For years, it has been a rite of spring for Kamau Bailey. No matter where he is, he always comes home to help his dad, John, with the Joint Effort Hoops Festival, which ended Saturday at Manual. The gatherings have long been a staple of Denver’s basketball community, with clinics, games against out-of-state teams, and the conjoining of city and suburbs.
The former NYU player, who now coaches prep girls in Princeton, N.J., and runs Philadelphia 76ers international camps at Valley Forge Military Academy, had another reason to return this year.
He wanted to say goodbye to a friend.
Jason Salazar, a teammate and point guard on the 1995-96 Denver East Angels who helped give longtime coach Rudy Carey his first state title at his alma mater, died of cancer last month. He was a sweet man with a tortured soul who sought out Bailey and stayed with him near the final days of his life, a last hurrah of sorts between prominent teammates who had known each other since they were 6.
“He had a tough life and a great life,” said Bailey, 38.
Salazar won The Denver Post’s Dick Connor ACE (Adversity Conquered through Excellence) Award in 1996. It’s named in honor of the revered columnist who died of cancer, and Salazar knew something about it. Into his senior year of high school, he helped take care of his mother, Laura Elrod, who died Jan. 27 of that year after battling cancer for five years and fighting an infection.
While Salazar later played in college and became a husband and father, friends remain convinced that he never moved on from his mother or what happened to her.
“Sad, sad, sad,” Carey said. “How far he went down. … He never got over the death of his mother.
“He was a great kid, and I loved him like he was my own. But he was with her the night she died, and he just never really handled it.”
Bailey said Elrod “was Jason’s best friend, a single mom and a second mom to everyone she knew. She was that kind of lady.”
The two former Angels first met as first-graders. “I was in the lunch line and probably break dancing or something,” Bailey said. “We hit it off.”
Years later, when Bailey joined Carey in moving over from Manual, the Angels won their first title since 1965 with an intriguing group. The starting five had Salazar, who went on to play at Whittier College; Bailey at forward; Sadat Montgomery, now a lawyer in Texas, at guard; J.B. Bickerstaff, now the interim coach of the Houston Rockets, at forward; and pivot Kaniel Dickens, who played for more than a decade in the NBA and abroad.
Those Angels beat Chris Crosby, The Post’s Mr. Colorado Basketball, and Chatfield, coached by Gary Osse, 85-80 in overtime at McNichols Sports Arena in one of the great title games in state history.
“We all had various successes,” Bailey said. “But winning that state championship was a cherishable memory.”
Bailey said he and Salazar kept in touch off and on over the years, and in July, he picked him up at the Philadelphia airport. Salazar wanted to see his son, who was living in Harrisburg, Pa., then ended up staying with Bailey for four months. He told him he had been diagnosed with cancer and had only five years to live. Salazar returned to Colorado in November.
“It was like he knew he didn’t have those five years for some reason,” Bailey said. “I think he remembers his mom being told the same thing and not living them.”
So Bailey came home last month to help who was left in his friend’s family, speak at his service and dedicate Saturday’s Joint Effort youth clinic to a young man who once said after losing his mother: “I’m just thankful that a lot of young people will never have the experience that we had to go through. … But I would never trade that for the world. I think I’m very fortunate.”
Said Bailey: “I’m glad God just blessed me with a few months of (Jason’s) presence to say goodbye.”
Neil H. Devlin: ndevlin@denverpost.com or @neildevlin
