Hard work done with heavy heart

The past month has been a blur, so much so that Jermareo Davidson lost track of just how many NBA auditions he's had — 11, maybe 12 — a half-dozen or so ago.

Keeping track of where he is and where he's going, however, pales in comparison to where he's been.

That is because the road that brought Davidson to Utah for a pre-draft workout with the Jazz on Thursday is littered with more misfortune, more heartache, more grief than any one human being should ever be challenged to endure.

It's one so rocky, in fact, that it reduces a 6-foot-10, 220-pound man to tears, time and time again. That's right: Jermareo Davidson cries. Cries a lot. Cries, Davidson readily acknowledges, "all the time."

Still, Davidson — a likely second-round selection for some team when the 2007 NBA Draft unfolds next Thursday — perseveres.

He isn't quite certain how, but he does.

"Even as tragic as it may seem," Davidson said, "I just find a way just to keep going."

Flash back to last November.

Davidson, selected by Southeastern Conference coaches as an all-SEC selection one season earlier, is a senior power forward at the University of Alabama.

At a hospital back in his hometown of Atlanta, Davidson's older brother — Dewayne Watkins — is paralyzed and on a ventilator, the victim of a gunshot to the head and neck delivered by an unidentified shooter.

Four days following the receipt of that news, and shortly after a hospital visit with Watkins, Davidson and his girlfriend are in an auto accident on an Atlanta-area interstate. Brandy Nicole Murphy, a student trainer and fellow senior at Alabama, is ejected from the tumbling SUV, which she drove.

The next morning, Nikki Murphy dies.

Jermareo Davidson, who sustained only minor injuries in the wreck, is a mess. Basketball goes on the backburner. By the time final exams arrive, he would have to withdraw, too much class time missed amid the mourning.

A rare rule-in-place show of benevolence by the NCAA, however, allows Davidson to return to the nationally ranked Crimson Tide's lineup in mid-December, his academic eligibility fully intact.

Not long later, just a few days before Christmas, Dewayne Watkins passes away as well.

Somehow, Davidson manages to appear in 30 games for Alabama during the 2006-07 season.

He scores a career-best 31 points with nine rebounds in a late-January game at Louisiana State and winds up averaging 14.0 points and 8.2 boards — stats down just a smidgen from his junior season.

"It was pretty tough," Davidson said, adding he might not have made it through if it weren't for the support of those closest to him. "I had family and friends that were by me."