Playing it forward - Emily Carlson

Head coach Clifford Barthé of St. Augustine in New Orleans talks to his players, including senior guard Lamar Nicholas, left, during a timeout at The Catholic Spirit Christmas Basketball Tournament Dec. 27 at the University of St. Thomas. A former St. Augustine ­­­player, Karnell James, helped arrange the trip to Minnesota to play in the tournament. Photo by Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit

By Maria Wiering, The Catholic Spirit

Basketball wasn't the only thing that drew a team from St. Augustine High School in New Orleans to the University of St. Thomas for the annual Catholic Spirit Christmas basketball Tourn­ament.

It was also a combination of a short-lived but regrettably broken St. Augus­tine tradition, a network of generous St. Thom­as alumni, and one man's pay-it-forward dream spawned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

That man is Karnell James, 32, who played basketball for both St. Augustine and St. Thomas in the 1990s.

James went to St. Thomas in 1993 because he wanted to do something different, and he heard good things about the college from St. Augustine alumni attending the school, he said.

He went on to play basketball and make the university's Hall of Fame. He also was named the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference MVP twice before graduating in 1997.

He was living in Houston, Texas, when Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast in 2005. Twelve of his family members fled New Orleans and moved in with him.

They stayed for about six months, he said, and he shared a bed with his 8-year-old nephew for some of that time.

His former St. Thomas teammate, John Tauer, heard about James' situation, and "in no time at all" collected $7,500 in donations from St. Thomas men's and women's basketball alumni and their families, James said.

"When I received that, I was like, 'Unbelievable.' I had been gone so long from campus, and a lot of these people didn't know me," he said. "I felt honored that someone would think that much of me and my family to help us out. It was certainly a humbling experience."

The money helped tremendously, he said. It paid for new clothes for his family members, who had left New Orleans with almost nothing. He bought extra beds, more food and rented an apartment for a few months.

James' family is back in New Orleans now, he said.

Paying it forward

The experience was an eye-opener, James said. He realized it was time to start doing the things he had always dreamed about.

Now James is hoping to re-establish the bond his high school and university shared 10 years ago. And he's using basketball as the glue.

"I felt fortunate to be able to help my family at that time . . . and that was because of St. Thomas," he said.

James credits his St. Thomas education with helping him secure a job as an information technology administrator. His career allowed him to have the things in place, such as a house, when his family needed him, he said.

He wanted today's students of St. Augustine to have the same opportunity to experience St. Thomas, and that's when he dreamed up his pay-it-forward plan: He and his fiancée, Melinda Lawyer, paid for the team to fly to St. Paul for the tournament.

Despite the costs involved for their upcoming January wedding, Lawyer also thought it was important to contribute to St. Augustine, James said.

"She's so unselfish," he said. "She understands that there's more important things than just ourselves."

But the generosity didn't end there. Other St. Thomas alumni helped to pay for the team's hotel rooms. One took the players out for a steak dinner.

Basketball was a great way to get St. Augustine students to visit St. Thomas, James said. "You have to start with something they love, and everything will follow from there," he said.

Tournament travel

There are two good reasons for St. Augustine's Purple Knights to be in St. Paul: to play in the tournament and to consider attending St. Thomas for college, said the team's coach, Clifford Barthé.

St. Augustine's was established in the early 1950s as the result of racial segregation, Barthé said. Today, the school is still Catholic, all-male and all African-American. Founded by the Josephite Fathers and Brothers, the school has a reputation for quality education and wants to help its students any way it can, he said.

The Purple Knights went into The Catholic Spirit tournament Dec. 27 to 29 with a 13-3 record. The school won two of the three games it played and finished in third place.

Many St. Augustine alumni in the early 1990s, including James, attended St. Thomas thanks to Tom Holley, a former Josephite brother who worked at the school and who also attended St. Thomas.

Barthé coached or taught all of the 20 or so St. Augustine men that went to St. Thomas in the 1990s.

"The guys seem to have done well for themselves," he said.

The team met Dec. 26 with about nine St. Augustine graduates who still live in the Twin Cities area and who spoke to the Purple Knights about their experiences at St. Thomas.

When Holley left St. Augustine, St. Thomas lost its biggest booster and graduates stopped coming to Minnesota. But Barthé hopes that will change.

"[St. Thomas] sees the need for broadening their experience, and seems to be very interested in the guys who have come up here," he said.

The goodness of gratitude

St. Augustine, like many other schools in New Orleans, suffered damage from Hur­ricane Katrina. For six months, it joined with two other predominantly African-American Catholic girls schools - St. Mary's Academy and Xavier University Preparatory - to combine resources and weather the disaster.

All three schools have since reopened and maintained their student bodies.

James' generosity is typical of St. Augustine alumni and of James himself, Barthé said. The high school tries to impress upon its students the importance of sharing what one has, he said.

"We try to get into them that sense of family and . . . reaching back and helping the guys behind," Barthé said.
There are a few Purple Knights who plan on applying to St. Thomas, he said.

St. Augustine senior Lamar Nicholas, 18, said he's applying to St. Thomas because he liked the people he met. "It kind of reminds me of home," he said.

"[I hope] the experience of them coming here broadens their horizons and broadens their base of their knowledge - those are the reasons why we came," Barthé said.