Carlos Boozer opens up about lessons learned and dreams come true

It may seem like the life of Carlos Boozer, the retired NBA star who grew up in Juneau, has been filled with slam dunks. He’s certainly been successful with championships, a real estate business, increasing work as an on-air commentator, and now as an author.

But his memoir, “Every Shot Counts: A Memoir of Resilience,” shows that he’s had his share of challenges. Gun violence claimed the life of a childhood playmate and prompted his parents to move from the East Coast to Juneau.

He had to adapt to a snowy white Alaska that couldn’t have been more different from Washington, D.C. He stood up for himself when faced with racism. He pulled his sister from quicksand and he learned to fish. He resisted hunting, after what he had experienced, but his father’s skill with it kept the family well-fed.

What shines through in the book, and in his conversation with the Juneau Empire, is the degree to which he believed in himself, which he credits in large part to his supportive family. That confidence enabled him to pursue his dreams, while being coachable and eager to learn from others to improve. Those two things — going after your dreams and being willing to take criticism — are at the heart of what he wants to share with young people.

[Carlos Boozer memoir includes full life story, Juneau years]

Boozer maintains strong ties to the area, rattling off half a dozen names when asked if he has kept up with his friends from those days. His sister, Natasha Boozer, is a producer for KTOO, who lives here part-time. His other sister is in for a job in Juneau and, if she gets it, there’s a good chance his parents would move with her.

“If that happens, I’ll probably be in Juneau three or four times a year,” he said.

Boozer spoke with the Juneau Empire on Oct. 18. (The following has been edited for length and clarity.)

How is the book doing; how has the process been?

It’s been great, man. Really well-received and people are picking it up. A lot of my friends and some people I didn’t even know were fans have reached out, somebody that really enjoyed the book. I’ve been hit up by a couple of producers that want to turn it into a movie. So we’ll see what happens.

I’m a first-time writer, first-time author, so I had a lot of help from my co-writer. Loretta Hunt did a phenomenal job of working with me and trying to capture my voice in the book. But it was also therapeutic, you know? I had to go back and relive some moments of my life that I kind of pushed in the back of my memory. I had to bring those to the surface and talk to my folks, and talk to some friends who were close to me. And it’s been a really nice process and very healing. I’ll say that.

It seems like the wider media picked up on Chris, your childhood friend who you saw get murdered on a playground. Was he ever charged?

I don’t know. And obviously now that I’ve brought it to light and tried to honor Chris’ memory, I’m gonna go back and check on those things.

You have a lot in the book about your folks. How important was that support?

It was everything for me, having that support, having that protection, having that foundation at home — having parents that sacrificed a great deal for us kids. Think about having a dream like I had: I’m this kid and I want to go to the NBA. And you tell that to your parents? I’m a parent and, if I had heard that, especially at that time back in the early ‘90s? How would they receive that? It took a lot of bravery. Bravery for me to tell my parents this is what I want to do when I grow up. And for my parents to let me dream. I didn’t have the parents who said, ‘No, you can’t do that. You have to do this.’

There’s a lot in the book about growing up in Juneau, including school. Not everyone was so supportive.

When I was in seventh grade the teacher says, ‘Hey everybody, write down what you want to do when you grow up.’ And so I told my teacher my dream: I want to go to the NBA. I’m being inspired by Michael Jordan and basketball to me was so interesting — it’s captured all my attention. So my teacher tells me that I should probably lower my expectations and focus more on working at the local gas station or the local grocery store, like Fred Meyer. I’d already told my parents what I wanted to do and they were supportive of me. So I already had extreme confidence as a 12-year-old kid. Basically I told my teacher, ‘I’m not going to do that.’ Like, I’m meant for something much greater — and I’m gonna go after it.’ That was just one of the many roadblocks I ran into.

A key takeaway from your book is the importance you place on pursuing dreams.

I wanted to share my story…that it wasn’t smooth sailing from Washington, D.C., to Alaska to the NBA. There were some highs and lows and bumps along the road. And I just wouldn’t give up.

I just think that particular message is for the parents out there that have kids that are dreamers, and it’s for the dreamers. No matter what age you are, you could be a kid, you could be a young adult, you could be an adult — go after it! Don’t let what somebody else believes you can or can’t do stop you from accomplishing what you want to accomplish.

It was a significant transition from D.C. to Alaska. You describe racism you experienced in school in Juneau.

For me it was probably mild, on the mild scale, compared to what I’ve seen elsewhere. When I first got there, I’m this black kid from out of town: I walk different, I dress different, I talk different — I’m a very different kid. I wasn’t born and raised there. So I’m bringing this whole D.C./ East Coast thing to what I (later) grew up with in Alaska. So I’m coming in with super baggy clothes, I’m listening to rap music like Tupac and Biggie. And, you know, I’m a different breed. I’ll put it like that.

