Your rookie year in Miami was tough with the team losing 57 games. It was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. He was that male figure in my life and guide me through. Ray Allen did a great job for me and coach Calhoun was always in my ear. They gave us priceless information and put us under their wing and showed us the ropes. Guys that came back and were serious about developing guys and giving us information that we couldn’t get unless we experienced it. To have big brothers like a Donyell Marshall, Kevin Ollie, Ray Allen, and Khalid El-Amin. Not only having a family oriented university like the university of Connecticut, but having good people around me as well. How do you look back on your experience at UConn? We care about our team and we’re a family.” That was something that I really wanted to be a part of. I want you to come to Connecticut, we’re a family oriented University. He came out to Racine, Wisconsin and came to the gym that I was working out at. I was the number one prep basketball player in the country and UConn and Jim Calhoun was one of the major universities that took a chance on me. It was amazing because I wasn’t really getting recruited because of my record and what I been through. What was the college recruiting process like? Back then, basketball was something that served as a magnet that took me away from that environment. I didn’t really have a passion or love for anything besides being out in the streets and being amongst my friends and running with the crowds at the wrong time. That took a lot to move from Racine, Wisconsin to Maine Central. Only after playing a year of high school ball at Park high school, I had to go to prep school for two years. I was under a magnifying glass once I got back into Unified and that was a hard process. I was pulled out of class a lot and was searched randomly. I showed them documents that I was already attending community college and that I could be in that environment. I enrolled in class and had to go through a bunch of deans to get back into Unified. Everyone knows me as Caron Butler, but I had to go and use my official government name which is James Butler and that’s how I went to Gateway Technical College. The main thing about my high school situation was when I got incarcerated, I wasn’t allowed back in to Racine school district. What was the process you experienced when going back to high school after being incarcerated? I always vowed to myself to never let them see me like that again. For them to see me at my worst, and to see me thinking of myself as a complete failure which I was, it was tough. Never knew who my father was, never had that male figure in my life that was positive so they raised me. The people that invest the most in you whether it’s your mother, your grandmother-I was raised by women. When I went through all that adversity and everything. You said you never wanted to hurt your mother and the people who were in your corner ever again after being arrested. Written by Rafael Canton did basketball serve as an escape for you from some of your negative experiences growing up?īasketball was the outlet for me. We caught up with Butler to talk about his early life growing up in Racine, his NBA career, and his future goals after the NBA. He's an NBA champion and after all his accomplishments on the court, Butler will eventually delve into ownership and management in basketball in his post-playing career. The 12-year NBA veteran has now come full circle playing for his home state Bucks. he has moved on from his trials and tribulations. It’s been a long and successful career for Milwaukee Bucks forward Caron Butler.
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