| | By Melanie Jackson
ESPN.com
Despite the long flight home that loomed ahead, Charlotte Brandon boarded the plane full of energy and with a bounce in her step.
|  | | Terrell Brandon says he's proud of his mother's efforts with MPBP. |
Her son, Terrell Brandon, in his fifth NBA season, had just played in his first All-Star Game. And even though she was overflowing with proud thoughts of her son, Charlotte also headed home with a sense of personal accomplishment.
While in San Antonio for the All-Star weekend, Brandon realized she hardly knew any of the other NBA moms. What if problems arose? Say a parent needed another ticket to the game or no one knew where to turn.
"We needed a better system," Brandon said. And better yet, she thought she had a solution.
Four years later, Mothers of Professional Basketball Players (MPBP) has more than 100 members, including the moms of Shaquille O'Neal, Vince Carter, David Robinson, Kevin Garnett and Jason Kidd.
At least a half dozen other MPBP members, including the moms of Allan Houston, Jamal Mashburn and Charlie Ward, will be rooting for their sons Sunday -- fittingly, on Mother's Day -- as the NBA Playoffs continue with three games.
Brandon says the MPBP is a support group of sorts which also aims to educate mothers around the NBA, WNBA and CBA on how to handle their son's or daughter's off-court problems or business dealings. The latter is especially important, says Brandon, who, with a chuckle, says the NBA stands for "National Business Association."
"That's what I call it," she says. "And in this NBA, it's 90 percent business, 10 percent talent. And although you better be talented, you also need to know the business."
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MPBP'S CHARITY WORK
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MPBP holds several fund-raising events throughout the year to raise money for various charities. Among the most recent projects:
Using 44 NBA and WNBA player jerseys, many of them autographed by the players, MPBP moms Vickie Benjamin (Bulls' Corey Benjamin) and Betty Campbell (Hornets' Elden Campbell) hand-stiched a 105-inch by 130-inch "Unity Quilt."
The quilt, which raised more than $24,000 after being auctioned off via NBA.com on Friday, was displayed at the NBA store in New York for two months. All proceeds benefited Reading is Fundamental.
Jason Kidd's mother, Anne, suggested making the quilt last fall. And although a quilting instructor said the jersey material would be too difficult to make into a quilt, Benjamin and Campbell finished the quilt in nine exhausting weeks after countless all-nighters and 15-hour days -- some spent correcting "errors we had to straighten out," quipped Campbell, who says the project could have easily taken nine months had there not been a March deadline.
Hours of commuting also factored into the project, as Benjamin routinely drove three hours one way to Campbell's house where the quilt was made.
"Their fingers are still sore," says MPBP founder Charlotte Brandon.
Campbell, who has made more than 25 quilts and won several first-place awards for her quilt-making in the California State Fair, has also made several quilts for Elden, including a Lakers quilt made from his team warmups. Now, three years after being traded to Charlotte, he's waiting for a Hornets quilt.
In an event organized by Theo Ratliff's mom, Camilla, MPBP members participated in a powder-puff basketball game in Birmingham, Ala., a few weeks ago to raise money for area senior citizens.
Charles Barkley, whose hometown hosted the event, served as the game's referee. Shaquille O'Neal's mother, Lucillle Harrison, won the game on a buzzer-beater. Proceeds benefited the Birmingham Department of Aging.
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Brandon's "business" -- which is now up to 112 members -- began the second Annie Payton, mother of Sonics guard Gary Payton, mentioned the need for such an organization. And after Payton invited Brandon to tag along to an annual breakfast hosted by Diane Stern, wife of NBA commissioner David Stern, during the 1996 All-Star weekend in San Antonio, Brandon did the rest.
Introducing herself to David Stern, Brandon told him of her plans to start a mother's association.
"I could see the delight in his eyes," Brandon recalled earlier this week during a telephone conversation from her home in Portland, Ore. "He told me it was a wonderful idea, and that he'd support me any way he could.
"And I had such a sense of accomplishment. I went straight to David Stern, not to the left or the right or to his assistant. I went to the man, and established a relationship with him right then and there."
Brandon began brainstorming immediately. On the flight home to Oregon, her husband couldn't sleep. "I kept telling him I was going to do this and that," she said.
Rev. Charles Brandon did more than listen when they arrived home. Within the next week, he had converted their children's old playroom into Charlotte's new office, complete with a new computer, desk, new wallpaper and phone lines, which Terrell, who played for Cleveland at the time, helped finance.
To him, it was money well spent.
"Naturally I'm very proud of my mother and what she's doing," Terrell said Tuesday on ESPN's Up Close. "MPBP is going very well. It's doing more than the NBA. It's also reaching the WNBA, overseas, the CBA. It has become global."
Although the majority of MPBP's 112 members are NBA moms, membership extends to moms with "kids" in the WNBA and CBA, as well as players associated with the Harlem Globetrotters. For now, just three MPBP members have daughters in the WNBA, including Lisa Leslie's mother, Christina Leslie-Espinoza. The MPBP hopes more WNBA moms will join, said Candy Murray, who oversees the coordination of MPBP's five regions and heads up the organization's western region.
Murray qualified for MPBP on two accounts. One son, Tracy Murray, plays in the NBA for the Washington Wizards. Another son, Cameron, is a Globetrotter.
Murray says the MPBP's educational efforts have been extremely rewarding, particularly when the group brings in ex-NBA players such as Julius Erving for lectures on topics such as life after basketball. Sometimes, though, just listening to each other's travails is all they need.
"We all go through the same things, and if we have experienced something, like a contract dispute or maybe something off the court, we can share it to a new mother to hope they don't have to go through the same thing," Murray said. "As mothers, we're the ones who oversee our son's corporations. We interface with agents, the money people, so we better know what's going on. So we have continuously brought in people to better educate us."
Still, the best part of MPBP, says Helen Mashburn, mother of Heat forward Jamal Mashburn, "is just being able to meet all these tremendous women and become a sisterhood."
Murray says MPBP has brought the sons closer as well.
"For years, these guys just played together, said hi when their paths crossed," she said. "Now they hug, ask how mom's doing. Sure the NBA is a family, but we believe MPBP has brought the NBA family closer together."
Terrell Brandon agrees.
"In the past, players tend to look at a game as business, so when you play against an opponent, you'd maybe say, 'What's up?' " he said. "Now, because we have hung out in the summer at the (MPBP) conventions with our parents and gotten to know each other and our families, we want to know what's going on with each other."
Terrell also says he feels like he has a "mother in the stands" wherever he plays. For instance, when playing in the New York/New Jersey area, he always looks forward to "goodie bags" from MPBP members Becky Gatling, whose son Chris Gatling plays for Denver, and Helen Mashburn.
"Terrell just loves Becky's homemade macaroni and cheese," Charlotte Brandon said.
Terrell, however, says he most appreciates the effort, not the entree.
"It's not so much what they give me. It's the fact that it's there, knowing that they were thinking about me when they made it," he said. "Now I'm a little spoiled because I've come to expect it."
Vickie Benjamin, whose son, Corey Benjamin plays for the Bulls, got right down to the heart of the organization.
"When you're in a (MPBP) meeting, someone might bring up something that I haven't had to face yet, but I'll know how if it ever comes up," she said. "From picking agents to learning how to make your money make money for you, we want to keep our boys educated and ready for life after basketball. We just want to protect them."
After all, isn't that a mother's wish from day one?
Melanie Jackson is the college sports editor at ESPN.com. | |
ALSO SEE
Mother's Day tribute: One mother's perspective
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Terrell Brandon comments on his mother's work with Mothers of Professional Basketball Players.
avi: 4222 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
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