There was resistance, right? Like, who is this kid, who does he think he is? We listen to country music up here, we wear tight jeans, we wear boots. We go fishing, we go hiking, like it was stuck. I went hiking. I had never gone fishing. And I had never done some of the stuff that I was going to get into when I moved up there. And stuff that I fell in love with. But at the time there was some resistance. And so I was received later.

It took a while to make friends?

It took a while to find my tribe, so to speak. But once I did — I fell in love with Alaska. I come back every summer. I stay very close to coach (George) Houston, who was my high school coach, and who’s in the Hall of Fame. One of my best friends. And all of my friends like — we have a close group that do text messages. A lot of them live in Washington State. You know, Seattle. It’s a two-hour flight from Juneau, so a lot of people moved down there. But I found a peace of mind up there that I take with me everywhere I go.

The book talks about a fight at school, where a kid called you a racist slur. He was suspended for a week and you were suspended for two days for throwing the first punch.

I found this out later, but my parents had signed a contract, which you have to do when you go to a school like that, a Christian school. So in the contract there’s no fighting. No matter who’s at fault — and the good thing is there were witnesses so I had other people to corroborate — there’s a (code of honor) where they really could have expelled both of us, you know what I mean? So they really did us a favor.

I’m sure they’ve had this happen before, where there’s confrontation and you’re getting antagonized, and then somebody hits you. And then there’s probably been a person who walked away. I wasn’t a kid that was gonna walk away. So, that was a difference. This kid is probably used to bullying people and just nobody fighting back for themselves. And I wasn’t taught that. I mean, I’m not Jesus. I wasn’t trying to turn the other cheek.

You write in the book that your folks supported you for sticking up for yourself. You write a lot about your family.

I’m blessed, man. My older sister, Natasha, she’s my first best friend, longest best friend. She and her husband and kids live in Las Vegas, so makes some cool family trips. We go down there and have some fun, watch some shows. But she also works up there for KTOO, commutes back and forth. It’s like her dream. Like she grew up listening to KTOO, and she has her own little show. She does it remotely and flies up like once or twice a month to go to the station. Her husband is an actor; they live in Vegas because he’s working nonstop.

But she’s always loved Alaska. If she could move back, she would move back in a heartbeat.

Any other family members still in Juneau?

No, but my youngest sister, Natanya, the youngest of us kids, wants to move back to Juneau. She did a couple of interviews for jobs and is looking at places. So we may be up there a lot more, I mean, if she gets the job. I have a Siberian Husky, his name’s Ghost and she loves him to death. And so I was like if you move up there you can have Ghost. My parents would most likely move back with her because they love Alaska, too. And if that happens I’ll probably be in Juneau three or four times a year.

You live in Miami. Why Miami?

I grew up in D.C. for a brief moment of time, very cold, and moved to Alaska, which is very, very cold. And so I decided I wanted to make some money and I wanted to live somewhere warm. And I was talking to my financial people. They told me that I could save if I moved to a state that had no state tax. So, me and my wife at the time, CeCe, visited Miami — no kids, it’s just me and her and we’re in our early 20s — and we were like, ‘Man, what a great place!’ So we ended up getting a condo. The next thing she was pregnant with Carmani, and we’re like, ‘Oh my god, we gotta get more space.’ And so then the sickle cell (anemia) comes and now we have to do in vitro to have the twins. All my kids were born and raised here in Miami. You know, we got palm trees, we got warm weather.

Do you still travel a lot?

The good thing about being able to do what I’ve done is that I’ve never been afraid of traveling. So I take a six-hour flight to Seattle, I’m hanging out in Seattle for the night, and I take a two-hour flight up to Juneau. And, I’m back home. So I decided to pick somewhere warm and no state tax, and it’s where I decided to plant my roots.

In past years you held basketball camps in Juneau. Any plans to pick that up?

COVID kind of threw a monkey wrench in it. So I was doing basketball camps, maybe like four or five years in a row. I usually would do it the week or two before school started back at the high school. And then COVID came and they wouldn’t allow me to do basketball camp — they would allow anybody to do anything. I just hadn’t started back up. Now that everything’s basically normal again, my kids’ schedule is bigger than my schedule. My kids are older, they’re in high school. My older son’s a senior in high school. I’m going on college visits, and they have either baseball games or basketball games almost every weekend. So it’s hard for me to take time away from my kids to go out there to teach other kids. So what I decided to do was let my kids graduate from high school and then I’ll start the camp back up when they get to college.

