Mike Anthony: Marcus Camby helping honor Duffy Jernigan in latest show of support for Hartford Public High School

So much about Marcus Camby’s basketball life began with the Jernigan Family, all those brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles who felt like his own in Hartford’s North End.

The Bellevue Square housing project is where Camby came to know and depend on people such as Stevie J, the man who sheltered Camby from those complicated streets in the 1980s and ’90s and still protects him today from afar.

Camby is in the Houston area, living comfortably following a 17-year NBA career. Part of his heart remains in Hartford, though. With the North End. With Bellevue. With Hartford Public High. With the Jernigans. With Stevie J. With Charles “Duffy” Jernigan, Stevie’s brother-in-law and a Hartford basketball legend for his play at HPHS in the 1970s.

COVID-19 took Duffy in April. His death was a crushing blow to a community that celebrates its own with such pride.

“Duffy was an uncle to all of us,” Camby said.

Camby has purchased uniforms for the Hartford Public boys basketball team to wear during the upcoming season. Those uniforms will feature a “R.I.P. Duffy” patch.

“It’s been an annual thing for me, buying uniforms, jerseys, warmups, for about 20 years,” said Camby, a 1993 Hartford Public graduate who led the Owls to an undefeated season and state championship as a senior. “I’m a Hartford guy and I’m proud of my school. My mom went there. One of my sisters graduated there. I have a plethora of aunts and uncles who attended Hartford Public High School, so it’s a very dear school to me and I’m always willing to help any chance I get.”

It’s rare for Camby to have such a discussion. What he’s done for Hartford over the years has been mostly under the radar. He doesn’t see much value in a public celebration. He doesn’t often engage with media. Anyone requesting his time is told to speak to Stevie J, and Stevie J speaks for Camby.

Or, in this case, with him.

With Stevie J on the line and part of the conversation, Camby spent about 25 minutes on Tuesday talking basketball, Hartford and more. It was as if they were back in Bellevue for stretches, each breaking up with laughter while reminiscing.

“I’m really close with the [Jernigan] family,” Camby said. “We are lifelong brothers. Stevie’s sons are my brothers and I talk to them every day just like I talk to Stevie. Without Stevie and his late wife, there is no telling where I would be or where a lot of kids who grew up in the project would be. Stevie always had an open door policy at his house, where all the kids would come in there to eat cereal and drink up all of his juice.”

Stevie J’s fridge full of juice is always a source of amusement for those who have spent time at his home.

“You might go hungry,” Stevie J likes to say, “but you ain’t gonna go thirsty!”

Stevie J is Steven R. Johnson, 61, known citywide as “The Mayor of Bellevue Square.” He is not, technically, a Jernigan but he is in ways that matter just as much. Stevie J and Deena Jernigan, Duffy’s sister, have six children together. They also felt like parents to dozens, perhaps hundreds, in the North End. Deena died in 2000.

The Jernigan home, Camby said, “was a safe haven for all us kids growing up, being surrounded by, in the inner city, typical stuff with the gangs and the drugs. Their house was a place of solace and a place of calmness. Stevie is family. Anybody who knows me knows that Stevie represents me and I represent him and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him to this day.”

Camby was the 1996 Naismith and Wooden award winner at UMass. He was the second overall pick, behind Allen Iverson, in one of the deepest drafts in NBA history. And he was one of the most dominant defensive players in the NBA for the Raptors, Knicks, Nuggets, Trailblazers and Rockets before retiring in 2013.

Camby, 46 and a father of three daughters, speaks with pride about his accomplishments on the big stage. He speaks even more fondly of his time in Bellevue, time spent trying to emulate Duffy Jernigan while playing with milk-crate hoops — with little kids who later led Hartford Public to its first state title in 31 years.

Camby sponsors Stevie J’s Greater Hartford Pro-Am basketball team every summer, Cambyland, named for Camby’s foundation. He has purchased sneakers for players at HPHS, where he established a scholarship in his mother’s name. He has organized turkey giveaways and charity walks for schoolchildren in Hartford and other cities. Eventually, Camby said, he would like to open a community center in the North End.

“I don’t like to [discuss] what I’m doing and what I’m not doing because there are always going to be naysayers and it’s never enough for people,” said Camby, who is now involved with real estate and owns a barbershop and a landscaping company in Texas. “People who love me and know me and see me regularly know what type of person I am. The people who know me from Connecticut and Hartford know my loyalty lies between the project where I grew up and the high school I attended.”

At “The Pub” under coach Stan Piorkowski in 1992-93 — and with a starting lineup of Camby, Kendrick Moore, Tyrone White, Courtney Dunstan and Mike Thompson — the Owls won a Class LL title for the first time since 1962. It was Camby’s only season with the team. He had previously attended Conard High in West Hartford as part of a Project Concern.

“The run we had was magical,” said Camby, elected to the Hartford Public High Hall of Fame in 2016. “Those are some of the best memories of my life.”

HPHS repeated as champions in 1993-94, when Camby was a freshman at UMass. There, under a young John Calipari, he led the 1995-96 Minutemen to a 35-2 record, a No. 1 national ranking and a trip to the Final Four — one that was vacated after it was revealed Camby violated NCAA rules by accepting cash and gifts from agents.

“I was a poor kid who grew up in the inner city and made bad choices,” Camby said. “I’m not the first and I wasn’t the last. But I take it. I own it. And I was able to persevere.”

Camby, who left college after his junior year, had more than 9,000 points, 9,000 rebounds and 2,000 blocks in the NBA. In 2017, motivated to inspire his daughters, he finished coursework and earned his degree from UMass, majoring in urban studies with a minor in African American studies.

Camby’s mother, Janice, attended the ceremony. So did Calipari. (They remain close and speak frequently.)

Of course, Stevie J was there, too, representing the Jernigans.

Stevie J has been with Camby all the way, a bond built on something stronger than bloodlines and never interrupted by time or geography.

Camby’s last visit to Hartford was in October 2019 for Stevie J’s 60th birthday. He doesn’t know when he’ll be around next. That doesn’t mean parts of his mind and heart aren’t here, always.