JEFF JACOBS

Time with family serving Ollie well

LEDYARD — Steve Emt, a former UConn teammate who has known Kevin Ollie for nearly 30 years, a man who has known hell on earth, looked up from his wheelchair.

Emt had something to say about the man he calls his brother.

“If there’s anybody in the world you don’t have to worry about, it’s Kevin Ollie,” Emt said. “Everything happens for a reason. We’ve learned that. Everything we’ve been through, we don’t ask questions. “He’s doing fantastic.” Moments later Ollie stepped outside the Gales Ferry School gym, where he was overseeing a free clinic for 80 kids, to speak publicly for the first time since UConn’s loss to SMU in the AAC Tournament in Orlando in March 8. Ollie was fired as head coach two days later “with just cause,” igniting a contentious, sometimes ugly legal battle over more than $10 million remaining on his contract.

It is a UConn family feud still unresolved, headed for arbitration, where Ollie will get all his money or none of it. Unless it goes to mediation — where it should go with Ray Allen holding a three-point dagger over everybody — and the fac-

tions find common sense and a common dollar figure.

Ollie refused comment on the contract controversy, the NCAA investigation or Jim Calhoun, yet he also couldn’t have been any more congenial on this day. Or really, any more reflective. Lost sometimes in the great savaging of a coach’s performance is a sensitivity for a man’s life and his reputation. The way Ollie talked about his son Jalen and daughter Cheyenne — something he didn’t do nearly enough after his initial press conference in 2012 — was nothing sort of beautiful.

The stilted, almost paranoid Ollie was gone.

The relaxed KO was back.

Yes, he’ll coach again someday. He said coaching is his passion. He talked to some NBA general managers and was in Las Vegas some Summer League games, but that doesn’t

mean he won’t coach college again. He’s involved in some real estate ventures. He said he may do some television commentating down the road. Those are possibilities. He was much more interested discussing the realities of spending time with Jalen and Cheyenne and, to use his term, spending time with his himself.

“Reassessing my life,” Ollie said. “Refreshing my life. Pushing the reset button.”

While rancor spilled and a new man filled his office, I wondered what he had learned in the past five months.

“Patience,” Ollie said. “Understanding patience and understanding it’s about self-love. Everybody is not going to be there by our side, but you’ve got to be by your side and understand who the true friends that you have in your circle.

“It’s been a difficult time, but it’s also been a great time in my life, too. If you can have both. It’s a passion of mine to continue to

coach, it’s a passion of mine to continue to coach my kids to be the best human beings they can possibly be … And having a moment to exhale a bit. I’ve never been really able to do it.”

Over two decades as an NBA player or college coach, there was always a game, a camp, a tournament. On Sunday, he talked about how Jalen, a senior at Fordham, had switched from quarterback to wide receiver and going to watch him scrimmage. He talked about how he has gone around New England looking at potential colleges for Cheyenne.

“Jalen had an opportunity to work at a hedge fund this summer,” Ollie said. “Hopefully, he can get a big job and I can work for him one day. [Cheyenne’s] a senior at Glastonbury. That’s the one I don’t want to leave the house. I think she’s on her way.

“I think this is a vital time for me. I kind of always sacrificed my time pursuing my career. I think it’s time for me to really give it all to them.”

He did not attend the great family gathering at the Jim Calhoun Celebrity Classic five miles up the road last weekend at Mohegan Sun Arena. Too soon. Too much unresolved. Yet here he was this weekend, with his clinic, with the Kevin Ollie Charity Golf Classic at Foxwoods’ Lake of Isles where he continues his fight on behalf of disabled athletes through the 21st Century Tolland Fund and Kevin’s Kourts.

“I don’t want to talk about UConn or Coach Calhoun,” Ollie said. “The family was there. That’s the most important thing. They know I love everybody that was at the game.

“I’m always in contact with them. I’ll continue to be in contact with them. Our [biggest] job as coaches is not when they’re at school. The biggest job is when they get out of school and they need you they can call upon you.”

Ollie talked about how he arrived from Los Angeles at age 18 and how the state of Connecticut gave him so much love and he wanted always to give it back. He says that hasn’t changed.

“That’s what we were taught at UConn, Ollie said. “That’s were my heart is.

“I love this state. It has been wonderful for me.”

Over three decades, the Tolland Fund has benefited 22,000 people with disabilities in 22 state programs. One was Emt, a basketball walk-on and Ollie’s teammate, who received a racing chair after a truck accident left him paralyzed in 1995. Soon after, Ollie got involved with Emt in the charity. And now he is set to open a fifth Kevin’s

Kourt at Channel 3 Kids Camp in Andover.

“Our whole mission to give every kid a shot,” Ollie said. “It means everything. It gives me joy.”

From his wheelchair,

Emt coached RHAM High. He tried a number of sports before finding curling. He represented the

U.S. in the 2018 Paralympics. Emit knows the great trauma, physical and mental, the disabled and newly injured endure. He has

been there.

“What Kevin is doing with these Kourts is that anybody no matter the ability level or their disability or their age or gender, they can get out there and be included and feel important,” he said. “That’s an amazing thing. He has done so much for me and others in Connecticut, way beyond what we could ever do to pay him back.”

Emt is a huge Celtics fan and would love to see Ollie on their coaching staff. He is sure Ollie will be coaching soon enough at some level.

“It is tough to see anybody I went to UConn with, their name being out there in a negative light whatsoever,” Emt said. “The word ‘accusation,’ that’s a tough one. It’s a tough business. I’m not privy to what went down. I don’t know. All I know is Kevin Ollie is a fighter. He has fought his entire life. He’s an incredible person. He’s an incredible man.”

No arbitrator, no mediator can set a price on a brother’s word.