You’re still close with your parents as well.

They live here in Fort Lauderdale, 45 minutes away. All of us are here except for Natasha. My younger sister Natanya is here, even if it’s just for a couple more months. And then my brother Charles is here too. So that makes a lot of sense.

Are you in touch with friends you made in Juneau?

So many, man. (He lists seven people) The great thing about being from Juneau is it’s a small town, we all know each other. We all know each other’s parents. We all kind of grew up together, we stayed very close. And that’s the cool part about it. I tell people all the time, ‘I grew up right and I knew all my friends’ dogs’ names.’ That’s how close we were.

What is next for you?

First and foremost, I love being a dad. My most rewarding thing is being a father to my four kids. And my three sons are on their way to college in a couple of years, and they’re grinding it out on the basketball court and a baseball field. My daughter is only four, but she loves to do a little bit of everything. She paints, she reads, she’s big into Legos. She’s building cities in her room all the time. We’ll see what she goes toward.

But that’s my first and foremost thing, my most important job — being a good dad and trying to raise my four kids to be great people. And then other than that, you know, staying busy. I picked up golf and I like doing that. Workwise, I have a real estate development company. We build a lot of multi-centers where we have some big tenants and I have a QSR (franchise business) with Popeyes. We have like 15 stores right now and it’s probably going to be 18 two years from now.

Real estate and also some media work?

I can play monopoly in real life with the chance to get a really good return on investment. It’s something tangible. I’m not too big into stocks and bonds, and I have a lot of friends trying to get me to go in that direction. But I like the real estate game. It’s competitive, it’s fun, I get to see stuff that gets built. I get to hire people, give people opportunities for jobs. And do a good job of making money, if the value of the land appreciates. So that’s something I really enjoy.

I do ESPN for ACC basketball and I enjoy that. I talk about college hoops a little bit, get a chance to see some of these young stars before they go to the NBA. I also work with Turner and NBA TV, and do some NBA stuff with them. But the most important job I have is just being a father and I take that very seriously.

Two of your sons are basketball players and the other plays baseball?

Yeah, my oldest son, Carmani, plays baseball, and he’s being recruited by colleges right now. And then my twins, Cameron and Cayden, are basketball players. And they’re being recruited for basketball.

Your book tells a story about playing baseball briefly in Juneau, where the coach pulled you from a championship game.

It broke my heart. I had a huge love for baseball. And so for me to see my oldest son choose baseball — it’s like I get a chance to live it through him. Because I never got a chance to play high school baseball. I stopped at 12 because of that moment where I got wrongfully benched. It broke my heart and for whatever reason that was the moment that I decided my path was basketball. One of the moments that like steered me in that direction. And so coming full circle now to see my son going after it — it’s pretty awesome.

You decided to give up baseball at that point?

I think part of that is discovering, what is my dream? Like, what do I really want to do when I get older. And I think that baseball lesson, for me, was another affirming moment that basketball was going to be my path. Basketball was something that I really loved — that was where my passion was. I think for each individual, you’ll find that whether you want to be a journalist, or a writer, or photographer, or some kind of artist, you’ll be able to figure out what your dream is. And sometimes in this process, by elimination, something dramatic can happen in one path that you’re flirting with, that will help you realize what you really want to do. And that was one of those moments for me.

Where you take a negative and turn it into a positive, and go on.

So when I was 17, I got a great opportunity to go to Duke University. It’s very rare for a kid from my background to get a chance to go there. So I go to play for Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski) and one of the early lessons he taught me — that I still use today — is ‘next play.’ And what does that mean? In a basketball game, you may make a mistake and turn the ball over. You feel down, like, ‘Oh, my goodness, I just let my team down, let my coach down.’

And Coach K was like, look, we all know you made a mistake. But instead of using the energy to beat yourself up about it, use that energy to make a good play for our team, uplift our team. Go get us back on the right track, we’ll get a rebound, go set a good screen, maybe a layup — do something to excite your teammates that put us back on a positive tip.

And you translate ‘next play’ into life.

Right. You may get fired from a job that you love, you may go through a divorce, like I’ve been through, you may lose a loved one, right? And you got to you got to grieve, you got to go through that moment, go through those emotions. Go through it, so you don’t bottle it in. But you also got to pick yourself back up and move on to the next play. And wherever that means that, you know, maybe you got to go see a therapist to deal with some childhood traumas. Maybe you need to go talk to somebody who’s been through getting fired from a job that you love so much, and maybe make a call and they help you get another job that you ended up falling in love with? I don’t know what that scenario might be. But that ‘next play’ mentality that Coach K taught me at 17 — I still use today.

