The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Jacobs: Death of Waters’ father hard to fathom
The day after Tremont Waters was selected in the second round of the NBA draft by the Celtics at Barclays Center, Reggie Hatchett sent a text to Ed Waters.
“Congratulations are in order!” Hatchett’s message read. “Not just for your son, but for you! I am one person who saw the entire process. And while your son was blessed with some amazing gifts, he coulda easily been a D3 standout and local proam legend. He is where he is because of the work you put in and the energy you infused in him! This is your victory and I am happy for you and your family!”
Hatchett is not in the Waters family circle. The coach at Weaver Hartford and VP of operations and coach with the AAU Connecticut Basketball Club is in the circle of top amateur basketball coaches in the state. He has known Ed and Tremont Waters for 13 years; coached against Tremont since he was 8.
“Even before AAU, it was kind of a travel rec league team,” Hatchett said Saturday. “They’d come up from New Haven to play us. We’d go down there. His father was always heavily involved.
“Tremont was definitely very good. But I’ll say this with the utmost respect: Obviously, the young man put in a lot of work to get to where he is, but there is no possible way he’s in the NBA if not for his father. No possible way.”
This is what makes Ed Waters’ death, confirmed Friday to be a suicide by the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, so disturbing, so mystifying, so tragic. Here was a dad, after a conversation he had with a 5yearold Tremont, who would devote so much of his own life to develop his son on the precepts of behavior, books and ball. Guided him. Pushed him. Taught him. Ed, his wife, Vanessa, and Tremont had such a determined plan they even
called themselves Team Waters.
And then, three weeks after the Celtics called out Tremont’s name 51st overall in the draft, after father and son had realized their dream, Ed Waters, 49, picked up a gun Thursday and shot himself at the Super 8 Motel in West Haven.
At a time when there should be great joy, there is immeasurable grief. It’s unfathomable.
On Friday, Jason Shea, the athletic director and Waters’ coach his senior year at Notre DameWest Haven, said, “My heart goes out to Tremont and his family. The ND community certainly has Ed and his family in our prayers.”
On Saturday, Shea declined further comment.
“There are a lot of parents who are overbearing and a little too optimistic about their child’s chances of becoming pros,” Hatchett said. “Ed was right. He was the exception. He definitely saw the vision. He let people know his son was going to be all that. That’s part of the reason why it’s so difficult to fathom a scenario where he basically got to the finish line where his son signs a contract and then he feels something is so bothersome that it is time to take his life.
“I’ve spoken to 810 people (who knew Waters) since this happened and they’re like, he’s the last person in a million years you’d assume who be in a space where he felt it was necessary to take his own life.”
Why? Why? Why? Eventually there may be some answers. What there won’t be here is speculation and rumor.
Only prayers for the Waters family and a 21yearold point guard trying his hardest to become a member of the Celtics.
Waters, who played in the Celtics’ rookie game Thursday night in Las Vegas, was in the starting lineup Saturday against Memphis. His family flew out to the game to support him.
Can you imagine what is running through Tremont’s head and heart and soul this weekend?
Tremont’s youthful road was a swirling one through Connecticut, running through New Haven to Westport to Kent and West Haven before heading to Baton Rouge and LSU. In 2010, Tremont was threatened with getting shot if he didn’t join a gang while at King/Robinson Magnet School. He transferred to Green Farms Academy for the seventh grade, rising before 6 a.m. to catch the train from New Haven.
By this point he already was turning heads on the court and would go on to play at South Kent Prep. Ed admired the play of Allen Iverson, conceived in Hartford, born in Virginia, and saw his son in that playing image. At barely 5foot11, Tremont would need to be eyepoppingly quick, superbly conditioned and unbending in his dedication. Check. Check. Check. Ed Waters would tell Tiger Rag, which covers LSU, that he was a freshman at Hamden High when two linemen fell on him in a freak accident during football practice and broke both ankles. He decided rehab wasn’t worth it. Without a father figure, he didn’t have the selfdiscipline. It is that regret which pushed him to always be there for Tremont.
Ed immersed himself in basketball. He devised creative drills for his son. He pushed school. As Tremont’s game grew there would be articles about Ed pushing education, pushing Tremont to get a college degree, keeping him humble and focused. In a New Haven Register story by David Borges in 2013, Ed talked about having Tremont, then only a freshman, regularly watching “Broke,” an ESPN “30for30” about how many former pro athletes end up with massive financial problems.
Ed was involved in heating and air conditioning installation, Vanessa in nursing. They also ran TreDay Training program for young players. Mostly, they were invested in Tremont. Ed was protective of his son. He could rub some folks the wrong way on occasion. No one doubted how much he contributed to Tremont’s development. And Ed never left a doubt that his son was going to make it big.
“Tremont was always a special player, a lot of natural gifts,” Hatchett said. “Yet the knock on him when he was young was A) He wasn’t going to be very big, and B) He wasn’t all that athletic. As a youngster, I’d say he was closer to being chubby. He wasn’t fast. He couldn’t jump. The NBA is about length. And if not, you’ve got to be overly athletic. That’s why I said to Mr. Waters that he could have been an aboveaverage D2D3 player.
“What put him over the edge was his father. His dedication to training. His dedication to knowing what his son lacked and turned them into strengths. All of us in the basketball community where flabbergasted when this small relatively unathletic guard started posting workout guards where’s he doing 360 dunks and windmills. We saw what Ed did with Tremont in the gym.”
Colleges were all over Tremont. UConn, Yale and Duke were among the final seven and Georgetown, Indiana, Kentucky and Kansas in the Final Four. Ed was all smiles at the Farnam Neighborhood House in New Haven that October day in 2016 when Tremont announced he was going to Georgetown.
He did not go to Georgetown. John Thompson III got fired. Tremont decommitted and chose LSU.
Tremont, on a twoway contract with the Celtics, averaged more than 15 points and nearly six assists in his two LSU seasons. As a testament to all the work he put in with his father, Tremont was SEC Defensive Player of the Year as a sophomore.
Why’d he go to LSU? Tremont said coach Will Wade reminded him of his dad.
On Saturday, he reminded everyone else of his dad. On his sneakers, he wrote the date of his death, his initials and the words “Team Waters.”