A teenage Caron Butler sat fearfully upstairs in his Racine, Wisconsin, home. Sgt. Rick Geller had just barged into a house and suspected those who lived with Butler of holding cocaine.

Today, basketball fans recognize Butler as a University of Connecticut star, a two-time All Star and a member of the 2011 champion Dallas Mavericks. But in that moment, Butler was nothing more than a kid staring down a decade behind bars.

Instead of whisking Butler away to jail, Geller began to ask him questions: Why was he home? What was he doing there? Did he work?

“He checked my pockets, found something like $7 in my pocket and said, ‘This isn’t right,’” Butler said. Butler wasn’t who the officer was looking for. So the police officer let Butler, who had a prior conviction, go. 

After this interaction, Butler, who spoke on Zoom through the Newhouse Sports Media Center, knew the second chance meant he had to change the trajectory of his life. He latched onto basketball and moved to a prep school in Maine, eventually landing a scholarship with UConn under legendary coach Jim Calhoun.

Butler was selected by the Miami Heat as the 10th overall pick of the 2002 draft and was able to learn under the “godfather of the game,” Pat Riley. He had a 14-year professional career. 

But for Butler, an NBA champion, Emmy winner and author, it’s what he has done off the court that has been most impactful, he said. Wearing a hat with the mantra “Family First,” Butler detailed how he went from the son of a Southern cotton picker and assembly line worker to having an award-winning documentary about him, “Seeing is Believing: The Caron Butler Story.” 

Butler was excited to share his story with students because they typically only see the finished product, he said. There is a lot of background work that he put in, he said, and he added that he’s doing all of this for his family.

During the Zoom, he emphasized how important family and his foundation was to him. For him, it all comes back to the sacrifices his grandmother made for her seven kids and his mother made for him and his brother.

Now with kids of his own, Butler says his mission is to give back to his children and leave a lasting legacy for his descendants. His youngest daughter, Gia, the “little superhero and warrior” of the family, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Because of that, he donates 15% of all proceeds to JDRF — a global organization that funds Type 1 diabetes research. 

Butler uses his nearly 200,000 Twitter followers to tell his story and help others through the same hard times that he experienced. In January, after receiving news that friend and former teammate Kobe Bryant, along with his daughter and seven others, had died in a helicopter crash, Butler discussed who Bryant truly was.

“I immediately asked what I needed to do, because I was only thinking about the well-being of Vanessa (Bryant) and the girls,” Butler. “I was told to go on media outlets and tell the story of who Kobe was.” 

Though Butler only spent one season with Bryant, the two were friends since their first interaction, Butler said. On the Zoom, he talked about their dinner conversation in a private room in Sacramento in the midst of Bryant’s farewell tour. This friendship is what led to Bryant to write the foreword to Butler’s biography “Tuff Juice.”

The ending excerpt included a brief statement about their relationship: “You may not play on the same team, but he sees you — and always will — as a brother.”

Olivia Stomski, director of the Newhouse Sports Media Center and Butler’s colleague echoed these same sentiments. She said that everyone has hiccups and obstacles, but at the end of the day “it matters what cloth one is cut from, and Caron has that good cloth.” 

His journey from the scared teenager to an NBA champion is a reflection of the perseverance, dedication and kindness that Butler has displayed throughout his life on and off the court, Stomski said.

Published on October 6, 2020 at 11:48 pm

Contact Anthony: aalandt@syr.edu | @anthonyalandt