Opelousas native channels grief into globe-trotting basketball career

Carol Ambres has been dead for nearly two decades. But standing on the hardwood floor of the Auditorium General Arteaga, in Querétaro, Mexico, surrounded by 2,800 plastic chairs, with the hint of charred concession meat wafting in the stale air of the arena, Mildon Ambres felt his mother.

At every stop in Ambres’ career as a basketball vagabond — from Opelousas High to LSU to Southern Miss and on to Southern Nazarene; from Romania to Spain, Egypt, most recently Mexico, and all points in between — his mother has been the ghost in the gym.

“My auntie Phyllis Fisher used to say I have a sixth man in the stands,” Ambres, a native of Opelousas said. “If she’s not in the stands, she’s in the rafters then. To this day, every time I go in the gym, she’s in the gym with me.”

For Ambres, the life and death of his mother will always be intertwined with basketball. Carol died on July 3, 1999, after collapsing in a parking lot in Orlando, Florida, minutes after watching his AAU team play in a national tournament.

He was just 14 years old.

“I had a big game. I scored 30 points. She loved to watch me play and that was the last thing she saw,” Ambres remembered. “She told me she was cold in the gym, so I put my T-shirt on her and then I went back with the team (to the hotel). We were swimming, celebrating the win and they come and they tell me she had passed away right after the game.”

“It was devastating,” Andrew Pitre, an AAU teammate and childhood friend of Ambres said. “She took sick a few times, but she always bounced back. I had never dealt with someone dying that was close to me.”

In the wake of her death, Ambres blamed himself. Carol, feeling ill and suffering from breast cancer, had considered skipping the trip to Florida. It wasn’t until he threw a self-described “fit” that she agreed to go.

“I always put that on myself, like ‘I was the reason, or maybe she should have been home.’ I really had to forgive myself,” Ambres said. "To lose your mom as a kid, that must be one of the worst things in the world. She was everything to my whole family. She was the greatest. It changed my heart. For a while I became colder. This is the first woman you ever loved; the first woman you ever know; the person who gave you your heartbeat.”

The following year, Ambes’ older brother — 10 years his senior and whom he calls his best friend — was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

“It crushed me,” Ambres said. “For a while, I didn’t care about nothing but basketball — that was the only thing that made me happy. I already lost my mom, then I felt like I lost my No. 2. I held that anger for a long time.”

Despite the grief and the rage, Ambres excelled on the court at Opelousas High School.

As a 6-foot-6-inch senior, Ambres was named the team's most valuable player, averaging 21.2 points, 14 rebounds and five assists per game. Along the way he also earned a Class 4A All-State honorable mention.

“Mildon’s been through a lot,” Pitre said. “As far as basketball and everything, he did it dedicated to his mom. He’s always put in 110, 120 percent. I saw that and other people saw that, and we wanted to put in effort just like he was.”

“He worked extremely hard,” Jason Forte, who spent two seasons alongside Ambres at Southern Miss, added. “We were always in competition, making each other better.”

Whatever catharsis the basketball court provided Ambres, the grief was always waiting for him after the final whistle blew. He never told anyone, but once, as a redshirt freshman at LSU, he locked himself in his dorm room for three days straight, avoiding class, practice and people.

“I didn’t do nothing,” Ambres remembered. “I laid in bed, killing myself with my thoughts. They wanted to put me in therapy. I stayed in my shell. I suffered from depression, which made me a loner — I still kind of am today.”

Ambres never played a minute for the Tigers, transferring the following year to Southern Miss. Looking back on his time at LSU, Ambres considered it a particularly difficult period of his life, saying that he wasn’t mentally ready or able to be a college athlete.

After two statistically so-so seasons at Southern Miss, he again transferred to Southern Nazarene University, establishing a pattern of jumping from place to place that, given the cut-throat, one-year-contract-laden nature of overseas professional basketball, has followed him for the better part of the past 11 years.

Ambres overcame a reputation of being “un-coachable” in the early goings of his professional career — a reputation he scoffs at (“I wouldn’t have been able to last for 11 years in professional basketball if I was un-coachable”) — by putting together an impressive three season run (2008-10, 2011-2012) in the NBA D-League with the now-defunct Idaho Stampede.

In 2010, he was named the NBA D-League Most Improved Player, averaging 14.5 points and 8.1 rebounds per game. Since then, Ambres has bounced from the Philippines to Spain, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Romania, Egypt and Mexico as an American scorer for hire.

“Mil was smooth,” Forte remembered. “His mid-range was something he made look easy, and he could penetrate and get to the basket. He had sneaky bounce too.

"I’m not shocked he’s still playing. He always took pride in his game and cared about being successful. He’s talented enough to where he can adapt to stay effective no matter how old he gets.”

Ambres acknowledged that he still has bad days, but that he has been able to find peace and forgiveness for himself and for his older brother. About five years ago he told his brother about the anger he had been carrying around for years and the feeling of abandonment.

“He’s a realist. He understood,” Ambres said.

Ultimately it was the support and nurturing of his family — his father, Milton (who himself had a successful basketball career at Southern University), and his several cousins, aunts and grandparents — who made the biggest difference; as well as his faith in God.

“When you have people around that’s keeping you positive, even though you can’t stop thinking about it and you hurt in your soul, it makes it a whole lot easier to deal with things,” Ambres said.

“It took me years to forgive myself. I questioned God. I was mad at the world. For a long time, I was mad at God. It took me to reading the Bible and going back into my religion and my faith — that’s what really made me forgive myself. God takes the ones he wants. When it’s time for you to go, it’s time for you to go.”

Now 33, Ambres is back in Opelousas, working out and waiting for his next professional opportunity. He wants to play for another two or three years before moving into his next life.

“I want to coach,” Ambres said. “All of what I’ve learned over these years, I want to give something back to these kids — help them get to college. I saw so many that didn’t make it (in Opelousas), that should have made it, just because they didn’t have the right support system. I want to be somebody they look up to as far as ‘Man, I can make it.’”