From some Courier-Journal...
Jonathan Bender remembers the turn of the century, when he was a millionaire teenager playing in the National Basketball Association and all the young guns wanted to become the next Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson.
"I was different; I wanted to be the guy who owned the team," said the 7-footer born in Picayune, Miss. "I wanted to be the guy who signed the checks and was at the top of the chain. I thought to myself, 'If there's somebody who can afford to pay us all these millions, then there's a whole 'nother world out there I don't know anything about.' There's a whole 'nother level. I wanted to be on that level."
Now 27 and retired from the NBA for two years because of arthritic knees, Bender plans to use his riches and influence to help make New Orleans, his adopted home, a more livable place post-Hurricane Katrina.
Bender's construction company buys flood-ravaged housing and restores it to better quality than it was before the 2005 storm. His real estate management company then makes the property available for leasing, often to former New Orleans residents who evacuated during the hurricane and who are looking to return.
Bender has earned the respect of local contractors and the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority because of his attention to detail -- and his insistence that low- to middle-income housing need not be shoddy.
"Jonathan has done more than the government so far as providing quality housing for low- and moderate-income families," said Barbara Major, a NORA board member. "He's not just throwing something together. ... He does quality work. He really cares about the people who are going to live there."
Bender was first spotted by AAU basketball coaches when he was 13 and already 6 feet 7 inches tall.
He hit the national scene when he broke Michael Jordan's scoring record in the 1999 McDonald's All-America Game, hitting 31 points in the game considered the marquee event for America's most talented prep players. The Toronto Raptors made Bender the fifth overall draft pick out of high school and traded his rights to the Indiana Pacers. He signed a three-year, $7 million contract.
Over those three years, Bender showed enough promise despite chronic knee problems that the Pacers rewarded him with a four-year, $28.5 million deal.
Eventually, however, "It was such a struggle to play," he said. "My love and passion for the game got lower and lower. I was ready to move on."
Bender's father died when he was 12. He was raised by his mother and grandmother and played summer Amateur Athletic Union ball in New Orleans, where he met former Harlem Globetrotter Billy Ray Hobley, who became both Bender's basketball mentor and his second father.
Hobley believed in giving back to the community, and he stressed that, as well as basketball lessons, to young Jonathan. Bender moved to the New Orleans suburb of Kenner in 1999, in part to be close to Hobley and his family. Hobley died of a heart attack in 2002. Bender was 21.
Mattie Hobley, Billy Ray's widow, ran Hobley's nonprofit charity, first in Los Angeles and then in New Orleans. She now is the director of Bender's foundation.
Bender is focused on his real estate ventures, which are centered in the hard-hit east New Orleans and Gentilly areas.
"Jonathan won't use cheap carpet or Linoleum," said Joe Esnard III, a longtime New Orleans builder who has done much of Bender's construction work. "He wants granite countertops, oak cabinets, quality flooring, nice light fixtures. I tell him he's going overboard for rental property, but he says he wants it to look like something he'd live in himself."
Mattie Hobley has suggested to Bender that he begin work toward a college degree. Bender said that's not likely.
"I'm going through my college right now," he said. "I'm learning what I need to know firsthand on the job. ... I'm an entrepreneur, and I want to help people."