Today, Keith Booth plays before the hometown crowd and a national television audience. Today, all is forgiven, and maybe even forgotten. Today is his reward.
Don't go to Maryland -- that's what everyone in East Baltimore kept telling Booth. Don't go to the school where Ernest Graham was mistreated, the school where Bob Wade was fired.
Booth heard it for two years while trying to make his college decision. Heard it from virtually the entire city while still a teen-ager at Dunbar High.
Never mind that Graham left Maryland in 1981 and Wade in '89. Never mind the absurdity of a feud between the state's most successful high school program and its only major-conference team.
It happened, all of it.
Today is the happy homecoming. Today is No. 11 Maryland vs. No. 5 Massachusetts at the Baltimore Arena. Today is Booth's reward.
A year ago, he scored a career-high 18 points against Towson State and former Dunbar teammate Scooter Alexander at the Arena.
Today's game is far greater in magnitude, and it pits Booth against his first cousin and former Dunbar teammate, Donta Bright.
Booth says he received more than 100 requests for tickets, including "calls from people I went to middle school with." He is permitted only four tickets for the game.
"When I go home now, everyone's like, 'Hey, can I get tickets?' " Booth says, chuckling. "Everybody wants to come see us play. So, I guess everyone has accepted the University of Maryland basketball team."
Well, almost everyone.
Don't go to Maryland -- Rodney Elliott heard it, too, a year after Booth became the first Dunbar player since Graham to attend Maryland.
Elliott also chose College Park, and people in Baltimore still ask him why. Yet, Elliott had it easier. Booth was the trail blazer, the one who defied a community, the one who took a stand.
"I thought that was one of the most courageous decisions I've seen by a recruit," Maryland coach Gary Williams says. "There were a lot of people telling him not to go to Maryland.
"We were constantly worried about it. We weren't that good a program at the time. Why would Keith pick us over Duke or someplace like that? That was the question."
The answer, in part, was Len Bias. Booth grew up a Maryland fan, and Bias was his first basketball hero. Now, Booth is helping Maryland revive those glory days.
Booth and Joe Smith arrived last season, the Terps beat Massachusetts to reach the Sweet 16 and now the next chapter awaits. A chapter with Baltimore as fertile ground, not hostile territory.
First, Booth, now Elliott, and maybe soon Lake Clifton's Shawnta Rogers. The Dunbar wall has crumbled. There's an entire city to explore.
Booth's decision changed everything.
Heaven knows, it wasn't easy.
"It got to the point where people were worrying, my mother was getting bothered on her job, people all around the city were worrying, my sister, everywhere I went, it was like someone always wanted to tell you how they felt," Booth recalls.
"People just kept insisting not to go to Maryland. I was trying to concentrate on having a great season, as well as being captain of my team, trying to stay focused on games we had ahead of us in high school.
"Everyone was sort of on me, telling me go here, go there, don't go to Maryland because of what happened in the past. But I put that all behind me. I had to make the decision that was best for me."
Booth, a 6-foot-5, 225-pound forward, chose Maryland over Duke and Kentucky. At the time, he was rated one of the top 25 players in the country, and considered an even bigger prize than Smith.
Williams says Maryland made an equally important statement by landing Elliott a year later. It showed the Terps wanted less highly touted players out of Baltimore, along with the very best.
The challenge now for Williams is to ensure that the Dunbar players succeed. Graham had a stormy relationship with former coach Lefty Driesell, and never graduated. It remains an issue in East Baltimore to this day.
Williams can't slip up, and he knows it. Last year, Dunbar graduate Michael Lloyd said he was interested in transferring to Maryland. Williams proceeded with caution, knowing that the academic problems of another junior college transfer, Rudy Archer, helped lead to Wade's downfall.
Lloyd wound up at Syracuse, and Williams probably was relieved. He's the successor to Driesell and Wade, and he can't recruit just any Dunbar player. One misstep, and the pipeline will be shut off again.
"We have to prove we're serious about the commitment we make to the players -- Keith's education, Rodney's education, their ability to improve as ballplayers," Williams says. "Those things have to be proven. Just because you say you're going to do it doesn't mean anything."
It doesn't hurt that Williams' new seven-year contract includes bonuses tied to academic performance. And it doesn't hurt that Booth seems willing to be a role model for kids back home trying to succeed.
"To me, the way Keith lives his life, he does everything he can to get it done, on the basketball court and academically," Williams says.
Today is the happy homecoming.
Today is Keith Booth's reward.