GENTLEMAN SLAM DUNKER

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Sometimes it seems as if all the great sports heroes are dead or deadbeats or accused of killing somebody. Are Pete Rose, Mike Tyson or O.J. Simpson role models? Only if the role is on a TV mini-series. The list of troubled sports stars goes on and on. Tennis prodigy Jennifer Capriati's substance abuse. Incorrigible rebounder Dennis Rodman's hairstyling and discipline problems. And, of course, Tonya Harding. It all makes you wonder if there is any hope for sports heroism.

There is, and his name is Grant Hill. A rookie who plays forward for the Detroit Pistons basketball team, Hill has already made N.B.A. history. When fans finished voting last month for the players they wanted to see in the All-Star Game, to be played next Sunday in Phoenix, Arizona, Hill, 22, received more ballots than anyone else. It was the first time ever that a rookie had led the polling. Not even Michael Jordan, to whom Hill is often compared, was the top vote getter during his first year.

Averaging 18 points, five rebounds and four assists a game, Hill certainly has All-Star talent, but the fans were responding to more than the stat sheet. Basketball has become ever more raucous and ill-mannered in recent years, and the fans want relief from selfish, trash-talking stars like the Phoenix Suns' Charles Barkley, who earlier this season announced that were it not for him, his fellow Suns would be decent players on bad teams.

In Hill, fans have found a player with old-school grace, a guy who is organizing a summer camp for kids and calls assistant coaches Sir. Says Pistons guard Joe Dumars, a mentor of Hill's: "It's a league of guys who are out of control. Fringe behavior is being recognized and accepted, sometimes even rewarded. It's probably not a healthy comment that Grant is being recognized for just being a good person, but it's time we get back to that." Pistons coach Don Chaney agrees: "Grant is headed for stardom. You can't talk it, and you can't teach it. The fans are getting hungry-hungry-and are getting tired of immature athletes. They want something better." They have it in Hill, who downplays his burgeoning popularity. "I don't carry myself like an All-Star," he says. "I carry myself as if I'm a rookie trying to make it in the N.B.A. and be as good as I can be. Look at the way I walk. I don't strut; I don't swagger."

He credits his parents for his achievements. His father is Calvin Hill, an All-Ivy football running back at Yale and a Pro Bowler in the N.F.L. His mother, Janet, was educated at Wellesley and was a friend and suitemate of Hillary Rodham Clinton's. "I know this sounds funny,'' he says, "but it was almost like being born into a royal family and being raised like a prince, being taught one day to become king. Not just how to be an athlete, but how to do things right." The Hill household in Virginia was a strict one: Grant's parents wouldn't even let him use the phone except on weekends. Hill went on to play for Duke University, where he led his team to two national championships.

Although he is 6 ft. 8 in. and weighs 225 lbs., Hill moves with the muscular grace of an Alvin Ailey dancer. He can get by defenders as quick as light through a window. Still, he is a rookie, and he could improve-his long-range shot needs a little work, for example. "There are no glaring faults in his game," says Dumars, an All-Star who helped lead the Pistons to championships in 1989 and 1990. "You don't take a sledgehammer and break his game apart, you take a chisel. You just run by and whisper something in his ear."

Hill's deal with the Pistons will pay him $45 million over eight years. In the meantime, his straight-arrow image is attracting marketers, and he already has endorsement contracts with Fila shoes, Schick razors, GMC Trucks and Sprite that pay him an estimated $5 million a year. Brian Murphy, editor of the Sports Marketing Letter, says Hill is the N.B.A.'s most marketable player, with the exception of rapping, jamming Orlando Magic center Shaquille O'Neal. "Hill exudes 'regular guy,'" says Murphy. "You admire him, but you feel you could talk to him if you met him." Despite his sudden riches, Hill lives in a three-bedroom condo in a Detroit suburb near the Pistons' arena; his most indulgent furnishings are five arcade video games.

The Pistons have a losing record, and Hill is determined to turn the team around. "I don't show it, but I'm very cocky and very confident underneath," he says. "When I show up on the court, I feel I'm the best player out there, and no one can stop me. I want to beat you and embarrass you bad. But I don't want people to know that. It's like a little secret I keep to myself." There's no doubt, though, that many of the 1,289,585 fans who voted him into the All-Star Game saw the winner's raw passion beneath Hill's gentility. Sorry, Grant-your secret's out.

-Reported by William McWhirter/Detroit

With reporting by William McWhirter/Detroit