his arrest, the same story he told under oath in a Newark courtroom.
“When I entered the house, (Whitney) was already in the attic with the gun out and the kids laying down,” said Mitchell. “I said I was not guilty from day one. I told the police, ‘I’m innocent.’ ”
Mitchell fled the house, somehow pulling himself together for the 3 p.m. meeting with Sheeran. The monsignor confirmed the get-together but declined to discuss any specifics.
Mitchell said the president as-