Alex Loughlen stands outside the Seattle SuperSonics' locker room in the Arena at Oakland, waiting to meet his idol and benefactor, point guard Gary Payton.

This moment is the culmination of a whirlwind trip Loughlen and his mother, Stacey Burokea, have made to the Bay Area from Seattle, sponsored by Payton's charitable foundation.

Loughlen, wearing a Payton jersey, tries to look stoic in the face of the imminent meeting with Payton. Despite what Loughlen says, his hands belie his stated composure. Both fists continually drum the insides of his hips, as if he is keeping beat with a song inside his head.

Payton finally emerges after getting his ankles taped and his back massaged in preparation for this night's game against the Golden State Warriors. It's a half hour before tipoff.

Loughlen's eye blaze as Payton peppers him with questions.

"You doin' all right?" Payton says, breaking out his toothy smile, rubbing Loughlen's belly.

"Did I take care of you OK?"

"How was being a ballboy for the guys?"

Loughlen responds in clipped, monosyllabic answers. Payton has not grasped the art of the open-ended question.

"Yes."

"Yes."

"OK."

By the end of the trip, Loughlen will have taken his first flight, stayed in his first big hotel, traveled in a limo, seen an NBA game live, plus seen or visited the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf, the TransAmerica Building, Lombard Street, North Beach, Union Square - all that San Francisco has to offer.

After all that, when Loughlen is asked what his favorite part of the trip was, he answers unfalteringly, "Meeting Gary Payton."

It was a three-minute encounter for Payton; a lifetime of memories for Loughlen.

Payton understands this. He knows the effect that athletes can have on children. He takes seriously the responsibility, sometimes shouldering it alone.

"He (Loughlen) is always going to think about it," Payton said, "and he is going to build his life around, 'I met Gary Payton one time, and now I am going to go out and try to do the best I can in school.' Hopefully, he will grow up and he always remembers that he should help a young kid too because it might help them to grow up and be a better child."

Pay it forward.

Payton is averaging 22 points, nine assists and five rebounds a game for Seattle, has been to seven All-Star Games and has been named to eight consecutive NBA all-defensive teams. And on Monday, he was named the NBA's Western Conference player of the week. Despite all that, some would argue that Payton is at his very best when he is with children.

It is interesting that the theme of Loughlen's trip was titled, "How The Glove Gave Christmas," a reworking of the children's story, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," because many would characterize Payton as Grinch-like in many aspects.

He has gotten into fights with teammates Ricky Pierce and Vernon Maxwell. He has threatened the management of his own team. He has had confrontations with reporters. And for some, that side of Payton will forever be his legacy.

At the time of year when goodwill toward men is supposed to be more than just a sublime notion, Payton's generosity and compassion for children of all ages should neither be ignored nor forgotten. Payton has touched and changed many lives, often in the silence of true benevolence.

Payton set up his foundation in 1996. According to Eric Goodwin, who helps run the foundation and is the brother of Payton's agent, Aaron Goodwin, Payton has donated $2 million.

The highlight of the foundation is Payton's charitable basketball game each September, which features other NBA players, including Magic Johnson, Vince Carter and Alonzo Mourning. A few weeks ago, Payton presented a $100,000 check to the Odessa Brown Children's Clinic.

"Kids to me are more important because I grew up in Oakland, California, where there was a lot of kids who did straight off a lot of things they aren't supposed to do," Payton said. "A lot of kids, they were more talented than me right now, and they are in jail. I want to help kids have an opportunity to go to school, to go to recreation centers, get a chance to be looked at by a lot of people.

"My father, me and him had the talks that if I ever made the NBA that we would come back and help a lot of kids. I think that some of these kids, we need to make them understand that we care about them, we don't forget about them just because we make money and are in the limelight. We will come back and help them and make them strive for something better."

Some athletes form charitable foundations based on the advice of their agents. Tax break. Good publicity. Etc. Then, they have no other interaction with except besides attaching their name.

Payton gets involved with the kids who benefit from his help. Another of the foundation's goals is to sponsor children going to college.

Currently, Goodwin says, there are eight kids in college who are there because of Payton's contributions.

"We write letters to each other," Payton said. "I get back to them in the summer. Some of them I see during the summer, they come to my camp and I let them work in my camps."

There is one, Payton said, whom he considers special. She is attending the University of Michigan. She is scheduled to graduate this spring, and Payton said he plans to attend the ceremony in Ann Arbor.

"She is one of the first ones I gave a scholarship to," Payton said. "She enthused me because her mother was on crack and her mother recuperated from it, and we had long talks. She always came to me and talked to me about the situation, and we got close. Every time she had a problem with studies or with a boy or whatever, she came to me and I talked to her about it. She is like a little sister to me."

Last season at the United Center in Chicago, Payton was getting dressed before a Sonics game with the Bulls.

A boy was waiting in the hallway outside, and Payton instructed one of the team's employees to bring the boy to him.

The employee left, then scurried back and asked, "Which one is he?"

"He's the one that looks just like me," Payton said.

This is Payton's son, Gary Jr., born to a woman in Chicago four months after Payton's son, Gary II, was born to his wife, Monique.

But Payton claims this son unabashedly, his fourth child. Gary Jr. hangs out at his father's locker as he gets dressed, sits on his lap during postgame interviews.

And while Sports Illustrated detailed the irresponsibility of NBA players who father children and never admit or even feign parenthood, the Paytons welcome Gary Jr. into their household during the summers.

"I made the mistake," Payton said. "If I made the mistake and I did what I did and had the baby, it is my responsibility to take care of the baby. My mother and my father always taught me that. My daddy always taught me that. If you have kids, take care of them. My father has a lot of kids and he takes care of all of them.

"If I have a kid, it is not for me to go and abandon him. I can take care of him and I can support him. I could understand if I couldn't support him, then I would try and do something. Especially if I am not around him all the time. I talk to him and I have to support him. And that is what I do."

The ironic part of Payton's father helping shape Payton's concern for children is that Payton's father, Al, is nicknamed Mr. Mean.

You can see why from his demeanor.

At the Warriors game, Payton's father sits courtside, never removing his long, gray trenchcoat, his arms folded over his chest, a scowl crossing his face like an unerasable mien.

"He is really the one that helped all the kids in the community," Payton said. "He's the one that when most of my buddies didn't have fathers ... my father acted like their father. I seen that, and I said, 'My father really didn't have to do that.' My father didn't have to go and buy shoes and support them or on payday give them little fees to get into a tournament. When he did that, I was really impressed with him. I said to myself, 'If I ever make it, I am going to try and do the same things as my father.'"

About 10 seats to Al Payton's left, three hecklers notorious at Warriors games are merciless with Gary Payton, even though he is playing in his hometown.

"GP's too old, man, he's too slow," one heckler yelled as Chris Mills scored a basket over Payton. "He makes an old man feel young."

The guy's sidekicks erupt in laughter, and laugh even more hysterically when Payton looks over and screams before making his way up court.

Al Payton slowly leans forward and peers down at who is riding his son so hard. He says nothing. He knows Gary Payton can take care of himself.

And he cares for a lot of others.