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Last Updated: May 9th, 2011 - 08:37:04 |
Former Celtic Barros ready to ‘camp out'
By MIKE FINE - The Patriot Ledger
Jan 26, 2005, 18:02
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Occasionally, the urge to get back into The Life is so strong that Dana Barros sits with the ballboys near the Boston Celtics bench.
‘‘Sitting on the floor and watching the game, I get excited,'' says the former Celtic, who sometimes finds himself glancing at coach Doc Rivers while he's roaming the sidelines. ‘‘He might look at me and call me to go in every now and then.''
Perhaps it's a retiree's fantasy, but the Milton resident, who hung up the sneakers permanently last year, knows better. ‘‘I don't miss the travel and I don't miss being away from my kids,'' Barros, 37, said. ‘‘I have moments. I wouldn't mind playing a month or two at the end of the season and playoffs, but I don't miss the life at all.''
There's good reason for that. After establishing himself as a respected NBA shooting guard for 13 seasons (he played one game for the Celtics last season), Barros is about to realize the fulfillment of a longtime dream.
Early next month in Mansfield, he'll open his Dana Barros Sports Complex, a 70,000-square-foot facility complete with basketball courts, a soccer pitch, fitness center, meeting facilities and more. Barros will have the ability to bring his wandering band of young campers indoors to one location, and he plans to be able to fund his Barros Foundation, which provides opportunities to disadvantaged kids through his High Hopes Program.
These days, when he isn't sitting with the ballboys at night, Barros has been working to tie together loose ends, watching about 70 workers put the finishing touches on a project that traces its seeds back to his summer camp days. ‘‘I had my camps for 14 years,'' he said. ‘‘It seems like every year or two I had to switch locations and move around from here to there and was bouncing all over the place, so I started looking for a little place for my camps. Then all of a sudden people started saying, ‘I'll join up with you,' and ‘I want to rent from you.'''
Barros started looking for space in many South Shore towns, but eventually found the room and the reception in Mansfield, where he says the percentage of active young athletes is the sixth highest in the state. Near the junction of Routes 495 and 95, near Attleboro and Foxboro and not too far from Providence, he'd finally found a home.
‘‘I'll have my own foundation there, my AAU teams,'' Barros said. ‘‘I'll just use my courts to fund my foundation instead of always asking people for money.''
More than anything, though, it gives the former Boston College star an opportunity to fulfill another goal - helping youngsters. ‘‘That's my passion,'' he said. ‘‘That's something I want to do for the rest of my life. I love to have influence on kids. They just need a little direction. I'd like to be that person to give them the direction, whether it's basketball or off the court.''
Barros ran his first camp in 1993, during the summer when he was traded from Seattle to Charlotte (he was quickly shipped to Philadelphia). ‘‘I did it at my high school, Xaverian. There were like 30 kids, 40 kids. That was the beginning of it.''
Lately, his camps have been attracting 200-300 youngsters every summer.
Barros was a well respected shooting guard, selected out of BC by Seattle as the 16th pick on the first round of the 1989 draft. He remained with the SuperSonics as a role player for four seasons before his first trade, and then quickly established himself as a more heavily used guard for the 76ers, averaging double figures each season. In 1994-95, he averaged 20.6 points and 7.5 assists while shooting .464 from 3-point land. His 3,318 minutes were second in the NBA only to Milwaukee's Vin Baker and he was a landslide winner as the league's Most Improved Player.
That performance earned Barros a contract that paid him in excess of $20 million with his hometown Celtics, for whom he played five seasons. A frequent competitor in the NBA's 3-point shootout at All-Star Weekend, Barros set an NBA record by making a 3-pointer in 89 straight games between December 1994 and January 1996.
Beset by back problems, Barros called it quits after playing two seasons for Detroit, and after sitting out the 2002-03 season, he began working out with the Celtics, earning himself a slot as an assistant with the Celtics late in the 2003-04 season. He even suited up in one game late in the season.
Like many former players, Barros misses it occasionally. ‘‘There's times when I definitely do,'' he said. Coaching - at least in the pros - is another story. ‘‘I don't want to be an NBA coach, not at this time, and I don't think any time in the near future. I want to be more of a teacher - small college, high school coaching. The next two years I'll hopefully be at a small New England school or high school coach around here. That's where my passion is. I enjoy working with young guys and kids who will listen, not with those who already know everything.''
Which is where he is now, about to begin working with youngsters - adults, too - at his new complex. He's living in a virtual dream world, almost unable to comprehend that his dream is nearing completion, because when he started out, it seemed that it might never happen.
‘‘My last year in Detroit, I started looking for land,'' he said. ‘‘Not knowing anything of the business, I was thinking I could be up and running in eight months. I was thinking by the time the next season rolls around, I'd be running, but I didn't realize how much of a process it was.''
That process has been eased because of the people around him. His mother, Stephanie Mondesire, and sister, Njeri Thompson, each of whom has extensive business experience while helping run his basketball camps, have been named program directors. Bruce Seich, a member of the UMass Hall of Fame who has 25 years of business experience, is his general manager. Barros has also enlisted the help of his wife, Veronica, to do interior decorating, while his sons, 8-year-old Jordan and 5-year-old Jason, helped design the logo for his foundation, which will be housed there. ‘‘I've got the whole squad behind me,'' he said.
Barros eagerly awaits the ribbon-cutting. ‘‘When I came into the league, we practiced at facilities like this,'' he said. ‘‘We didn't have our own practice facilities. I kind of took things from everything I liked and put it into mine.
‘‘For a guy from Mattapan, I'm way ahead of the game. That's the way I look at it. I'm doing this all by myself. No one's helping me financially or anything like that, and that hasn't been easy. I'm using my own money that I've saved up for two or three years.''
Mike Fine may be reached at mikefine@ledger.com.
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