One of the Good Guys

Next week my son is going to attend a Kevin Ollie basketball camp in Windsor, CT. Ollie is one of the genuinely good guys in the NBA and there's a great Courant article about him in today's edition.

UConn and NBA fans will find it worthwhile. The article, Former Husky Kevin Ollie Honored As Role Model by Mike Anthony includes a video.

"I'm waiting for some of the big guys to sign and hopefully some of the crumbs will trickle down to me," Ollie said.

He smiled as he spoke. Ollie, 35, isn't so worried about what might happen, not like he used to be. He has made it, all the way from Crenshaw High in L.A. to Storrs as a member of some of UConn's best teams, to the NBA. Ollie has career averages of 3.8 points and 2.3 assists.

"He's dedicated himself to his job, he's committed himself to his family and he's committed himself to his community," said Allen, his former UConn teammate. "Those things are all commendable. Coming into college, coming into the NBA, he's a guy who could have petered out. But he's still around and we all take inspiration from that."

Allen, who was given the same award last year, introduced Ollie at the breakfast Thursday. He was funny, saying how the first time he saw Ollie was during a recruiting visit. Ollie was in a classroom.

"I always said that when he was sitting down, he looked 6-10," Allen said. "Then he stood up and I said, 'Oh, he's just a little guy.'"

But everyone looked up to Ollie.

"He had a lot of people on the team who followed him," Allen said. "Kirk King was my roommate. Every night I would look up and say, 'Where did Kirk go?' Kirk looked up to Kevin so much that he would sleep on his floor. Kevin's a great leader, not only with his speech but by his actions."

That's how Ollie feels about his family. He talked about his pride in his wife, who went back to school to study nursing and recently took a job at St. Francis Hospital. The family doesn't need the money, but Stephanie wanted her own identity. He talked about his daughter's compassionate nature, how she's always giving. He talked about his son being sedated for six weeks after he was born because of a birth defect. When Ollie thought he had it rough during that time in 1996, he would think of Jalen.

"Every time I went to the gym, I was like, 'I'm going to be just like my son. I'm going to get stronger today,'" Ollie said.

In closing, Ollie told the crowd, "Don't be a treadmill person. Don't keep walking only to get off right where you started. Be a person that embraces the elements outside the box."

Good stuff.