Basketball was a path to success, not a goal

Bill Roddy left the business world 15 years ago to start an entrepreneurial enterprise that helps incarcerated teens turn themselves around. And now he's written a book about hard work and humility that every NBA and corner-office wannabe should read.

A soft-spoken man whose trim physique and soft smile belie his 54 years, Roddy, together with his wife, Gail, turned his avocation of mentoring tough kids into a nonprofit outfit called Osiris that works with about 35 kids annually at the Hennepin County Home School, a detention facility for teens. After training, Osiris employs some of them through a computer-training and maintenance program and other ventures.

Roddy, whom I introduced to Star Tribune readers five years ago, could have been a sharp-shooting punk who never left the playground. Instead, he was loved and mentored by old-school, strict grandparents in a tough end of Chicago, after they told their single-parent, teenage daughter that they would raise her son so she could finish school and pursue a career.

Roddy relies on business friends and others to fund Osiris and the very-modest $50,000 apiece that he and Gail draw as salaries to run an organization that has saved taxpayers millions over the years in jail and welfare costs that many Osiris graduates have avoided.

Bernie Aldrich, the retired CEO of Rimage Inc., and some other admiring friends persuaded Roddy to write his life story and start speaking more to business, education and youth groups. The result is "Manhood from the Hood," a fun, poignant and from-the-heart piece of work.

Roddy watched his grandparents scrimp and save in order to put a down payment on a modest home in 1972. And he had to work hard to earn a starting position as a senior on his high school basketball team. At the same time, he saw his grandparents wrestle with personal problems that helped him to understand that none of us is perfect and that all need help at times.

Roddy won a scholarship to the University of St. Thomas, where he distinguished himself as a hardworking student and basketball and tennis player.

"My coaches and friends at St. Thomas became my mentors and friends for life," Roddy said. "My high school basketball coach counseled me to never let basketball use me. I needed to use it help me get an education. I never played much basketball after college."

He worked in banking in Arizona after graduation and for the old Northwest Racquet and Fitness. He found his greatest joy teaching tennis as a way to help disadvantaged kids learn a skill that could be transferred to school and community.

"No more talking trash," is one of Roddy's favorite quips. "We need to restore the positive masculine ideals of integrity with commitment, strength with humility, intensity with compassion, throughout our culture."

He worried that many fathers were abandoning their responsibilities and that too many young men, influenced by ESPN and professional sports, were focusing more on acquiring basketball shoes and one-in-a-million hoop dreams than good grades.

"I only had one pair of basketball shoes and I was happy," Roddy said. "My grandpa and my grandmother and aunts preached education and a good job. We saw welfare and public housing, and Grandpa said that was supposed to be just for families in transition. He told me to rely mostly on myself."

But Grandpa also knows we all need a second chance, whether we're corporate castaways from six-figure jobs or street kids who offend and get tossed into juvenile detention.

Backed by his cadre of business friends, Bill and Gail Roddy in 1997 turned occasional mentoring and dinner sessions into Osiris, which has helped hundreds of tough teens straighten out, finish high school and find work in computers, business and the trades. The Roddys have taught everything from English to computer literacy to cooking and table etiquette.

Roddy, a dapper dresser, has backed away from his longtime second job as a tailor to spend more time writing and speaking about Osiris and what it takes to bridge the gap between the world of the angry and dispossessed teens and the world of achievement, humility and self-sufficiency. He also needs more good capitalists to take a chance on training and hiring young men who need a hand.

"This is a must-read for anybody in search of a fulfilling, value-driven life," said former U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad, a Roddy friend who needed help to overcome a drinking problem years ago.

For more information, see: www.manhoodfromthehood.com or www.osirisorganization.org.

Neal St. Anthony • 612-673-7144 • nstanthony@startribune.com