TCNJ

15 SPRING 2020 THE TRENTONIAN round of the NBA draft. He played six seasons in the NBA. Years later, when his Uncle Jim died, Grant placed a uniform from each stop along his unlikely basketball odyssey in the casket. The only uniform missing was his white college jersey. AFTER THE FINAL FOUR, Grant never gave much thought to the Great Uniform Heist of 1989. That all changed one day earlier this year, when he answered a phone call from Jeff Edelstein, a colum- nist with The Trentonian. Edelstein had received a package with an anonymous letter, purportedly written by the same sticky-fingered student who had pulled off the heist, because the package also contained Grant's missing No. 10. "I found the jersey recently during a move," the letter stated. "I thought it appropriate at this time to return the jersey, albeit 30 years late." The letter writer proffered an answer to a lingering mystery: Why were all the jerseys returned to the team except Grant's? "I knew that Grant was destined for the NBA and I wanted to keep his jersey for myself." Edelstein met Grant on campus and delivered his long-lost home jersey, "Trenton" across the top, the number 10 below. Grant took one look at it — "Never lost a game in that jersey," he told Edelstein — and saw something of a circle com- pleted. "I felt like it was meant to be," he says. "A lot of my success is because I [transferred to] Trenton State." Today, Grant runs after-school programs for hundreds of Trenton students, often assisted by Bonner Scholars from TCNJ. He lives in Columbus, New Jersey, with his wife, Hope, the principal at Trenton Central High School. When he brought the jersey home, he tried it on for the first time in more than 30 years. It still fit. ■ —Christopher Hann Grant reunites with his jersey three decades after it went missing.

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