Robert Hargrove

The Boston Celtics are in the NBA Finals for the first time in 20 years. One of the people making an impact in the series is Leon Powe, whose father left home before the age of seven and whose family became homeless the same year when a fire burned their house down.

Powe, the oldest of 7 children, spent a considerable amount of his childhood at the flea market helping his mother, Connie Landry, sell trinkets, toys, and used clothing from the back of a van. That was how the single mother supported the children after the fire and before Alameda County Child Protective Services placed Powe and his siblings in foster care.

At the time the agency knocked on the door, the family lived in a crowded, one-bedroom apartment in East Oakland, struggling to pay rent with unpredictable earnings from the flea market. No money meant another move. Sometimes Powe spent nights in motels, cars, and homeless shelters.

When food ran low, Powe went without dinner so everyone else could eat, pushing food onto his mother’s plate and then grabbing breakfast at a friend’s house the next morning. Powe missed large portions of elementary school when he needed to stay home to watch his younger siblings.

Powe’s magical transformation into an NBA star, however, is one that shows what can happen when the life of a person with character and talent intersects with a mentor who takes him or her under their wing.

The mentor turns out to be John Ward, the half brother of one of Powe’s best friends, Sharmare Freeman, who stole something and ended up going to jail. A former Oakland Tech high school basketball standout, Ward spent time in prison before turning his life around and taking a job as a probation counselor. He saw a chance to make a difference with Powe and make up for a missed opportunity with his half-brother, Freeman.

“My little brother had gotten in trouble, so I took Leon under my wing,” said Ward, who is now Powe’s legal guardian. “I was trying to teach him about life. I wanted to make sure he didn’t make the mistakes my little brother and myself made. It was about showing a young man how to be a good citizen growing up in the community.”

When a 13-year-old Powe asked Ward for help with his game, Ward decided to test Powe. Ward hears a lot of people ask for help, but few demonstrate the drive necessary to change. Ward wanted to see how much work Powe was willing to do. So he asked Powe to run 20 laps around a nearby schoolyard and then practice his shot until sunset. Ward waited 20 minutes, then hid across the street from the schoolyard and watched Powe.

“The kid ran 20 laps,” said Ward. “He shot till the sun came down. I was like, ‘Wow, he’s serious. He really wants to get his life together.’ Once I saw that, I knew he had the discipline. He just needed guidance and to be pushed, a big-brother, father-figure thing. I just wanted to show support because you knew deep down the kid had been scarred by life.”

Ward first made sure Powe improved his grades, seeking out Oakland Tech teacher Jonas Zuckerman as a tutor. Powe spent long days with Zuckerman, raising the 1.5 grade-point average that made him ineligible for six weeks of his high school freshman season to 3.2 by graduation. Powe would need good grades and good board scores when he decided to attend Berkeley, a university that did not honor scholarships to partial academic qualifiers.

While Powe became a basketball star in high school, for him it was never just about basketball. It was about being a good person and creating a stable situation for his family. It was Powe’s dedication, hard work and ability to deal with adversity that landed him in a Boston Celtics uniform in 2008, a year the Celtics would go to the finals.

When Celtics coach Doc Rivers and star player Paul Pierce heard about Powe’s story and saw his tremendous work ethic at the beginning of his rookie year with the Celtics, they both started to cheer for him at games and practices. Pierce and Powe formulated a natural big brother/ younger brother relationship.

Pierce, who also took Powe under his wing so he could make his mark at the NBA level, had himself been mentored by a man named Scott Collins, a LA police detective, and to whom he attributes turning his own life around.

In the second game of the series, Powe, a rookie who barely played 36 minutes in all the playoff games leading up to the Finals and three DNP’s, seemed to rise to the occasion and take over the game, bringing down big rebounds, dishing off assists and scoring 23 points, the game of his life.

Now Powe says it’s time to give something back, spending scads of time mentoring younger kids in the community and supporting the Big Brother Association.