By Jeff Jacobs, Hartford Courant
STORRS — He hadn't expected to see his old coach on this cold, cold February night. He had heard that Jim Calhoun, the one who took a chance on him all those years ago, might not be able to make it.
And then Caron Butler caught Calhoun out of the corner of his eye.
"It was extremely emotional," Butler said. "It made the whole night right off the top."
Accompanied by his entire family, Butler fought back tears as he gave Calhoun a giant hug. He fought back tears as he watched a video, and as his place among the "Huskies of Honor" was unveiled on the wall at Gampel Pavilion at halftime of UConn's 75-73 victory over Tulsa. He fought back tears as he thanked the school, thanked his UConn teammates and all the UConn players, and especially thanked Calhoun.
"He gave me an opportunity to live my dreams," Butler told the fans. "I just want to say anything is possible."
UConn's Tribute To Caron Butler
Former UConn star Caron Butler became the newest member of the Huskies of Honor prior to the UConn men's game against Tulsa Saturday night.
Anything was possible that night in a Manhattan hotel room, before the 2002 Big East championship game against Pittsburgh.
"Me, Taliek [Brown], Johnnie [Selvie], all of us, we couldn't sleep," said Butler, who was Big East Player of the Year. "It was crazy. We stayed up until 4 or 5 in the morning. We had a curfew but we just couldn't sleep. It was huge for us, a great opportunity. We gathered together and kept talking.
"Guys are like, 'This is what I'm going to do with the trophy. I'm going to run around.' I was just like, 'I just hope coach lets me go to the NBA this time.' All those thoughts run through your head. Everything we talked about that night actually happened."
UConn beat Pitt in double overtime. Butler, who hit a huge turnaround jumper, was named the tournament MVP. After convincing Butler he was not ready for the NBA after his freshman year, Calhoun told him the time was ripe in 2002. Yes, it all happened.
Butler, now in his 14th NBA season with the Sacramento Kings, talked about the ride from Bradley Airport on Saturday, reflecting on how time passes so fast, remembering trips to the 7-Eleven, the dorm rooms, the late-night shoot-around, seeing Ray Allen for the first time.
UConn Men's Insider: Five Things Learned From The Huskies' Nail-Biting Win Over Tulsa
UConn Men's Insider: Five Things Learned From The Huskies' Nail-Biting Win Over Tulsa
"Jesus Shuttlesworth," Butler said, smiling. "It was summer in the offseason, coming in like he's walking on water. I'm thinking, 'Man, that's what I look up to. That's what I want to be.'"
Butler said he was on campus three years ago. He met his wife, Andrea, at UConn. They drove up to Storrs — they have a place in New Haven — and just rode around the campus and talked about old times.
Butler told part of his story over the years and all of his story in his autobiography, "Tuff Juice." He had been in a gang. He dealt drugs. He was arrested 13 times before he was 15. He did solitary. He witnessed shootings. He saw friends end up as corpses. His single mom did all she could for him.
I visited those streets of Racine, Wisc., in March of 2002, only days after Butler played in his final game at UConn, a ferocious NCAA Tournament Elite Eight loss to Maryland. Racine is not a big city, but there are places there hard on Lake Michigan as tough as anyplace.
Men who had been part of his early life knew it well.
"That's why Caron means so much to the kids here," Ryan King said that day. "They want to be him. He is Racine."
"He's our treasure," Al Haj Jameel Ghuari said. "His example is so important."
Those were not the words people had used a half-dozen years earlier. His basketball had all the promise in the world. His world did not. Calhoun went to visit him in Racine when he was 17 and Butler wrote the other day in The Players' Tribune how the place was abuzz.
"I'm not going to make you the best Caron Butler, the ball player, you can be," Calhoun told him. "I'm going to make you the best Caron Butler you can be. Period."
I remember talking to Calhoun once, saying, "You think you're Father Flanagan, Jim. You think you can save 'em all."
Calhoun's eyes grew fierce.
"Maybe I do," he said.
The truth is, you can't save them all. But some of the ones you do become legends.
This is why coaches take chances on young men who had already had known so much trouble. This is why they get burned badly sometimes.
And Saturday night, this was why a 35-year-old man who grew up to be a 14-year NBA veteran and good man smiled through tears of thanks.
"[Calhoun] is special," Butler said. "A kid with a checkered past, a checkered background, just trying to prove my character was worthy of a prestigious university like UConn. He flew out to Racine and took a chance on me. He told me once I was part of this, 'I'm family for life. I believe in you.' I'm forever grateful.''
Butler played with Andre Drummond in Detroit last season. He's playing with Rudy Gay this season. He checks in on UConn players young and old. He calls himself, "the OG now." That's short for original gangsta. The truth is, he's no gangsta anymore. He is an original.
"It all goes by so fast," Butler said. "It only feels [14 years in the NBA] when I drive to the basket. I go I probably should have settled for the jump shot."
Butler was terrific that Elite Eight afternoon against Maryland in Syracuse, better than terrific in the second half. The final 20 minutes of his college career may well have been unparalleled in UConn basketball history.
"Has to be top five," Joe D'Ambrosio, the voice of the Huskies, said when asked where he'd rank Butler's performance among the greatest individual UConn games. "Because they lost, certainly it is the most underrated."
Butler had picked up two quick fouls and played only seven minutes in the first half. He came out of the locker room and, in a game that featured Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter, he took over. He had 26 of his 32 points in those final 20 minutes, including a put-back dunk on a missed Ben Gordon three-pointer that nearly brought down the Carrier Dome. It wasn't enough. Yet it was in the moment of his greatest anger and heartache that Butler resolved not to bury his head in a towel and dissolve into an emotional wreck.
"I am this team's leader," Butler said. "It's time for me to lead."
No UConn great ever held his head higher in defeat than Caron Butler that day. The locker room, afterward, was heartbroken yet composed. He would look at the 90-82 final score and say, "I really felt the team that wins this game would definitely win it all." A week later, Maryland would do precisely that. Calhoun would talk about how that team brought fun to his life and how he had needed such a season. He would go on to coach two more national champions and Butler would go on to a successful NBA career.
I remember writing from Syracuse: "He is a man on court. He has developed into a man off the court, too."
There are some players who weigh leaving college early for the NBA draft and you want to scream, "Don't do it, kid! You've got too much to learn yet. Don't be a dope." Too many leave anyway. Butler certainly was different. He was a sophomore, but he also was 22. He had seen so much on streets of Racine, on basketball courts everywhere. He was more than ready.
Writing in The Players' Tribune, Butler recalled Calhoun telling him, "It would be really hard to lose you. But if I was you, I'd go. I'm giving you my blessing to move forward."
And so he did as a lottery pick with Miami. Forward to more than 12,000 points and nearly 900 games with nine NBA teams. Forward to a career where he averaged better than 20 points two seasons in Washington, one that included an NBA title with Dallas in 2011 and has earned in excess of $80 million. Forward to a life as a dad, a husband, a businessman, an athlete involved in philanthropy. Forward to a life sturdily built after such a difficult start.
Forward to a point where he could look up on the wall of Gampel Pavilion and see, yes, this is where Caron Butler became a man.