|
When he arrived at Bolar Basketball Academy in
Rio, Freccero said he was struck by the holes in the roof, the concrete playing
floor and bent rims. In the distance, the kids. Some of them weren't wearing
shoes. They were supposed to be 17 and 18 years old but looked much younger
and thinner.
Freccero, 26, had paid his own way from his hometown
of San Leandro and hardly spoke a word of Portuguese. He'd come to Brazil for
the NBA's Basketball Without Borders, a well-funded program furnished with all
the best amenities for the top 50 teen prodigies throughout South America and
the Caribbean, but this free clinic was something he volunteered to do because
he cared about spreading the game to everyone.
For most of these young Brazilians, some of whom
had never played basketball, the camp would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
As Freccero was introduced, he saw they were brimming with enthusiasm.
"Bolar isn't really about basketball, it's
about giving the kids something to do every day so they stay off the streets,"
said Freccero, a former Bishop O'Dowd High School and Cal State Hayward point
guard.
Bolar administrators informed Freccero, who runs
basketball clinics at his Triple Threat Academy for kids throughout the Bay
Area, that his being an American would be enough to get the kids to show up.
If they became committed to learning a sport and started coming into the local
community center every day, that would make the Brazilian project a success.
Freccero packed the house; no one was turned
away. For two days, he ran about 35 kids through basic skill drills. Some learned
the rules of the game for the first time; all were taught the fundamentals of
shooting, passing, defense and dribbling.
"A few were jumping over cones without shoes
on. They never once complained," he said.
When the athletes received their certificates
of completion, he saw that they did not want to go home. He wondered what they
had, if anything, to go home to.
"I wanted to cry when I saw the poverty,
but their resolve was so amazing, " he said.
At the end of each session, many of the kids,
who were given free Triple Threat Academy/Bolar T-shirts, tried to return them,
as is the custom for practice jerseys in soccer.
"When we told them they could keep them,
they were shocked,'' he recalled. "They couldn't believe that an American
cared enough to come do this for them. " After two days at Bolar, Freccero
shifted gears, going back into the city to coach the top young talent on the
continent. He knew he'd be working side by side with the best players and coaches
in the world. Freccero faced a new set of demons. He knew the game well but
was still young to be a coach. And as a player, although he was good, he was
never NBA material. He would have to prove he belonged.
"Bolar was quite a different atmosphere
than the NBA camp, which basically had unlimited resources," he said.
At Basketball Without Borders, which was held
in Rio from June 28 through July 3, Freccero worked alongside NBA staffers such
as Tony Ronzone, international scout for the Detroit Pistons, and NBA players
such as Nene of the Denver Nuggets and Leandro Barbosa of the Phoenix Suns,
both Brazilian natives.
|
|
"BWB is a social program," said Sharon
Lima, public relations coordinator for the NBA's Latin American office, "part
of the NBA's effort at community outreach to the world."
The clinic in Rio was the first of three programs
this summer for the top 50 players ages 16 to 17 from Africa, South America
and Europe.
In addition to basketball instruction, the athletes
received life tutorials for an hour and a half a day. They had seminars on teamwork,
leadership, responsibility, respect and character, and on the final day, a group
from Rio came in to talk about AIDS/HIV prevention and awareness.
|
[Freccero]
at the Basketball Without
Borders camp in Rio de Janeiro
demonstrates
two-handed dribbling
|
|
"In the NBA, it's very important for us
to teach kids in our home country, " said point guard Barbosa, who is from
Sao Paulo.
Freccero worked with Barbosa on dribbling drills
from basic to advanced levels at their station. He worked the kids hard to earn
their respect along with the admiration
of his fellow coaches. It worked.
"He does a great job working with kids at
his camps. I thought he would be a wonderful addition to the NBA staff,"
said Ronzone.
Barbosa and Freccero complemented each other
well despite coming from separate worlds. Barbosa, 21, is a gifted athlete who
converted to basketball from soccer when his older brother introduced him to
the game as a kid. Freccero played basketball from the first day he entered
Bishop O'Dowd's highly touted program in Oakland. They shared a work ethic and
had the same five-day mission at the camp: to pass on everything they knew about
basketball from drills to no-look passes to beating a zone defense.
"Every one of them wanted to come here (to
the United States) to play basketball," Freccero said. Some will. One boy
from Jamaica at the clinic was on his way to Marist College in New York next
fall. Freccero thought that a few others eventually would sign European professional
contracts. With Freccero's help, one of the boys from Bolar, a 6-foot-8 power
forward, recently was offered a full scholarship worth more than $100,000 to
play basketball and attend Holy Names College in Oakland.
"That alone makes my trip worthwhile,"
Freccero said.
But is the lure of NBA fame and fortune giving
these kids false hopes?
"The reality for them is the same for kids
here; maybe one kid will go to the league," Freccero said, "But to
say that the NBA is giving them false hopes, I don't agree. ... It's just like
Harvard recruiting top kids for their business school. The NBA is a business,
after all, but at least they're doing something positive."
Ronzone believes that most of the kids, who got
to leave their native countries for the first time, were just happy to be there.
"All the kids' eyes light up around this
kind of environment. The NBA is spreading the game globally, just like baseball,
" he said.
Freccero intends to share what he's learned abroad
with American youths. Having witnessed how the sport can help the Bolar kids
and how hard the young men at the Rio camp are working to come stateside to
play, he wants to show just how fortunate American kids are to have the opportunities
they do with basketball.
"The overbearing theme of all my camps is
that if you work as hard as you can and don't make it, you at least have the
work ethic to pursue some other endeavor besides basketball," Freccero
said.
For more information, visit www.triplethreatonline.com
or call (510) 432-0742. Athan Bezaitis is a freelance writer.
|
A coach who's got heart to go with his game