Advertisement - scroll for more content
Kyrie Irving: I was born in Melbourne, Australia. I spent about a year and a half there — my dad played for the Bulleen Boomers. My mom and dad got together, and a few months later I was born. My mom ended up getting sick and had to fly back to the West Coast — Washington State. She was raised in Port Orchard and Bremerton. She went to Lincoln High School and later to Boston University, where she met my dad. When she got sick in Australia, she flew home first. My dad had to suddenly leave with me and my sister Asia. We went back to the Bronx — Mitchell Projects, look it up — and that’s where I spent a large part of my childhood. My dad created an environment of love, morals, and respect — old-school values. My mom unfortunately overdosed in 1996. I was four. Not long after, my grandmother passed the same way. It changed our lives forever.”
“It was important to have something where I was being coached every day, where I was being challenged, so I could use that to help my leadership,” Mazzulla said. “I thought it was very important to get back into it as fast as I could.” Celtics director of team operations Kara Keena conducted an exhaustive search for a sensei. She combed through local instructors and sought references, eventually landing on Alex Costa, 47, a São Paulo native who helps run the Gracie Barra gym that sits in the shadows of Boston University.
Irving has, by anyone’s standards, a complex origin story. His father grew up in the Mitchel Houses, a public-housing project in the Mott Haven neighborhood in the Bronx, and got a basketball scholarship to Boston University, where he became the all-time leading scorer. His mother, Elizabeth Larson, was part of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. When she was a few weeks old, she was adopted by a white couple — a Lutheran minister and his wife, a nurse, who raised her in a suburb of Tacoma, Washington. Larson gave birth to Kyrie in Australia, where Dred was playing professionally, but when the marriage broke up, she decided to live in Washington State while Dred took Kyrie and his sister, Asia, to New York. Working as a bond broker for Cantor Fitzgerald and Thomson Reuters, he raised the children in the New Jersey suburbs.
“I had a good time in Boston, bro. I was going there since I was probably 6 years old to a college basketball camp at Boston University. I always had family there. I spent a lot of time there,” Irving said. “But when I played there, man I met my wife there and we settled down. So a lot of good memories. Just on the court, things didn’t work out as I would have liked.”
Advertisement
He didn’t go to Duke University law school like renowned sports agent Drew Rosenhaus, or have a relative cutting deals at Universal Music, making his path to celebrity row at Madison Square Garden nearly unreplicable. “I would see all these corporate guys [courtside] and thought I couldn’t do that — I’m not going to college. Then seeing Clive Davis, Marty Van Deer and Puffy, Jimmy [Iovine] and music big wigs around the time I was hustling in that world was when I wanted the music industry energy,” he says of MSG’s Golden Age, with the Knicks and Rangers making runs well into June seemingly every year during the ‘90s. With hoop dreams of his own six feet under, Kleiman enrolled at Boston University, but his time there in the general studies program wouldn’t last long. Dropping out after a semester, which he now chalks up to not being “disciplined enough,” Kleiman remained in Beantown for two years working as a bookie. He even spent a year in Boca Raton, Florida — but contrary to the typical relaxing life of retirees in the Sunshine State, Kleiman grinded, working odd jobs but priding himself on continuing to build his interstate Rolodex.
Brad Turner: The Lakers having pre-draft workouts today with: Javante McCoy – Boston University Keve Aluma – Virginia Tech Khalifa Diop – Gran Canaria Jeenathan Williams – Buffalo Malik Osborne – Florida State Danko Brankovic – Cibona
Kevin Chouinard: Hawks pre-draft workout for tomorrow: Brad Davison (Wisconsin) Tyson Etienne (Wichita State) David McCormack (Kansas) Javante McCoy (Boston University) Drew Timme (Gonzaga) Payton Willis (Minnesota)
Emmy award-winning actor Michael Chiklis, known for his roles in "The Shield" and "Fantastic Four", stars as Celtics' legend Red Auerbach in HBO's new series on the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty". Chiklis is a native of Lowell and attended Boston University from 1981 to 1985 and grew up a fan of the Boston Celtics.
Philadelphia coach Brett Brown is a creature of habit. And some of his habits have serious longevity. The Portland, Maine, native has a game-day ritual when he brings his 76ers to town that dates back to his days as a BU student and hoopist. “It’s counter-intuitive, but I run as far as I have to to balance the effect of a cheesesteak at T. Anthony’s,” he said of his finish line restaurant on Commonwealth Avenue. “I do it every time — rain, sleet, snow, beautiful day, doesn’t matter."
Advertisement
"When I played for Rick Pitino at Boston University, he would literally tape bricks to your hands and you have to go elbow to elbow doing defensive slides and you had to get 20 in a minute," Brown said. "After four years of playing for him, it's a punishing drill. Pop crystallized it. Guard the yard."
When Irving made the decision to request a trade away from Cleveland, most questioned his sanity. His father offered much-needed encouragement. "My best friend right there," Irving said. "Understanding the relationship that we have, the bonds that we share over the course of my 25-year-old life. It's pretty awesome to know that they retired his No. 11 at Boston University and I'm continuing that legacy for him and for our family by wearing No. 11 for the Boston Celtics." "It just feels like that's supposed to be my number."
When Auriemma asked why he decided to come to Boston, the four-time All-Star responded: “That was kind of pre-ordained.” Irving explained why the move just seemed to make sense for him. His parents met in Boston, seeing that both his mother, Elizabeth, and father, Drederick, were student athletes at Boston University. As a result, Irving ended up spending a lot of time in the city when he was growing up and even went to his first basketball camp at his parents’ alma mater. Over the years, he cultivated a “deep-rooted connection” to the city — one that he still feels today.
“We never put a ceiling on what we want to do,” Thomas told the Herald yesterday at Boston University, where he hosted more than 400 campers on the first day of his annual basketball clinic. “The ultimate goal is to win a championship, and that’s the only goal. So, whatever we have to do to try to get to the Finals, and try to get a championship, is what we’re going to do. We definitely have a really good team. We know that, the world knows that, and we just have to back it up.”
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement