http://www.nba.com/pistons/community/burns_090326.htmlRip City Reunion
Pistons fans haven’t seen much of Rip Hamilton on the court lately, but his strained groin did not hinder his performance at Burns Elementary School in Detroit Wednesday. The Pistons guard met with an assembly of 150 students to answer their questions. He was a straight shooter, as always. “I never drank, I never smoked. A lot of my friends did that,” said Hamilton, addressing children who face similar issues with drugs and alcohol in their northwest Detroit neighborhood. “A lot of times my mom and my dad used to tell me, ‘Those guys who are doing that negative stuff now will be the same people in 20 years doing exactly the same thing.’ And that’s so true. I didn’t believe it at the time. Now they’re in jail or they’re calling me and asking me for stuff.” The Q-and-A session touched on basketball – what it was like to play with Allen Iverson (“It’s great”) and how many lay-ups he can make in a row (“Hopefully like a billion”) – but many more were about what he’d do if he wasn’t a famous athlete. “I always wanted to own my own restaurant. I wanted to be a businessman,” Hamilton said. “My mom was always a good cook.” That answer shouldn’t surprise the parents and teachers who were at Burns three years ago, when Hamilton brought his personal chef to show students how to make some healthy snacks.
It was in 2006 that Hamilton’s Rip City Foundation partnered with the Pistons-Palace Foundation to open the Rip City Resource Center. The décor includes a mural of Hamilton reading outside, framed Hamilton jerseys on the wall, graphics on the windows and even a life-size cutout of Hamilton that reads, “Strong bodies. Strong minds.” Now the real Hamilton was back in the building to reinforce the same message. “I love it, it’s just like a reunion,” said Burns principal Charlene Harper. “The re-visitation makes us feel like we have not been forgotten. And we’re still moving upward and onward and we’re still progressing as it relates to technology and reading is on the front burner.” Originally supplied with hundreds of new books, the Rip Resource Center received an upgrade Wednesday thanks to IBM, which provided laptop computers with state-of-the-art reading comprehension programs and also a “Young Explorer,” an educational play console for kids ages 3-7.Pistons Photo Without such technology, Hamilton was encouraged to learn the old-fashioned way. “Education was easy for me because my mom and dad stayed on me every day to come home and study,” he said. “I know sometimes you don’t want to stay home and study, you want to go out and play. But when you get to my age, you’ll appreciate the lessons your parents and grandparents have taught you.” Most of the students in the audience earned their invitation to hear Rip speak by writing essays about the meaning of sportsmanship.
One student posed the same question to Hamilton, asking how he handled good sportsmanship after losing the NBA championship to the Spurs in the 2005 Finals. “That’s tough,” he replied. “You’ve got to suck it up sometimes. Don’t let anyone see you down. That’s one thing I always tell people, don’t let anybody ever see you down. Don’t let anybody ever see you sweat.”Fifth-grader Asia Porter wrote the winning essay, receiving a $2,500 scholarship from the Detroit Free Press Gift of Reading program. “She’s a sweetheart,” said building sub Elsa Howard, who has taught Asia’s class several times. “You can not ask for a better child.” Asia read her essay to a gathering of classmates, Burns staff members and Pistons sponsors. Asia’s mother, Sharuan Porter, enjoyed seeing Asia in the limelight. “Oh, it felt great, just to know that she’s achieving everything she wants to do in school as far as writing and learning new things,” she said. “It’s a wonderful thing.” Porter’s pride is probably very similar to how Hamilton’s mother, Pam Long, felt when her son made the most of his basketball scholarship to the University of Connecticut. “I really buckled down in the classroom and I ended up making the dean’s list. I always put myself in a position where not all of my eggs were in one basket. When I did that, I gave myself another [way] out [of trouble],” Hamilton said. “If something happened to me basketball-wise, I always knew I had my education to fall back on. “A lot of people know me for basketball. Not a lot of people know me for being on the dean’s list.”A few more do now, Rip. And they’re better off for it.
