Philly Jocks: Where Are They Now?: The Continuing Adventures of Charles Barkley

Barkley knew in college that he had a “God-given gift for rebounding,” and hoped to parlay it into a couple of years in the NBA — “I hoped I could average 10 points a game,” says the lifetime 23-points-per-game ­scorer — so he could buy a house for his mom and grandmom. Now, with millions in the bank, he’s committed to his charity work, yes, but he’s just as dedicated to being a party with legs. A night at the bar with Charles is a night of nonstop laughter, as when Maureen, his wife of 20 years, dared to correct his grammar in my presence. “Let me ask you a question,” he said to her. “Would you rather I say, ‘I is a millionaire’ or ‘I am poor’?” To be in the vicinity of Barkley when he’s out is to be brought in; none other than his favorite bartender, Dave at Chops, calls him “the ultimate life of the party.” It’s as if Barkley, in all his gregariousness, is saying: I didn’t expect this life, but I might as well carpe all the diem out of it I can.

Seen in this light, The Haney Project is really the work of Charles Barkley’s middle age. It’s about the pursuit of a good time (“Three guys, trash-talking, walking a beautiful course? It doesn’t get any better than that,” he says in one episode), but it’s also about seeking to grow, about testing oneself when great tests would appear to be in the rearview mirror. “I’m swallowing a lot of fucking pride to do this,” he says.

At the same time, he knows it’s not life-or-death. Throughout his public life, through all the controversies, he’s had a unique ability to put things in perspective. So it is now: “If the worst thing in my life is that I suck at golf,” he said over lunch, some two months before the DUI arrest, “hey, I’ve had a pretty good run.”

THERE’S A LOT on Charles Barkley’s CV that’s worthy of criticism. There’s the time he spat on a little girl during a game (he was aiming for a guy who was hurling racial epithets his way, but, as he later explained, he didn’t “get enough foam,” leading to the wayward loogie); there’s the barroom loudmouth he launched through a plate-glass window, an assault for which he was later found not guilty. (“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Barkley says now. “He was five-foot-seven when he started talking, and five-foot-seven when he went through that window.”)

And now there’s the DUI arrest, after which New York Times columnist Harvey Araton called Barkley “a television clown.” Citing the police report, in which it’s alleged that Barkley told the arresting officer he ran a stop sign because he was in a hurry to get a “blow job” from his female passenger, Araton wrote that Barkley’s behavior was “true to form — a man-child acting impulsively, living dangerously and ducking the consequences by trying to speak comically.”