Dalembert has heart for Haiti

PHILADELPHIA — It's the children who always get to Samuel Dalembert.

It's their innocence, their exuberance, even their goofiness.

In many ways, that describes Dalembert, the Sixers center, and it explains why he is so devoted to helping them.

That was true long before the massive earthquake devastated his native Haiti on Jan. 12 and left him disconsolate, mostly over the plight of the many children who were left without families.

Dalembert went to Port-au-Prince last week with Project MediShare, a group that has been involved with aiding Haiti since 1994. He saw the amputations with saws, the kitchen tables used as operating tables, the beleaguered doctors working for 20 straight hours without a break.

But it was the sight of the children that really struck the Sixers center.

"That's the hardest part," said Dalembert, who lived in Haiti until he was 14 and still has family there. "The kids don't deserve that. They deserve better. There are a lot of homeless children. The situation is so terrible."

He described one boy who was in the process of being adopted, a process that had taken nearly four years to complete. It was finally completed Jan. 11.

The earthquake struck the next day.

When Dalembert went to Haiti, he and former NBA star Alonzo Mourning found the boy and brought him back to Miami to meet his adoptive family.

But as the plane was getting ready to depart Haiti, Dalembert said he wanted to run out there "and grab 30 more kids and bring them back with me."

He has already donated more than $130,000 for earthquake relief and pledged to give at least $250,000 more, in addition to pleading on national TV and in person for donations.

Better lives

Dalembert has spanned the globe to help children have better lives ever since the Sixers drafted him in 2001.

He has participated each summer in the NBA's Basketball Without Borders program, going to places like China, Argentina, Africa and Mexico to conduct clinics and help impoverished communities.

"He leads the league in (Basketball Without Borders) camps attended, that's for sure," said Kim Bohuny, the NBA's vice president of basketball operations international.

But there is so much more to his generosity.

He started the Samuel Dalembert Foundation a few years ago with the ultimate goal of building a school and sports academy just outside Port-au-Prince.

He raised millions of dollars, in addition to donating nearly $2 million of his own money, to make the academy more than just a dream.

Now, the academy is on hold as Haiti tries to recover from the earthquake.

"It's going to take a lot of work," Dalembert said, "but it's going to get done."

Sixers ambassador

Dalembert has done countless charity events for the Sixers, often staying to make sure every child receives an autograph or picture.

"And those are the ones we know about," said Lara Price, the Sixers' vice president of business operations.

Dalembert's agent, Marc Cornstein, remembered a time shortly after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans in Aug. 2005.

Dalembert went with a group of players in an NBA-sponsored program to help with the rebuilding process. The players were on a table set up in the back of a flat-bed truck, signing autographs and posing for pictures. When the session was over, no one could find Dalembert.

They looked around, and there he was, in an adjoining field, playing soccer with about 50 kids.

"Sam is like a big kid," Cornstein said, "and I mean that in a very complimentary way."

Lifetime of giving

Dalembert has been a giver ever since he was a youngster in impoverished Haiti.

It never dawned on Dalembert that he was poor, even though he often went without shoes and ate only one square meal a day.

Dalembert said his grandmother, with whom he lived as a child, would invite his friends over for some food or to sleep on some sheets laid out on the floor. Dalembert, who is 6-feet-11, grew so fast that he would pass his clothes and shoes on to his friends, laughing as they walked around in shoes that were too big and pants that were too baggy.

"You would get used it," Dalembert said. "You can be in a worse place but have good people around you. You just think this is the way people live until you come to America and go to the market, and the chicken is clean over here."

Dalembert was determined to make sure his family and the children in Haiti could enjoy clean food, too.

That's why Dalembert left Seton Hall after his sophomore year, even though he had only been playing basketball a few years. He wasn't ready for the NBA, but scouts were telling him that he could become a first-round pick based on his potential, and he could get the guaranteed contract that went with it.

"I remember sitting with him before the draft and the entirety of his situation was to help his grandmother, who had had a stroke earlier that year and wasn't getting the medical care that she needed," Cornstein said. "He always saw basketball as a higher calling, a way to help his family and the people of Haiti."

Eye to the future

The Sixers picked Dalembert 26th in the 2001 draft, knowing he would need a few years to develop.

They were convinced he was on the verge of a breakthrough in the 2005 playoffs, when he averaged 11.6 points and 12.8 rebounds in the Sixers' first-round loss to the Detroit Pistons.

Billy King, the team's president and general manager, signed Dalembert to a six-year, $64 million contract, but the young center never really lived up to it until recently.

Too often, he complained about his lack of playing time -- to the extent that he asked to be traded last season. The Sixers tried hard to accommodate his request, but his hefty salary scared teams away.