Jerald Gillens-Butler's journey from homeless to Hinkle

INDIANAPOLIS — Butler’s bench is an oasis compared to where basketball player Jerald Gillens-Butler once sat.

When his mother went to prison – for the second time – relatives drove 5-year-old Jerald from Florida to South Carolina He slept on the floor of a crowded van for the seven-hour trip to his temporary new home.

After his mother was released about a year later, they were homeless in Orlando, Fla., for two years. For almost all of that time, they lived in shelters. But a couple of nights they had nowhere to go. They slept in a car.

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“That was about the lowest moment,” Gillens-Butler said. “I’ll never forget that moment.”

Nor does he want to forget. He said he wants to “shed light on the world” through his story.

His mother, Danielle Gillens, is convinced it is all providential. At her first sonogram, a nurse told the mother the baby was a boy who would be basketball player.

Although Jerald, a freshman, rarely plays for the Bulldogs, he has witnessed the rewards of perseverance. His club coach called the 6-4 wing a natural leader with the all-around game of a Draymond Green.

His Butler coach, LaVall Jordan, who waited his turn as a Butler player, told Jerald he reminds him of himself. Jerald has heeded counsel of his mother, who has told him “the greatest leader is one that’s now unseen.”

Basketball, faith and an indomitable spirit have taken the 20-year-old on a path from son of drug dealers to state championship and recruitment by top academic institutions. Brown and Vanderbilt universities offered scholarships.

But from the moment he and his mother saw the Bulldogs reach the Sweet 16 in the 2007 NCAA tournament, they set their sights. They were riveted by the movie “Hoosiers,” filmed in part at Hinkle Fieldhouse. There was something about Butler.

Jerald’s name was Butler. He would go to Butler.

“To see the manifestation of it, it’s been amazing,” his mother said. “Everything has perfect timing.”

***

Danielle Gillens, 38, has two felony convictions for selling drugs, in 2000 and 2003, according to court documents in Orange County, Florida. She is candid about it, saying she sold cocaine and marijuana and faced one 30-year sentence.

She said her mother was an addict and her father was 53 when she was born. She remembers gunshot holes in the walls of her home. She said she lived a “wild life” and struggled against authority. Always, she feared for her son. Always, she protected him.

“I kept him away from those things,” Danielle said. “I beat myself up for years about those things.”

The father, Jerald Butler, has also been imprisoned and is out of his son’s life. The son, often called J.B., carries his father’s name. He recently added a hyphen so he could carry his mother’s name.

During his mother’s first incarceration, Jerald was cared for by Danielle’s mother, Burma, and sister, Dana, in Orlando. The second time, Danielle’s cousin, Lorraine Wade, traveled from Orangeburg, S.C., to pick up the child his relatives called “Fat Fat.” Wade worked long shifts, so other relatives pitched in to care for the boy.

Jerald was no trouble. He was so popular with baseball teammates that when he returned to Orangeburg years later, they still recognized him. Wade said her grandson, 11-year-old Carey Wade IV, has “never been the same” since Jerald began mentoring him.

“Every time I think about him, I just get joy in my heart,” Wade said.

Still, the boy missed his mother. Reunion was a relief.

***

Jerald said his mother wearied of bouncing from relative to relative and they ended up at two homeless shelters for a span of two years.

At least mother and son were together. Danielle said becoming a Christian changed her life, and his. So did putting a basketball in her son’s hands.

Danielle spent time in a work release center. It is hard for a convicted felon to secure employment, especially one with poor reading skills. Money was scarce.

Jerald said he remembers nights crying in bed, pleading for his mother to eat food she bought for him. She eventually found work at a car wash, as a janitor and housekeeper, and at drub rehab centers.

“If you didn’t have faith in that time or circumstance, it would have caused you to do something that you would regret doing to this day,” Jerald said. “It helps us in our faith. It made us humble.”

His spirituality was expressed in inexplicable ways. His mother said days before hurricane Charley hit Orlando on Aug. 13, 2004, Jerald told his teacher that it would. His teacher said it wouldn’t.

After the hurricane passed, Danielle said, the teacher allowed 6-year-old Jerald to read Psalm 27 in front of the class. The psalm begins:

The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Or whom shall I be afraid?

***

Jerald was introduced to Outreach Love, a tutoring program for at-risk youths in the Parramore neighborhood of downtown Orlando. He was connected to a volunteer, Wendy Jennings, who became his advocate and remains so close to the family that he calls her his godmother.

Jerald repeated second grade, which confounded Jennings, who said the boy was “really smart” but lacked a few skills. She kept giving him books, encouraging him to read and build vocabulary.

As he grew older, she urged him to take the hardest classes available — calculus and chemistry — to prepare for college. And he better get A’s in English, she told him. She checked every report card.

“All we try to instill in the kids is education is something nobody can take away from you,” Jennings said.

Two other things that no one could take from Jerald: faith and basketball.

When he was asked to identify his favorite superhero, he replied “Bibleman,” after the Christian video series. Asked about his favorite sport, that was easy, too.

At an amusement park, as 2-year-old, he would not go on any rides but shouted “ball, ball, ball” when he spotted a goal at an arcade. The tyke shocked the carnival worker, making three shots in a row. He was awarded a basketball in addition to a teddy bear.

Everyone should have a refuge, and Jerald’s was the outdoor basketball courts of Lake Lorna Doone Park, near the football stadium where the Citrus Bowl is played. The courts were down the street from Orlando Rescue Mission. They had “raggedy nets,” Jerald recalled, and were surrounded by a black fence. He lived there “24/7,” he said. Even if no one else was there, he was content.

