Bo Ellis has come a long way, even if he is back where he started.
Since his days as a Chicago high school basketball legend, he has helped win a NCAA title, been an NBA first-round draft pick and coached at the Division I level. He still could be working in the big time, but Bo knows it’s time to be home.
He knew it when a reminder of his older daughter reduced him to tears while he worked as a Marquette assistant coach. And he knew it when he thought about all the people who nurtured him when he was a kid, and how it was time he returned the favor.
So the 6-foot-9-inch Ellis works in a smaller arena now, in a cramped, worn office tucked near the front entrance to Lane Stadium.
The walls recount his achievements. There’s a picture from a 20th reunion of Marquette’s 1977 NCAA championship team, an All-America certificate, reminders of his three-year NBA career and a plaque from the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
One memento stands out. It’s an NCAA Silver Anniversary Award, presented annually to six people who have continued to star in the 25 years since their collegiate playing days ended.
His 2002 award made Ellis realize he, and his life, were about more than just basketball, and it set in motion one of the forces that eventually would bring the former Parker–now Robeson–star back to the Chicago Public League.
“I like to wear a lot of hats,” he says, “and touch a lot of lives.”
He’ll certainly do both now. Besides managing Lane Stadium, he will help run elementary school sports and coordinate Public League bowling.
What excites him most, though, is his less formal role as a walking resource for athletes, coaches, teachers, counselors and administrators.
Ellis, 51, has a lot of ideas, and two stand out. One is his intention to convince junior-high athletes that if they wait until high school to get serious about schoolwork they will be playing from behind.
The other is his plan to help athletes through the recruiting process, which he knows inside and out from his days at Marquette and as head coach at Chicago State. He particularly wants to help single moms, who are inviting targets for street agents and recruiters.
“I’m back to be a resource system,” Ellis says, “not just in basketball but throughout the school system.”
The only bad part of his return is that a tragedy drove it. In July 2003, Nicole Ellis, just 24, died unexpectedly in Chicago after a brief illness. Bo had been working out his return to Marquette as a coach at the time, and his daughter, who had received her undergraduate degree there, was going to return for law school.
Bo had to go it alone, and though he loved being at Marquette, where he also had been an assistant from 1988-1998, the campus now haunted him.
“So many things reminded me of my daughter,” he says. “I’d see a young lady . . . her hair, her glasses, and I’d start to think about Nikki.
“There were times I’d be walking and literally start to cry. It got to the point I couldn’t take that anymore.”
To make matters worse, Ellis hadn’t wanted to uproot his family, so his wife, Cynthia, and other child, Christina, stayed behind in Chicago.
Finally, last winter he began talking to Calvin Davis, director of sports administration for the Chicago Public Schools, about a job.
“I felt after 17 years in college coaching and losing my daughter, being with my family was more important than college basketball,” he says.
The move didn’t shock Marquette head coach Tom Crean.
“To go through all that pain and anguish and not be together took a toll on him,” Crean says. “It was hard for him to leave Marquette and hard for him to leave coaching, but I think it was harder for him to do the job being away from home.”
The best part about Ellis’ new job is that he doesn’t believe he took a step down to take it.
“Without direction from the Chicago public school system I never would have gotten off on the right foot,” he says. “An awful lot of teachers and people in the system looked out for me, gave me the direction I needed, and I always felt it was important to give that back.”
Davis appreciates the depth of Ellis’ experience as well as the depth of respect Public League coaches have for him.
“Bo certainly has the knowledge to be a positive force in our sports program and help kids’ development and lend his expertise to all sports programs, not just basketball,” Davis says.
One of the best things Ellis can do for kids is to tell his own story. It’s the story of a South Side kid who grew up in a single-parent home, became a good enough player to get a free ride to college and had the tenacity to make it through in four years, even though he wasn’t academically prepared for Marquette.
“I tell kids if I can do it, anyone can do it,” Ellis says.
It’s also the story of someone who played in the NBA but never hit it big and still became a success because he had character and a college degree.
Finally, it’s the story of someone who suffered a terrible loss but refuses to surrender to grief.
“I tell kids nothing is promised you in life and they should live every day to the fullest,” he says. “I use my daughter as an example. She had everything in the world going for her.”
It’s a story Ellis is comfortable telling, in part because he has worked with kids most of his life.
“I have so much to offer so many people,” he says. “I’m just grateful they have enough trust and belief in me to bring me back in the system so that I’m able to make a difference in people’s lives. God put me in this position for a reason. I was meant to do this in my life.”
———-
btemkin@tribune.com
