Sports: Reclaiming a bright future

Reclaiming a bright future

With the help of two strangers, Benson Callier is getting his life in order and playing basketball.

By PETE YOUNG

If everything goes as planned, if all of the things that are supposed to happen do happen, then next year at this time Benson Callier will be one of the elite high school basketball players in Florida with his pick of colleges.

Or, perhaps just as likely, you just read the name Benson Callier in the sports pages for the first and last time.

Callier, a junior at Gibbs, is walking a tightrope as fine as fishing line. Lose his balance again, and he slips into the abyss, maybe never to be heard from again. An apathetic student for the past three years, the most talented player in the area has yet to play a varsity game; he might never.

Walk straight and steady, however, and Callier will be a Division I recruit next year, just like the current crop of seniors who will formally commit to a college Wednesday on the first day of the early signing period.

Callier, a slender, 6-foot-4, 17-year-old skywalker, is a playground legend with unquestioned major-college talent. A versatile all-around player, his leaping ability is awe-inspiring. His dunk arsenal is Jordan-esque.

"There's no one who can touch him," said Boe Norwood, the recently retired Gibbs coach who is a school administrator. "He's the best player in the county by far. ... What position does he play? Any one you want."

"He can just jump out of the gym," said former St. Petersburg Catholic coach Tim Ryan, who is an assistant coach at Hillsborough Community College and has watched Callier play in recreation leagues at Wildwood Park. "He's a crowd-pleaser, that's for sure."

Callier also is a scholastic vagabond. Academic malaise has plagued him since he graduated from Azalea Middle School in 1997.

He attended Lakewood as a freshman in 1997-98 and said he played briefly on the junior varsity before he became academically ineligible. Callier was living with his grandmother, Kate Callier, in the Lakewood school zone then, but left to live with his mother, Patsy Powell, in the Gibbs zone for the 1998-99 school year. He again was academically ineligible for basketball.

Callier spent the fall of 1999 living with his father, Darryl Callier, in Palmetto and attending Bradenton Southeast, where he still was ineligible. According to his mother, Callier had a brush with the law in Palmetto, a misdemeanor. By January of this year he was back in St. Petersburg, living with his mother and attending Gibbs, though not often.

"I just wasn't into it," Callier said. "Some days I just wanted to be at home. I fell behind. I made mistakes."

On a Tuesday morning this spring, Callier, who turned 17 in January and should have been a senior this year, was skipping school again. He was playing ball in a pick-up game at Lake Vista Community Center when he caught what could be the biggest break of his life.

Pat and Anthony Lawrence were playing in the same pick-up game that morning. Watching Callier's high-wire show, the brothers were simultaneously struck with the same idea.

"My brother looked at me and said, "He's the next one,"' Pat Lawrence said. "I said, "I know."'

Pat Lawrence was a star basketball player at Gibbs, Class of 1991, and later at the University of Miami. Anthony Lawrence was a star at Lakewood, Class of 1988, and then played at Alabama. Anthony transferred after two years at Alabama and played his final two seasons with Pat at Miami.

Both are married and living in St. Petersburg. Both are grateful for having had the chance to go to college and are looking to help others seize that opportunity.

"College is the best experience of your life, and ever since we got out of college, we've been trying to help," Pat Lawrence said. "We want them to have the experience we had. "I look at it like this: If we didn't do it, who would?"

James Rosebud was the first. A 6-9, talented, reed-thin basketball player, the Lawrence brothers helped Rosebud get things on track after he was suspended from the Gibbs team his junior year for disciplinary reasons. Rosebud played his senior season at Gibbs, graduated this spring and now plays for Southeastern Community College in West Burlington, Iowa, the defending junior college national champion.

Callier is the next reclamation project. He's more talented and has more variables to his story.

Eight months ago, Callier became a father. His son, Darrien Callier, lives with his mother, Latarsha Denson, 19, in St. Petersburg. Callier and Denson, who attends St. Petersburg Junior College, have been dating for about two years. Callier works at McDonald's to help with support, and the birth of his son contributed to his drifting away from school.

"He had no one to guide him, no one to tell him what his next step should be," said Pat Lawrence, who is a regional account manager for H.R. Logic and has worked as an assistant coach at Gibbs. "It's admirable, but we said to him, "What do you know about taking care of a kid without a high school diploma?'

"We sat him down and said, "This is what the future holds for you the way you're going."'

Callier's parents separated when he was at an early age and he said he never has known his father very well. Darryl Callier has a criminal record that includes convictions for assault and cocaine possession, among other things.

"I was concerned he would quit school, drop out," said Powell, who has been married to Thomas Powell since 1986. "The school system wasn't making it easy, and Benson, he wanted to do what he wanted to do.

"He needed someone to talk to, that he would listen to. Someone to guide him -- guide him the right way."

The Lawrence brothers, with their distinguished basketball pedigree and college degrees, had Callier's ear. The first thing they did was remove Callier from Gibbs and enroll him at Tomlinson Adult Learning Center, where he could get a fresh start in a new environment. He has taken classes there and at the Pinellas Technical Educational Center for the past eight months.

The Lawrence brothers have served as friends, mentors and monitors, a tag-team committee advising Callier on everything in his life.

"He has retaken classes he had failed," Pat Lawrence said. "He has a focus, he has goals, he has things he wants to accomplish."

"Pat and Anthony told me the best way to do it was to get in school, do well, and it will work out," Callier said. "That's the plan."

His transcript is still a bit unsettled, as some of the classes he had failed previously are being expunged and the new grades, from when he re-took the class, are entered. Norwood, whose replacement as coach had not been announced, said Callier has a 2.1 GPA. If he continues to do well in school, he will be eligible to play in January, a month after the season starts, perhaps sooner.

While St. Petersburg public schools Lakewood, Boca Ciega and Dixie Hollins all have had success in recent seasons, Gibbs has not. Callier is intent on changing that, and his whole life, around.

"I'm really ready. I was ready two years ago, but I messed up," Callier said. "I'm ready for Gibbs-Lakewood, for Gibbs-Dixie. I can't wait."

He says he will not mess up again, that he will not let down the people who are trying to help him.

"The biggest key is him," Lawrence said. "It's, "Benson, what are you going to do from this point on?"