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Woodall was about to become one of six seniors at St. Anthony High School to sign a national letter of intent - to the University of Pittsburgh on a basketball scholarship -- and he wanted his mother, Theresa Ratliff, to be sober on that day.

"Mom, I need you sober. I need you for this," Ratliff recalled her son telling her. "This is my life. I want to go to school."

Ratliff had battled alcohol and drug addictions for much of her adult life and was no longer living with her son. But she looked at Travon and didn't hesitate, "OK, I'll be there."

Two years later, Travon and Theresa's journey has brought them both to Friday night, when Woodall is expected to be the starting point guard for head coach Jamie Dixon's Panthers as they meet Wofford in their season opener at the Petersen Events Center.

In the team's recent exhibition win over Coker (S.C.) College, Woodall went 8-for-10 from the floor and scored a game-high 21 points while adding four rebounds, three assists and a steal.

"I'm so proud of my son," Theresa said. "He's my strength. He keeps me going."

Life without a father: Now a 5-foot-11, 190-pound redshirt freshman, Woodall was originally raised in Brooklyn with his older sister, Shataya.

His father left the family when Travon was 10.

"He pretty much disappeared," Woodall recalled.

Without a strong male role model to guide him, Travon ended up getting into more than his share of trouble.

"I got kicked out of one school [PS 191] and suspended like 20 times from third grade through fifth grade," Woodall recalled. "Then I went to PS 394 for sixth grade and I was probably suspended five times."

Woodall said he never got kicked out of the schools only because he played basketball.

Only later in life did he realize what the absence of a father meant to him.

"When you're a child and you get to 10 years old, that's the most important times when a son needs his father," Woodall said. "For those years, my father wasn't really in my life."

Woodall's father still lives in New York and Travon says he now speaks to him periodically, but they don't see one another.

In 2000, when Travon was 11, Theresa moved to Holsman Street in Paterson in order to get away from the city and be closer to her own mother.

But soon she was consumed with drugs and alcohol and became less and less able to take care of her children.

"Everybody had their mother around, and I didn't really have her," Woodall said

In the recently released documentary, The Street Stops Here, which chronicles St. Anthony's undefeated 2007-08 season under legendary coach Bob Hurley, Woodall looks into the camera and talks about how his mother would disappear for days at a time after the first of every month because that's when the food stamps payments came.

"She knew the money was coming, so at like 12 o'clock midnight she'll disappear for like three days and when she came back there would be no money on the card," Woodall says in the film.

"That's when I was struggling with the alcohol and the drugs," said Theresa, who has yet to see the film.

She added that she always tried to make sure there was food available for her children.

"I also kept a little job at a temp agency. Then my father [Albert Ratliff] would help a lot, too," she said.

In the film, Travon also says that he learned his mother was HIV-positive, but Theresa later said it turned out to be a "false alarm' and that she "retested negative."

A shelter in the storm: Theresa struggled with her addiction throughout Woodall's time at St. Anthony, rarely, if ever, attending his games, even as Travon was named co-captain his senior season.

"That didn't interest me at the time," she said. "As far as going to the games, no, I didn't go to too many of them."

As she became less and less dependable, Travon began spending more and more time at the home of his friend Jio Fontan and his parents, Jorge and Samar Fontan.

Two night a week at the Fontans turned into three and then four and before long Travon was living with Jorge and his family.

Jorge had spent time in jail as a young man and could see that Travon was headed down that same dangerous path if something wasn't done.

"If this kid goes the wrong way he's going to focus on being a good criminal," Jorge says in the film. "When I got into it, I liked it. I wanted to be a So-Cal gangster. I ended up in jail when I was 19 from selling drugs. That took me away for like 18 months. My dad messed up when he was younger."

Soon Travon began to refer to Jorge as his father, and, not long after that, another young basketball player moved in with them.

Mike Rosario, who was going through his own family issues in Jersey City, became the third brother in the household. All three would end up starring at St. Anthony.

"This is where I thank Jorge for all that he has done for my son," Theresa said. "I really care for that man a lot.

"It just kind of happened. Me being a single mom and splitting up with his father. He was a teenage boy and here comes this man that has a son that's kind of going the same route as Travon and they become good friends. We become good friends, so it just kind of happened."

The day it all changed: The day was Nov. 14, 2007.

It was Theresa's 38th birthday and also the day that a half-dozen St. Anthony seniors were to sign their letters of intent during a ceremony at the Jersey City school.

She took her seat, alongside the other parents, behind a long table where all six seniors - -Woodall, Rosario (Rutgers), Fontan (Fordham), Alberto Estwick (Fordham), Tyshawn Taylor (Marquette), and A.J. Rodgers (St. Joe's) -- signed their scholarship papers.

"I will never forget that day," Theresa recalled. "I said, 'Oh, my god my child needs me.' It's just unexplainable, that day of signing. He's the first child from my mother and father to go to college, out of all the children and the grandchildren."

"As soon as I walked in the door and [saw] all the reporters and Coach Hurley and the principal of the school, it was just beautiful."

Hurley gave a speech to the players, school officials, reporters and family members assembled, telling them, "In 1997 we had five kids accept scholarships and this will top that group. The '97 team won everything in New Jersey and we certainly think that that's something that's left for this group to do."

The 2007-08 team would end up going a perfect 32-0 and winning the school's 23rd state championship and ninth New Jersey Tournament of Champions crown.

Hurley later told the filmmakers that his six seniors had earned about a $1 million in scholarship money.

"That's pretty good," he said.

The magnitude of the moment had a profound effect on Theresa.

She said she began to attend classes to deal with her addiction. She moved to a different part of Paterson, near Paterson Catholic High School, which she says is "beautiful." She now works as a certified nurse's aide at the Oakland Care Center. She spends quality team with her granddaughter, Danajha.

And she says God has helped her find a new path.

"Reading my Bible and trusting and believing in the Lord that he's going to take me through anything that I need to go through," she said. "And I did it, I've done it and I'm doing it."

Two years after walking into St. Anthony to watch her son sign, Theresa says she hasn't had "the urge" for a drink or drugs since that day.

"It's like she did a whole 180," Woodall said.

Theresa's transformation has had a dramatic impact on her son, who sat out last year with a medical redshirt because of a knee injury and is anxious to start the season alongside fellow New Jersey guard Ashton Gibbs.

"I think she saw that her kids are doing something right and I'm doing something good for myself," Travon said. "She wants to be in my corner and be that extra person to help me get through."