What other advice do you have for young people?

When I moved to Juneau one of the things that really helped me was finding my people. And I call that finding your tribe. Coming from D.C., I was around nothing but black people, African American people, like in a four-block radius of us. Coming to Juneau I got a chance to hang out with some Native Americans that have different beliefs, different ages, different religions. They called it tribes and I loved that because I’ve never heard that before. So now I’m trying to find my tribe — who are my friends, who are the people that are like-minded, that like to read and want to be educated, that want something bigger than what they see every day. And I was able to find my tribe.

And so I would tell the kids that — find the people that you can share your goals with, and share your dreams with, and that aren’t going to laugh at you or discourage you. They’re going to actually encourage you and help you and put you on a path to help you get success. It makes a difference. You may be into photography, and maybe into modeling, or maybe into fishing or snowboarding. Whatever your passions might be — you guys can encourage each other to go after it or go read about it. Go learn about it.

Be teachable?

Don’t be afraid to ask the question. How do I get good at this or how do I become better at this? I also think that’s one of the things that helped me a great deal. I was able to take criticism, I was able to take advice. I look at it as, they’re trying to help me be better at whatever it is I’m doing, whether it’s math, or whether it’s playing basketball, or whether it’s having manners when I was a kid. My parents were trying to help me be a better human being.

I think part of my message is also to be coachable. Be the glass half-full type. So you can blossom to become a better version of yourself. I think a lot of times — and it’s sad to say this, and I’m not gonna say it in totality, but a lot of times, our younger generation has a hard time getting advice from some of the older guys. They’ll call it like, ‘Oh, you’re hating on me.’ I’m not hating on you. I’m trying to help you be better at what you already want to be good at. And because I’ve lived longer than you, I have some wisdom that I can tap into. I think one of the things that I was able to do growing up was be coachable. It’s helped me a lot.

You write in the book that you did not take to hunting, probably because of the trauma associated with your friend’s death, but you love to fish. Do you have a boat in Miami?

Yeah, I do. And for me it’s a pastime with my dad, getting out on the water and having some father-son moments and connections, talking about real-life stuff and, you know, his vision and my vision.

With hunting, I think maybe it was because it was so fresh. It wasn’t that many years removed from the incident. So I didn’t go hunting with my dad. We did go shoot some guns, ao I learned how to shoot. But I really couldn’t tap into killing animals at that point.

You know, fishing was fun. I mean, I still do that now. I go fishing with my dad probably once or twice a month. I got that bond with my dad over the water and don’t get me wrong, there were lots of days we didn’t catch anything. But we had a good time just out there talking with each other. And then it was some days that we went home with like four or five fish and it would feed the family.

The one thing about Juneau that’s pretty cool, is you don’t have to have a job to feed your family. I’m not gonna say like back in the caveman days. What I’m saying is it’s a different way of life there. Like in D.C., you can’t go fishing and feed the family, or go hunting or go get crabs. Well, you can — I’m saying not like in Juneau, Alaska.

There was a bear my dad shot that fed us for like six, seven months. The butcher cut it up into steaks, burgers, hot dogs, sausages, ground beef for spaghetti. Like that one bear, his portion of the bear, fed the family for six or seven months.

I know my dad was doing it out of necessity. He didn’t get paid a lot of money for his job. My mom didn’t get paid out of money for her job. But I had two hard-working parents that were doing anything that they could to provide for us. And that’s the message I took from what they did. My dad wasn’t doing it to go kill animals.

You have a spiritual side to you that you talk about in the book.

Yeah, I’m Christian. I was raised Christian, my parents taught me that. I went to the Christian School and so I read the Bible a great deal growing up. I’m not saying I lost my faith. I would say I was open-minded to learning about other religions. At some point, I spent some time in Asia and my wife at the time, we were learning about Buddhism, and the different beliefs over there. And I got a chance to live in Utah and I got a chance to learn the Mormon religion. Not that I took to it, but I got a chance to be educated about it. So there’s a lot of religions out there.

The one thing I’ve found is that there’s good people in every religion. It doesn’t matter what you know, if you believe in something higher, great. And if you don’t, then that’s your choice, too. If you’re an atheist, it doesn’t mean that you’re a horrible person. If you pray to a different guy than I do, it doesn’t mean you’re a horrible person. There’s good people in every walk of life.

I got a chance to learn that just because I’m Christian, and maybe you’re not, doesn’t mean that we’re not supposed to be friends. And I think for me, going through life, I want to learn as much as I can. I don’t want to leave this earth with any stone unturned.

