![]() “I was the leading scorer, so everyone expected me to take the lead, but he was the high scorer in my last game in the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament,” said McGriff, who is now a contractor in Beaumont. ![]() In 10 minutes, the future DJ, rapper and periodic actor scored 14 points and collected seven rebounds. In McGriff’s final game, it was Epps who stole the show when the team played against Alcorn State. Alabama State already had Jackson, a guard, on its team, and in recruiting him, the Hornets staff got a chance to see Epps during his junior season.Įpps played in 35 games for Alabama State from 1995-97 and averaged 2.8 points, 1.5 rebounds and 0.5 assists. The 6-foot-5 Epps went to Alabama State after Division I schools such as the University of Memphis showed interest. We would want to find something that nobody else had.” We would go out to Perimeter, we’d go out of town, we’d go to the outlet occasionally. We wouldn’t just find something from Lenox Mall in Atlanta. “For the spring, you needed some blue jean shorts, shirt, skippers, hat, you had to have Polo towels … your sweatsuits had to be Polo, your track pants … you had to be Polo’d down. “The Polo belt, boot, chino khakis, socks, jacket, and then that’s for the winter,” Jackson chuckled. Jackson, who has been friends with Epps since playing alongside him for two years on the North Clayton varsity team and two seasons at Alabama State, took how much Polo they wore a step further. If someone walked into Epps’ and Robert Jackson’s college dorm room, they might mistake it for a Polo Ralph Lauren store. Off the court, McGriff said, Epps was known for his propensity to call nearly everyone “Shawty” with that oh-so-recognizable Atlanta drawl, and for his casket-sharp wardrobe. On the court, he was known for his lanky frame, mesmerizing ball-handling skills, ability to play all five positions (if need be) and for his wet jump shot. “I didn’t want to rough him up, so we just shot some 3s.”īefore Epps was a 19-time BET Award nominee, five-time BET Award winner, six-time Grammy-nominated artist and 2012 winner of the Soul Train Music Awards‘ best hip-hop song of the year, he won a Class AA state championship as the sophomore sixth man on the North Clayton High School basketball team in 1993. You know, I didn’t want to go to his house and do that to him. “I guess I’ll say it on the record,” the 43-year-old McGriff mused, “I kind of let him win. It started off friendly, but then a wager got placed here and there and it became more than just fun and games. The old Hornets teammates decided to put up a few shots, and then it took a competitive turn, becoming a game of H-O-R-S-E. ![]() It must have been August, as it was sweltering that day in Atlanta. “Tauheed said, ‘You know what, Beaumont? You still got it in you: Still can’t walk by a basketball without picking it up,’ ” McGriff, a Beaumont, Texas, native recalled. One thing led to another, and McGriff, the leading scorer for Alabama State his junior year when Epps joined the basketball team as a freshman in 1995, found himself shooting around. He knew Epps, more famously known as rapper 2 Chainz, had a basketball court outside. As he made his way through the house, McGriff saw a basketball. Darrick McGriff went over to Tauheed Epps’ home to check out something that may have needed repair.
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