August 31, 2009
Terez, the defense never rests..
Tim James is in Iraq, in a suffocating desert 105 miles north of Baghdad, but he isn’t making one of those celebrity visits to cheer up the troops. No, he is the troops. The former University of Miami basketball star and former Miami Heat first-round pick enlisted in the Army a year ago, at the age of 31, and now he finds himself in the dusty, dirty center of a war. Betty James wanted to scream. She knew she had raised a tough man in Liberty City, but did he have to go and be this tough? He had other career options. Teaching. Coaching. Couldn’t he choose a new career path in his 30s that didn’t involve insurgents and explosions? Her son had money. He made almost $2.5 million playing for the Heat, Hornets and 76ers. The Heat’s per diem of $113 means an NBA player gets more in meal money a season than the $2,000 a soldier of James’ specialist rank will earn in a month. More than triple, actually. And James earned plenty playing professionally in Japan, Turkey and Israel, too. But as he traveled all over the globe playing his beloved game, seeing a world he never thought he’d see growing up poor in Miami, he didn’t learn to merely value or appreciate America’s freedoms. He decided he wanted to fight to protect them, too. “I never saw this coming,” his mother says. – Miami Herald
Now we know at least one selfless guy has come from the NBA..-TO
