*For most of his life, Gilbert Arenas never knew his mother. His father raised him alone, and even after reaching the NBA, Arenas never tried to track her down.
Then, during a road game in Miami, she found him.
According to Basketball Network, the unexpected reunion took place on Dec. 14, 2002, during Arenas’ second season with the Golden State Warriors. As players warmed up before a game against the Miami Heat, a woman near the court began shouting toward him. “Gilbert! Gilbert! I’m your mom! I’m your mom!”
After the game, Mary Francis Robinson gained access to the team bus area after persuading one of his Warriors teammates to bring her there. She then introduced herself as the mother he had not seen since he was three years old.
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Robinson hugged her son and cried. Before leaving, she handed him a piece of paper with her phone number. Years later, he explained that simply meeting her had fulfilled a long-held wish.
“All I asked for when I was younger was to meet her,” Arenas said. “That was it. God gave me that chance to meet her that day. I didn’t want to know why, I didn’t want to know all the things that happened. I just wanted to meet her. That was my only wish.”
Family circumstances had separated them decades earlier. Arenas’ father left for college on a baseball scholarship after Robinson became pregnant. During that time, Robinson struggled with drug addiction. According to the account, she later abandoned Arenas and another child at a crack house in Miami. Arenas’ father retrieved his son and raised him on his own.
Although Robinson eventually learned of Arenas’ whereabouts when he became a star at the University of Arizona, she did not approach him until his NBA career was underway. The 2002 meeting became their last.
Arenas never called the number Robinson gave him. In a later blog post, he explained that he questioned her intentions after years of absence.
“I don’t want to know you as an NBA player because I don’t know what the angle is,” he wrote. “I don’t know if you want to reconnect with your son or if you want to reconnect with the man who is playing in the NBA.”
Robinson died on March 13, 2010, after battling liver problems. Arenas reportedly paid for her funeral expenses, but he never saw her again after that night in Miami.
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