![]() Coach (Jim Calhoun) taught me how to be professional on and off the court. We was playing basketball, we was doing something that we loved doing and I was exposed to so much. “It got me away from the noise and all the distractions and put me in a situation where I was alone and I got stronger mentally and physically. “It was a good adjustment for me,” Butler said of playing at UConn. I was able to pay my way through prep school and good things started happening for my basketball career.”īutler, 35, was Big East Player of the Year at Connecticut in 2002 and a member of the NBA All-Rookie team in 2003. I had a guy in the neighborhood who was doing all types of things and I asked him for a loan – $6,000 – and he gave it to me. ![]() When Sergeant Geller showed me that favor, I just went to prep school. “It wasn’t my drugs that was found, but when you’re in those environments and those situations, you’re guilty. “After that situation had happened, obviously I was granted another chance,” he said. Instead, Butler, given a second chance on life, cleaned his up. If I was convicted at the time, I would be facing anywhere from 10 to 15 years.” “They don’t happen like that for anybody in those predicaments and in those situations. “Things like that just don’t happen,” Butler continued. He knew that I wasn’t the guy that sold to the informant that morning and he released me. Sergeant (Rick) Geller, who’s been traveling with me, building the bridge from community to law enforcement over the last coupe years and helping with the foundation (3D) and all that, he was the officer that found the narcotics when that tag team came in there. (But) I was in a house that got raided and they found a little over an ounce of crack/cocaine in the house. “When I got out of corrections, I was out of the game,” he said. Once Butler got out, he got a job at Burger King. I ended up doing a little bit over a year in corrections for that case.” The first time I got caught, I was at high school and the ATF came in and they caught me with a quarter ounce of cocaine and a handgun. I’ve always been exposed to it by the people around me, but that was my first time getting out there and jumping off the porch and getting into it. James Caron Butler (born March 13, 1980) is an American professional basketball coach and former player who is an assistant coach for the Miami Heat of the. He got a job at Burger King, and rededicated himself to basketball. I had a paper route in Racine, Wisconsin, and I was already working. In prison at 15, Butler vowed that, when he got out, he would change. “I was out on the streets and some of the guys that was out there, a guy tossed me a pack of his (drugs) and that’s how I got into a game. “I was a teenager (when I got in the drug game),” Butler said on CBS Sports Radio’s The Doug Gottlieb Show. But when you consider that Butler almost spent the majority of his young-adult life in jail, it’s unfathomable.īutler discussed his rough upbringing and more in a memoir released this week, “Tuff Juice: My Journey from the Streets to the NBA.” I witnessed it firsthand because someone changed my life.Caron Butler is an NBA champion and two-time All-Star. We should invest by coming back and being pillars in the community. Whether we like it or not, we are role models. Why is it important for players to reach back and help? ![]() There are a lot of NBA players who have the ability to do what you have done in the community, but every prominent player doesn’t give back. So every year we give away 500 bikes and promote fitness. The NBA veteran also saw the release of his autobiography. I joined up with Walmart and the program just got bigger and bigger. foxsports Signing with the Sacramento Kings this offseason might have only been the second biggest part of Caron Butler's summer. The police told us had been a couple bike thefts going in the neighborhood and started giving bikes away. I got involved when my cousin’s bicycle was stolen a couple of years ago. After Butler was sent to a juvenile institution, he began to change his life by reading Bible verses. They didn’t show the kids what could happen if you lived a certain way.Īlong with speaking to kids, you give back by giving away 500 bikes per year. Because when I was coming up, dudes who were successful would never come back. That’s why it’s very important for me to get out and be a pillar in the community and tell my story. ![]() I feel like young people believe you more if you speak their language. I knew they were coming from the heart, but I wasn’t feeling it. People would just come and speak to me when I was a youth going through the struggle. There were mentors and people at the recreation centers, but all of that advice was going in one ear and out of the other. Ned Lamont to sign legislation that would strictly limit the use of solitary confinement and other forms of. Was there anyone who tried to reach out to you at that time? Former NBA player Caron Butler was at Connecticuts state Capitol on Monday to ask Gov. ![]()
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