Stephen Holder

stephen.holder@indystar.com

Hakeem Nicks agrees to share the story of how he came to be a game-breaking NFL wide receiver. By the time he's done, you realize the term "story" doesn't quite cover it.

After all, this tale has more twists than Nicks' best double-move deep route.

For Nicks, a 2009 first-round pick of the New York Giants gearing up for his first season with the Indianapolis Colts, "journey" seems so much more appropriate.

"When I look in the mirror," Nicks, 26, said, "I see somebody who's been through the good and the bad. But I know how to wear both of them well."

He ticks off a bit of the good: dunking on an older brother; reuniting with his father after an eight-year separation; his six-year-old daughter, Harmony, who ch

anged his life and enjoys his absolute adoration.

That's offset by the bad. The abbreviated list: an abrupt separation from his mother as a small child; the resulting unstable home life; the two career-criminal brothers he loves unconditionally despite the prison walls that separate them.

His story is something less than perfect. But it's what made Nicks who he is.

Maybe that's why he recalled the events that shaped him with a smile, finding the good in flawed family members and even the bright side of being pushed aside by the team that drafted him.

Nicks is an accomplished receiver, a well-liked teammate and a relentless worker on and off the field.

"He wants to be the best every time he hits the field," said Colts running back Ahmad Bradshaw, a former Giants teammate.

But more important, Nicks is a man with great perspective. Given what he's been through, how could he not be?

Tough upbringing

For Nicks, things began to unravel early. Not long after he was born in 1988, his parents divorced. Just 2 years old, Nicks and his older sisters remained with his mother, Lisa Morgan, in South Philadelphia. His father, Robert Nicks Jr., an upstart on the Philly pro boxing scene, moved south to Charlotte, N.C.

Morgan began to encounter deepening personal issues. Family members agreed it was best that someone else look after Nicks and his sisters, so they moved in with his maternal grandmother. Later, Nicks also lived with an aunt.

At each stop, times were tough. Poverty was a constant. There were brief flirtations with homelessness. Then, one summer, Nicks' paternal grandmother came to visit from North Carolina.

"I think it bothered her that I didn't know my dad," Nicks said. "She wanted to take me down to Charlotte to see him."

Nicks visited, and never left.

"It actually went really well," Nicks said. "I think I was so ecstatic to finally meet my dad. And then I had my older brothers there. I felt like that's where I was supposed to be. I always wanted to be with one of my parents."

Robert Nicks decided on day one his son would be an athlete.

"He asked me whether I wanted to grab the boxing gloves or play another sport," Hakeem said. "He did the Golden Gloves and all that. But I told him I couldn't go to school looking all beat up. I said I wasn't pursuing that. That's how football came about. I was always fast. I was that kid back in Philly, when we had a big football game at the park, I was the one they would never catch."

And so began a football career Nicks feels is still ascending.

Charlotte offered new beginnings. It also brought new challenges.

Nicks loved having his father's older boys around. Despite the previous separation of Hakeem and his father, Robert III and Aleef had relationships with Hakeem. But being close to his brothers meant being exposed to their poor choices, too.

As the elder brothers got older, their rap sheets grew longer.

Today, both are behind bars. Aleef, 32, is in a Mecklenburg County (N.C.) jail, according to records. He's being held on pending federal firearms charges. His past includes arrests for everything from cocaine possession to battery.

Records show Robert III, 31, sits in a federal prison in Sumterville, Fla., due to be released next year. His case stems from the time he killed an armed man who tried to abduct Robert III's mother. Court documents show prosecutors ruled the killing justified, but Robert was charged by federal authorities for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

He skipped out on pretrial supervision. When police finally caught up to him in Pennsylvania, he racked up two additional charges of attempted carjacking while trying to flee officers.

It seems rather amazing Nicks managed to avoid the pitfalls that ensnared his older brothers. To Nicks, it's simple.

"I was scared to get in trouble," he said. "I just felt like, 'You know, that's just not appealing to me.' And then I remember my brothers always told me that wasn't the way to go. They always regretted going that way. But sometimes, once the system gets you, it's got you."

The brothers remain close. Nicks speaks glowingly about Robert, himself once a promising football player. Nicks said Robert has a tryout lined up with an arena league team after he's released.

Still, the imperfection surrounding Nicks as a teenager — compounded by his father's multiple arrests for petty crimes — took a toll.

"You could just see some days it was weighing on him," Tommy Knotts, Nicks' high school coach and a key mentor, once told the New York Daily News.

New environment

For Nicks, life's lessons continue. Once, he never envisioned playing for a team other than the Giants. That is, until New York let his contract expire in March and told him the team was moving on.

"If you would've asked me in my second or third year if I was going to retire as a Giant, I would've told you, 'Definitely,'<TH>" said Nicks, who has averaged 924 receiving yards in his first five seasons. "But now I understand the business. I've learned. ... That's what I mean by taking the good with the bad."

There's that ever-present perspective again.

Here in Indianapolis, where Nicks will play this season on a one-year contract, teammates are just beginning to get a sense of who Nicks is.

"He's quiet. ... but you can tell he's the type of guy who cares about what he does," quarterback Andrew Luck said. "He takes things with an appropriate level of seriousness. And you really appreciate that in a guy. And he's won a Super Bowl. It's great to add guys like that to your locker room."

Said Bradshaw: "He's definitely about business. And he's a dog when he gets on that field."

But mostly, Nicks is a guy who has consistently turned negatives into positives, throwing in a few touchdowns along the way. Twenty-seven of them, to be precise.

"I appreciate the good and the bad," he said. "I've learned from all that. You have to take life the way it comes.

"All of it."

Call Star reporter Stephen Holder at (317) 444-6520. Follow him on Twitter: @HolderStephen.