Despite losing playing time, McCarroll chooses to remain silent
Try as she might, Grandma McCarroll failed in her attempts to get young Mark to utter more than a few sentences at a time.
"Speak up!" she'd say.
She prodded and pleaded with her introverted grandson, but the result never changed: One- and two-word answers.
"I always tell him, 'Stand up for yourself. Tell people what you're thinking. Be assertive,' " Marion McCarroll said. "I say it all the time. That's just not his way."
Mrs. McCarroll and Mark, now a 6-foot-10 senior forward on the Pitt basketball team, are aware that his silence can be deafening, maybe too deafening when it comes to playing basketball.
Mark has been quieter than ever on and off the court this season.
He averages only 2.0 points and 11.5 minutes per game for the 17th-ranked Panthers (18-4, 8-3 Big East), who play at Villanova on Sunday, and it clearly bothers him. He's voiced his concerns to his grandmother from time to time, but he's kept to himself in opening up to the coaching staff.
"The season isn't going the way I want it to go. But the team's winning, and I have to look at that as a positive," said McCarroll, who many expected to break out this year after pouring in 26 points against Georgia and 15 each versus Big East powers Syracuse and Connecticut last season. "I don't want to bring any negativity to the team."
But McCarroll isn't shy about wanting to play more.
"The problem is, I'm just quiet, and maybe, I don't speak up about it," said McCarroll, whose scoring is down 3.5 points per game and whose minutes are down nearly five. "I feel like I need more time to get into the flow of a game. I feel like I can do some things, but I need time to get into the rhythm. I guess I just don't communicate what I'm feeling."
"He's always been like this," Grandma McCarroll said. "I can remember his high school coach, Bob Oliva (of Christ the King), once called Mark a soldier. I resented that, because I interpreted that as meaning Mark is a follower and not a leader. I want Mark to be a leader."
Injuries (knee and hamstring) have contributed to the falloff in Mark's play, but the pain drawn from his current situation is nothing compared to what he had to endure growing up in the South Ozone Park projects of Jamaica Queens in New York.
It might also explain why McCarroll can be misunderstood and, often times, withdrawn. Most folks might conduct themselves in a similar fashion had they taken the same path as the 24-year-old McCarroll.
"It hasn't been easy for my grandson," said Marion McCarroll. "It hasn't been easy at all."
Life took a turn for the worse shortly after Mark was born. His mother was murdered, beaten to death. The killer has never been captured, and the reason the crime was committed has never been explained.
Marion McCarroll, Mark's paternal grandmother, immediately stepped in. She served as Mark's mother and father -- his dad was in the picture only intermittently -- and provided as much love as she possibly could.
But she often wondered what Mark felt about not having his true mother in his life, even though "he never, ever mentions her," Marion said.
Perhaps silence is Mark's way of dealing with adversity, his safe haven. He rarely shows emotion, even when he recounts the scariest day of his life, at the 118th Street Park in the Basiely Housing Projects several years ago.
Mark McCarroll and hundreds of others were there to watch New York playground legend Rafer "Skip to my Lou" Alston play in a pickup game. The day started out peacefully enough, but soon, it turned into a shootout - featuring guns, not basketballs.
Two people died. Twelve others absorbed shots, including McCarroll.
"All hell broke loose," McCarroll said, calmly. "It was a drug deal, over money. A guy got shot right in the head."
McCarroll desperately tried to escape, running through the masses and scaling a two-story fence to protect his life. He felt a burning sensation in his ankle and foot, but he was unsure of what had happened until he found himself in the hospital with the knowledge he had been shot twice.
The bullet in his foot was removed, because doctors feared he would suffer nerve damage.
"It wasn't the first time I saw gunshots," said McCarroll, who grew up near famed rapper 50-Cent. "I had a friend who was shot and killed. I saw him lying there. but I didn't want to touch him, because I was young and scared. To actually have bullets hit me, though, was a crazy experience."
The experience, like most other things, left McCarroll silent.
"He never even said if it affected him in any way -- nothing," Marion McCarroll said.
The old saying goes, "Tough times don't last, tough people do," which is why Mark McCarroll believes he can get through anything, including his current disappointments at Pitt.
His hamstring, which hampered him until late December, is at full strength. Ditto for his knee, which required three injections because of damaged cartilage. He had the final injection two weeks ago.
"I'm ready for the last part of my senior year now," McCarroll said.
That means a chance to help the Panthers in the final five regular-season games. And a chance to help them to a fifth consecutive Big East Tournament title game. And, maybe, just maybe, a national championship.
McCarroll showed signs of life in the Notre Dame win a week ago with a big putback off of a missed 3-pointer. It might have been a sign that his legs are at full strength and that he's ready to make up for losing his starting job to Levon Kendall after just two games last month.
"I still have an opportunity to prove myself," McCarroll said. "I know I can get through this. It's what keeps me going."
