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Change Of Fortune

New Angel Torii Hunter, who as a child had to ask neighbors for food and deal with his father's drug addiction, doesn't take $90-million deal for granted

February 17, 2008|Mike DiGiovanna, Times Staff Writer

There's a home theater with an 85-inch television, surround sound and leather seats, a game room with a pool table, bar, three flat-screen TVs and a trophy case, an indoor basketball court and batting cage, and a workout room with a hyperbaric chamber.

There are his-and-hers garages -- Torii's includes a burnt orange 1964 convertible Impala -- and his-and-hers offices, Torii's featuring a switch under a shelf that, when flipped, turns a bookcase into a secret door.


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Down a hidden hallway, a heavy door opens to a small room with a bench and a phone.

"This is the panic room," Hunter, 32, said. "The walls are concrete, eight inches thick, that go deep into the ground, the door is bulletproof, and the phone line can't be cut.

"If we ever have a tornado or a hurricane, we'd go in here . . . but it's also from growing up in the 'hood. My upbringing has me worried about a lot of stuff, and when we first moved out here, there weren't many houses, it was kind of isolated. Safety is first."

As a teenager in Pine Bluff, Hunter carried a gun -- "For protection," he said, "not to rob anybody" -- but here in Texas, he's beginning to feel safe at home.

"Every time I drive up to the house, I look at it and thank God, because being from Pine Bluff, with all the things I've seen and gone through, to see how far I've come . . . it's kind of like a fantasy, a dream," Hunter said. "After we moved here, we really thought about what the word 'prosper' means."

Hunter was 13, in the eighth grade, when he realized his father had a serious drug problem. Theotis -- and Torii's Chicago Bulls jacket -- were missing for two weeks, and one morning both reappeared, the jacket on a chair and Theotis sleeping on a couch.

"I grabbed the jacket, went to school, raised my hand to answer a question and something fell out of the pocket -- ting, onto the floor," Hunter said. "It was a crack pipe. I picked it up real quick and told the teacher I had to use the restroom.

"I got in there, picked up the back of the toilet, wiped my fingerprints off the pipe, dropped it in the toilet and closed it up. I was in tears. I can't even explain to you how hurt I was. It was tough to look at your dad after that. You definitely look at him different."

Then there was that hellacious night in October 1994. Home after his first full pro season, Hunter found his Ford Explorer -- and his father -- were missing.

Five days later, Torii found the truck parked at a crack house.

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