Scottie Pippen's rise is perhaps the most remarkable story in the NBA, though much has been made of Michael Jordan's being cut from the varsity when he was a high school sophomore. But by the time Jordan was ready for college, he was highly regarded and went to the University of North Carolina basketball factory.

Pippen was lucky not to be working in a factory at that time, perhaps in the textile mills in Hamburg, Ark., where he grew up the youngest of 10 children.

Ten kids, tended to by mom, Ethel, and dad, Preston, who worked in a local mill but suffered a stroke and had to retire on disability before Pippen entered high school. And there was brother Ronnie, crippled and in a wheelchair after an accident in gym class.

The vision of Preston deteriorating from a stroke most of Pippen's life and of Ronnie in a wheelchair has always haunted Pippen so much so that he was desperate to sign the five-year, $18 million contract extension in June 1991 that he now chafes under because of his long-standing fear of injury and loss of security.

"I've always thought that one injury could wipe all of this away," says Pippen. "I'm able to run and jump and do all the things I can do. I'm blessed. We're all blessed in the NBA but I always would look at Darryl Stingley the crippled former Purdue University and pro football player who used to sit behind the Bulls' bench in the Chicago Stadium. I'd kind of watch him sometimes and see my brother, a healthy, strong young man, and all of a sudden he's confined to a wheelchair, to where he can't get around. I think about that a lot" Still, suffering and pain seemed well beyond young Scot-tie, even as up to 12 people were packed into a two-bedroom house. Pippen says he never thought of himself as poor, and, as the youngest he always found a job to do for an older brother or sister to earn a few dollars. But with being youngest comes some delayed development, which perhaps explains the way Pippen reacts in certain situations.

"I don't want to say he was the baby of the family," says former Bulls coach Collins, "but you could tell when he got here, he was still a young man who was having his eyes opened for the first time." Coming to the NBA for Pippen, says agent Sexton, was "like going from high school to the NBA. You've got to remember, he never even was on a plane in college. They bused to all their games. And then he's playing with Michael Jordan." That he was playing with Jordan, even in a pickup game, has to be astounding, considering that Pippen wasn't even offered an athletic scholarship, not even to the University of Central Arkansas, hardly one of the hundreds of college basketball powers. "Scottie was about 6-1, about 135 pounds," remembers Arch Jones, now head coach at Central Arkansas, but then an assistant "His high school coach called us and said he had a young man with the potential to be a college player. So we looked at him and said we'd help him with a work-study grant if he'd be the team manager." Which meant? "You know," said Jones, "sweeping up the gym, washing the clothes for the players, bringing out and picking up the equipment picking up the balls." Yes, that was Scottie Pippen at 18. But Pippen didn't mind much because he wanted to remain close to home. Even today, one brother lives with him, two others live nearby, and a cousin living in the suburbs is Pippen's closest friend. "I just like to be around family," says Pippen, who describes their typical activities as playing dominoes (Pippen's favorite), checkers, cards or shooting pool "As I look back, I have to say growing up was fun, not a problem at all. And I knew if I didn't make it in the NBA, I'd probably be doing something like I do now, maybe in an athletic department somewhere. I'd just have a smaller TV."

Even now, Pippen spends much of the summer in Arkansas, running a basketball camp in Conway, near the university he attended, and just sitting around. In feet, when asked what he'd like to do after he retires from basketball, Pippen says simply: "Just relax, maybe five years, sit around, go back home and hang around." When Pippen signed his first contract and wanted to buy his mother a new home, she refused to move. So he bought most of the land around their house, had several ditches covered, landscaped the area, built several houses for family members, and created a neighborhood park, a sort of ScottieTown, Ark.

Preston Pippen (1920)