“When I went there, I was always happy,” he said. “If I didn’t like what was going on or if we didn’t have enough money to get food that night or whatever, that’s where I’d be at.”

***

Mother and son lived with another relative for a while, then in an apartment, then in Clermont, Fla., about 25 miles west of Orlando. They moved again, to the Miami area, changing residences several times.

The best thing the mother did was get the son out of the Orlando neighborhood that was “a little bit toxic,” Jennings said. If Danielle’s life had veered off course earlier, her navigation steadied. Mother and son are “an inseparable power unit,” Jennings said.

“She has done an amazing job of making sure she made choices for both her and J.B. that had the best outcome for both of them.”

Jerald joined the Florida Vipers, an AAU club based out of Deerfield Beach, Fla. Through changes in residences and schools, he stayed with the Vipers throughout his teenage years.

The Vipers’ coach, Brandon McThay, often was unaware of the player’s struggles.

“They worked. You could never see a change in their mentality,” McThay said.

The coach could relate to Jerald because he, too, had used basketball to improve his life. McThay, 32, was a Florida all-stater in high school who played at Lamar University.

On the other hand, McThay said, Jerald had no reason to trust male authority figures. Before the coach tried to improve the teen’s strength, agility and skills, he had to build a relationship. They endured good times and bad.

“When I first got J.B., he was on the verge of quitting basketball,” McThay said. “He confided to his mother, he didn’t want to play anymore. He was the first guy I ever had in that state of mind.”

Trust was won, and the Vipers won. In Jerald’s final summer on the AAU circuit, the Vipers reached the semifinals of the Las Vegas Fab 48 national tournament.

No one played harder, and no one involved teammates as he did. He might not have looked like a conventional point guard or Division I prospect, but McThay believed otherwise. The coach said the player was more athletic than his appearance might suggest.

In his high school state semifinal, Jerald “came out of nowhere” for a putback dunk at a clutch moment, McThay said. Jerald’s Westminster Academy team scored an overtime victory over Orlando First Academy, which featured Florida player of the year Chaundee Brown, the most touted Wake Forest recruit in a decade.

“It was the most amazing play I’ve ever seen,” McThay said.

Jerald had transferred to Westminster after two years at Miami High. Getting to school on time had required him to get up at 5 a.m. so he could take a 5:30 train from their studio apartment in Hollywood, Fla. The family relocated again, to Fort Lauderdale, where Westminster is located.

He helped Westminster reach the Class 3A championship game for the first time since 2002, and he scored 18 points in the first half. He was limited to one point in the second half, and Westminster lost to Windermere Prep 62-58.

Jerald transferred for his senior year to Calvary Christian, in Fort Lauderdale. The coach, Cilk McSweeney, learned about the teen’s story and asked him to share it at a homeless shelter and a school with at-risk students.

“He had a couple of those people crying, too,” McSweeney said.

Jerald had shown he could adapt to anything, and he soon bonded with new teammates. Three years after the school had a 6-18 season, losing games by 50 points, Calvary Christian was 24-6 and 5A state champion. Former Westminster teammates came to cheer.

In a climactic 64-58 victory over Tampa Catholic, Jerald had 25 points and 10 rebounds in outplaying Kevin Knox, a McDonald’s All American who had 24 points but was 1-of-12 on 3-pointers. Knox, now a Kentucky freshman, is the Wildcats’ top scorer and recently national player of the week.

***

In summer between his junior and senior years, Jerald considered more than 20 scholarship offers. Butler assistant coach Ryan Pedon, who was scouting other prospects at an Indianapolis tournament, discovered him in the final game of the final day.

Jerald was not the best player on the Vipers, who featured USC and Florida State signees. But he brought out everyone else’s best. His personality was magnetic.

“You feel his presence,” Pedon said.

Pedon said he reached out via social media to Jerald, who immediately responded. The recruiting process accelerated, and the relationship grew when the coach visited the family home. Mother and son had “a lot of substance,” Pedon said.

“He fit the Butler mold in a lot of ways — as a person, as a player and as a teammate,” the coach said. “Those things, regardless of how ready a guy is coming in the door, those things are valued at a high level at Butler.”

Jerald visited Butler’s campus in August. Jennings said mother and son had thought he would pick Vanderbilt but they felt so welcome at Butler — “they loved Butler so much” — that Jerald canceled all other visits and committed on the spot.

After Pedon accompanied coach Chris Holtmann to Ohio State, Jerald could have asked to be released from his pledge. Jordan called him virtually every day after he was hired in mid-June. The coach traveled to Florida and met with the family and high school coach for three hours.

Since Butler stayed loyal, Jerald said, so did he.

He has played in just 10 games – three since Dec. 21 – and has scored 14 points in 57 minutes. But he has lost about 15 pounds since arriving on campus, down to 235, and refines his game away from TV cameras. Butler coaches acknowledged all along he was an unfinished product.

Teammates say he listens to coaches, and listens to them. He is reminiscent of Roosevelt Jones, another atypical playmaker who became one of Butler’s all-time greats.

Jerald’s mother, who moved him to so many cities, residences and schools, has counseled her son with a three-letter acronym: E.N.D. Endurance never dies.

Danielle said at one point Jerald asked to be red-shirted. The mother called the bench her son’s wilderness experience, evoking the Exodus story of Israelites wandering for 40 years. It is a test of character, she said.

And his character is written on his face. It is what everyone first notices.

“The smile that I have, the world did not give it to me,” he tells his mother. “So the world cannot take it away. I’m going to keep smiling.”

Call IndyStar reporter David Woods at (317) 444-6195. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.