So I got a chance to be educated about different religions and I have friends in different religions. And like, I see what’s going on right now in the Middle East and it breaks my heart for both sides. I’m not Jewish, but I feel for those people. I’m not Palestinian, but I feel for those people too…I want peace for all people.

I’ve always believed in a higher power and it’s helped me a great deal — through some very tough times in my life. But I’m also very open-minded. So just being a human being, a good person to whoever’s next to me, that’s it.

What kind of books do you read or recommend?

“The Power of Now” is one of my favorite books by Eckhart Tolle. It played a very pivotal part in my life, helped me to get outside of myself and realize the power that was within.

“The Five Love Languages” (by Gary Chapman) — I’m reading that now. Shaq gave me that book. He’s like, ‘Booz, I know you’ve been through a lot in your relationship. This is a book you need to read.’

You write about Shaq in the book, and Kobe, and others.

Shaq is a good friend. He’s been one of my mentors for a long time. Kobe (Bryant), before he passed away. Those two guys really helped me to navigate the NBA landscape. Karl Malone, too.

You write about how difficult Kobe’s death was for you.

I still can’t believe he’s not with us. The one thing I’ll tell you about him, that people really had the wrong idea about him. The Kobe you saw when he retired — that’s the Kobe that we all know. Like, very friendly, helping women’s basketball and building, you know, the Montecito facility to help all women’s basketball players. Kobe was a helper, he just didn’t let the world know that he was helping us.

I can’t tell you how many conversations at three in the morning that we had about my team. Right? Like, I’m competing against him. We’re both playing against each other to try to win a championship, or multiple championships in his case. And I would ask him for advice. And he would give it to me. He wasn’t egotistical about it. He didn’t sugarcoat anything with me. He was very honest. ‘You guys need this. And you and your teammates got to do this.’ And I was just like, OK, because he’s Kobe Bryant. He’s one of the best players that ever played basketball and he happens to be my big brother, and one of my close basketball friends. And so, because of that, I’m like, I’d be a fool not to ask him for help. And so I did, and he gave it to me.

But there was this perception of him that he was closed off. That he didn’t have any friends, didn’t need anybody. And that’s not true.

You mentioned the documentary, and Kobe, in “The Redeem Team,” about the 2008 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team.

He was an open guy, man, very honest, very helpful. And that’s the Kobe that I’m trying to put out there so the fans can know. I tried to shed light on that Kobe.

Now don’t get me wrong, LeBron was a huge star and becoming a really, really, really, really good basketball player. But Kobe Bryant was the best player on that team. And there’s no question about that. And like, my whole thing was just trying to build my brother up, share his stories, tell his side that he can’t tell because he’s not with us anymore.

And give people a true identity of who Kobe was behind the camera, behind the scenes, the Kobe in the locker room, the Kobe on the bus, the Kobe that I would talk to at three in the morning. He only slept like five hours a night.

His mind was always going on, how to become a better player, how to become a better husband. And none of us are perfect. But I’d say Kobe was trying, like a never-ending pursuit. You’re never gonna be a perfect artist or a perfect painter, or a perfect basketball player. But the cool part about the journey is in the pursuit of that. And that’s what I admire about Kobe. He was trying to be the perfect basketball player.

If you look 10 years down the road, where are you?

I’m just enjoying seeing my kids, my sons as grown men. I don’t know if they’ll be married or have their own kids or be playing in Major League Baseball or playing in the NBA. But, you know, going to support my sons and then helping my daughter with whatever path she’s on. Maybe she’s into ballet or swimming. I get her playing golf with me sometimes. Maybe she’ll be a female golfer, I don’t know. She loves to paint with her mom, maybe she’ll be an artist, I don’t know.

But one thing I do want to do is just be as present as I can. I think one of the lessons — and this is actually one of my regrets, and I don’t have a lot of them — is to celebrate the victories.

Along my athletic journey as a basketball player I would achieve something great, like, ‘I’m player of the year’ or ‘I’m Gatorade Player of the Year’ or ‘I got a chance to go to Duke University.’ I was always like, ‘OK, that’s a goal.’ I check it off my list and say, what’s next?

I was always looking ahead to what’s next, and I was never present and in the moment as much as I would have liked. If I could do it again I would celebrate my small victories because they’re really big victories. Just celebrate this, look where you came from, bro. Take a look behind you what you overcame. And look where you are.

But in my mind, I was like, ‘OK, I got to do more.’ Instead of me comparing myself to somebody else, be appreciative of the journey that I’m on.

Like, walk my own race. Like they tell you with marathons: Run your own race. That way you always come in first place.

• Contact Meredith Jordan at meredith.jordan@juneauempire.com or (907) 615-3190.