Let’s Hear It For The Dads

The George Mason men's basketball team has shaken up the World! While the entire Washington area is waiting for Joe Gibbs and the Redskins to return to the field for what appears to be a legitimate run toward the Super Bowl, the Patriots heart stumping run toward a national Championship will due just fine!

The college basketball team from the little known school in Fairfax County, Virginia now belongs to all of us! I had the rare opportunity to visit the sprawling campus the Monday after the team defeated North Carolina to advance to the Elite Eight. From that point on I was hooked; not just on the team but the charismatic President Allan Merten and coach Jim Larranaga who met with us on a moment’s notice for TV interviews. We found Lamar Butler, a senior guard who recently made the cover of Sports Illustrated, in the student Union. The charismatic Oxon Hill High grad called us over for a chat and subsequent interview.

What a group! What a University! What a family! This brings me to the most impressive aspect of this team’s surprise feats on the basketball court. What about the player’s families? On Tuesday, March 28th I sat down with Festus Campbell in his cubicle, at the Amtrak offices in downtown DC. Campbell is the Nigerian born father of Folarin Campbell; sophomore guard for GMU. This is one proud Poppa! A copy of the New York Times with Folarin’s picture on the front page adorns his desk; dad is wearing a regional championship tee-shirt, but what’s really interesting is this father admits he knows very little about basketball. However, he does know a lot about life and how he wants his children raised. “The name Folarin means walk with glory”, he explains. Festus has a quick laugh! He stands about five feet seven inches tall while Folarin is six feet four! He says he reserved his tall genes for Folarin who was introduced to basketball by his older brother George, a senior at Baltimore’s Morgan State University.

“I’m just a supporter,” says Festus who attended every GMU game except for the first Wichita State contest because he was in Nigeria for his mother’s funeral. Festus and his wife Francisca have been together for 33 years and married for 27 of those years. Family has always come first with them. They prayed their "Washington Post All Met" super star basketball son would choose a college close to home.

Mike Durso, Folarin’s Principal at Montgomery County’s Springbrook High, says what impressed him most about Campbell is that after every game when the other players were leaving the gym with their friends and girl friends, Folarin was going home with his family.

Springbrook's athletic advisor, Joyce Amatucee, says Folarin wasn’t a good student when he first transferred to the Silver Spring school; but by the time he graduated he had taken Latin, Physics, Statistics and Algebra 2 in order to make himself a more attractive college candidate. “He did it, but he didn’t like it,” says Amatucee. Folarin Campbell it seems wasn’t allowed to fail or take short cuts beginning with his family’s expectations. The same can be said for Lamar Butler and the other GMU players who say they chose Mason in large part because they wanted their families to be able to see them play. Another factor; a lot of the bigger programs passed them by, most of the players say they were an inch or two too small; maybe too thin or too heavy. What the big schools couldn’t measure was the size of their hearts or the content of their character that was forged at home and at the high school level.

Go Mason! And thanks to all those Mason Dads and Moms!

Ides of March!

Who said "beware the Ides of March!" Not me. It was my 30th anniversary at WUSA-TV9. Its been a great ride. Thanks DC!

-Bruce Johnson

Damon Ward

It’s an experience you never ever get comfortable with…meeting a mother, a single mother after her child has been shot and killed! Barbara Ward flew to DC, no make that Arlington, Virginia, on Tuesday and made herself available to reporters covering her son’s murder.

33 year old Damon Ward, an architect, was slain as he stepped out of the Duke City Jazz club in the 1200 block of U Street in Northwest DC this past weekend.

U Street is part of this city’s great African American history. Duke Ellington, a DC native got his start here. During segregated times this is the place where blacks came to shop, wine and dine. Integration and later the riots ended U Street’s run; but then came Metro (subway system) and gentrification. U Street is the main street again for a booming real estate market with condo’s going for a half million and more! U Street is again one of the District’s great nightspots along with Adams Morgan, Georgetown, Dupont Circle and Gallery Place!

This past Saturday Damon Ward, an architect, Florida A and M University grad and New York native traveled into DC from his Arlington Condo, to attend a birthday party with friends at a club called Duke’s City. The GM who goes by the name Zee told me there were 80 or so people inside that night…having a good time as four people celebrated birthdays well into Saturday night. At about 3 am Sunday as the U street clubs were closing and people spilling out, a fight was breaking out up the street over a parking space. Someone produced a gun! At the very time that Damon Ward and friends were exiting Duke’s club at least two shots rang…one hitting Damon in the chest. The other bullet striking a 21 year old female friend in the leg. She’ll recover. Damon died hours later at Howard University Hospital. Barbara Ward had been talking to her son earlier Saturday evening by telephone. From Atlanta she was trying to get help with her computer. Two hours into their effort he said he had to leave to attend a birthday party in DC.

Barbara Ward, a Howard University grad, now living in Atlanta said she hopes the people responsible for her son’s death will come forward. She called her loss “a great tragedy for the country as I’m sure Damon was headed for Greatness”. The grieving mother also thanked reporters gathered for their coverage of her son’s death…She emphasized that “this was not a driveby”! Why do you suppose this grieving mother even felt the need to say that?