Byline: Patrick Reusse; Staff Writer
Los Angeles, Calif. -- Camron Pitcher is a United States probation officer. He lives with his wife and three kids - 9, 4 and 1 - in the L.A. suburb of Corona.
Pitcher handles people accused of white-collar crimes. He monitors their cases before they have been convicted.
He took the job with the Feds after serving as a probation officer for the state of Missouri in Kansas City. There, he was dealing with dangerous felons - murderers, rapists, armed robbers.
'I took this job, and we came out here with our family in 2001,' Pitcher said. 'I'm not going to leave here unless my job forces it. The beach is 45 minutes in one direction and there's snow in the mountains 45 minutes in the other direction. You couldn't ask for anything more.'
Pitcher has older generations of his family in both Southern California and Louisiana. He was born here and then moved to Louisiana at age 7.
He graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in Baton Rouge, La., in 1988. 'We were the Rebels,' he said. 'Our mascot carried around a Confederate flag.'
Pitcher is black. He played football and wrestled for the Rebels, with that flag waving high. He chuckles slightly now and says: 'We caught flak from the other schools, but I guess it didn't occur to us to make a big issue out of it back then.'
In May 1988, Pitcher went to work at an A&P store in Baton Rouge. It was part of a summer jobs program for minority youth. There was a young full-time employee called 'Slim' by everyone who worked in the store.
'Slim Johnson,' Pitcher said. 'I worked with him for 3 1/2 months, until the end of August, and I don't think I ever heard anyone call him Ervin.
'There wasn't a day that went by when he didn't get asked, `Young man, do you play basketball?' And if it wasn't that, it was, `Son, how tall are you?'
'With him, it was always, `Yes ma'am, no ma'am, yes sir and no sir.' He would say, `No ma'am, I don't play basketball,' and the reply always was, `Well, you should.'
'Slim told me that he didn't like basketball. He was a very religious young man. He would talk about studying theology. I thought for sure he would wind up being a minister.'
Pitcher went to a junior college in Kansas at the end of that summer. When he was back in Baton Rouge for Thanksgiving, he went to the A&P store to say hello to Slim and the other employees.
'The ladies there were all excited, telling me, `Didn't you hear? ... Slim went to New Orleans to play basketball,' ' Pitcher said. 'I said, `What are you talking about? He can't play no basketball. He doesn't like basketball.' '
Johnson went to New Orleans and spent the fall of 1988 working on what were playground basketball skills. He enrolled at the University of New Orleans in January 1989.
The next Pitcher heard of Johnson's basketball career came in a college dormitory a while later. A friend walked in and showed him a newspaper story about a college basketball player who had been discovered in a grocery store.
'I said, `I know this guy; I worked side-by-side with him,' ' Pitcher said. 'That's the popular legend in Baton Rouge, that someone from UNO saw him in the store and convinced him to play basketball. The locals like that story better than Ervin calling UNO and talking to a coach.'
Johnson became a star playing for Tim Floyd at UNO. He was the Sun Belt Conference's Player of the Year and a third-team All-America as a senior in 1993. He was taken by Seattle with the 23rd pick in the first round of the NBA draft.
He started late - turning 26 during his rookie season with the Supersonics - but he's now completing his 11th NBA season and the Timberwolves are his fourth team.
'Camron Pitcher? Yes, I know him,' Johnson said last week. 'He was a football player. He wanted to play college football.'
Pitcher wound up getting a scholarship to a Kansas school, Washburn, where he played football and received a degree in criminal justice.
'I was a Robert Newhouse-sized fullback - 5-foot-8, 215 pounds,' he said. 'Unfortunately, I couldn't run like Newhouse.'
Pitcher last communicated with Johnson a decade ago. Last month, he sent an e-mail to the Star Tribune after reading a story online on the 7-foot center's basketball roots.
'I just want people to know,' Pitcher wrote, 'that everything that is written about him regarding his character and his demeanor, I can say from knowing him back when he was just a tall young man working in a store, that all those good things are true.
'He was 6-foot-11, he towered over everybody, but he didn't look down on anyone. He wouldn't say a mean word or a bad thing about anybody.
'We had a dictator boss at the A&P - Mr. Brown. I saw Slim angry with him, for very good reason, but he always kept it inside. And he wouldn't let the rest of us say a bad word about Mr. Brown.
'It would be 105 degrees and 98 percent humidity, and just to show his power, Mr. Brown would say, `Slim, you and that young fellow go out to the parking lot and round up those carts.' And Slim would do that without a peep, even if there were all the carts the customers could want already in the store.'
Pitcher admits his admiration for Johnson could not change his rooting interest when it came to Monday night's sixth game of the Western Conference finals - Timberwolves vs. Lakers at Staples Center.
'My family, with the L.A. connection ... we still were Lakers fans even when we were living in Louisiana,' Pitcher said. 'Magic Johnson and Showtime. I grew up with that. I want to take my kids to a Lakers championship parade next month. They haven't been to one.'
Patrick Reusse can be heard weekdays on AM-1500 KSTP at 6:45 and 7:45 a.m. and 5:40 p.m. He is at preusse@startribune.com.
