Steve E. Parillon, President of BVI Hoop It Up Foundation.

Parillon going through a drill with a group of kids as part of his programme with the BVI Hoop It Up Foundation.

Steve Parillon and Denis Rodman as teammates with Brighton Bears.

Mr. Parillon has retired from his professional basketball career in December 2010 and is now fully involved in his brainchild, the BVI Hoop It Up Foundation, which is an after school programme called Books and Basketball that focuses on learning the skills of the game while ensuring the youths pay attention to their school work.

This young professional began playing the game from High School right up to his last professional contract in Scotland in December 2010.

When he was on summer breaks from his professional contracts, Mr. Parillon was home either playing with the BVI National Basketball team or involved in the summer programme for children.

Mr. Parillon, the son of Claude and Carmen Parillon, grew up in Lower Estate, attended the Althea Scatliffe Primary and graduated from the BVI High School now Elmore Stoutt High School in 1997. During high school, the budding basketball star at that time was a member of Lettsome House which saw victory every year. In 1997, he became a member of the BVI National Basketball team.

While he may have seemed only involved in basketball, after High school this former professional basketball player tested his hands at the Customs Department where he worked for three years as a Customs Officer before he was recruited for Clinton Community College in Iowa in the United States where he studied and played college basketball.

After completing his studies there, he transferred to Henderson State University in Arkansas where he spent another two years.

It was at that University that Mr. Parillon was given the opportunity to play professional basketball. He left off his studies and started playing professional basketball for various teams for six years till his retirement in December. The basketball player is now finishing off his studies, reading for a Degree in Recreation and Sports Management. Mr. Parillon is also a consultant with a consulting sports agency in Puerto Rico, Paris Global Sport, of which Kleon Penn is one of their players.

As President of the BVI Hoop It Up Foundation, Mr. Parillon is now able to spend more time with the programme, taking it from only a partial summer programme to one that is run 10 months a year. He is also incorporating an Easter Hoops for the Easter vacation, Christmas Hoops and the Summer Programme to give youths the opportunity to play and learn basketball year round.

He also strives to bring in coaches from colleges and Universities from the US to scout local talent during his programme.

“My goal is to get as many athletes off the island by bringing in coaches so that they too that benefit from what I received,” Mr. Parillon said.

Giving a synopsis of his basketball career, Mr. Parillon revealed that he has played in the UK, Belgium, Iceland, Scotland and Puerto Rico, while also being a member of the BVI National Team and playing for the Territory when he was on summer breaks from the professional contracts.

“My whole life is basketball, you cannot write anything about basketball in the last 14 years without my name on it,” he said with great pride and a smile.

Giving a little history, Parillon said the two years when the local basketball league was absent in 2002 and 2003, he ran a league called the Summer Explosion Basketball League to ensure players had a chance to play competitive basketball and give the youths sometime to do in the summer. In those two years he also introduced a different avenue to basketball when he brought the AND 1 street ballers from America to the island for a night of excitement.

Looking back at his 14-year basketball career, Parillon said he had some good years.

“I won a college conference championship (Gulf South Conference) while at Henderson State University and that same year our team had a school record of 30 wins and five losses. I also won a ring in college. I played in two professional championship games, and also played in the CBC, the FIBA international championship. I also won several championships in the local league,” Mr. Parillon said in summing up his career.

Breaking down the best highlights of his career, Mr. Parillon said locally, his best was two years ago when the BVI National Team qualified for Centrobasket for the first time and earned a silver medal over many top basketball nations.

For his college highlight, the former national team player said the ultimate goal is always winning a ring which he did at Henderson State University.

Speaking of his personal accomplishments in college, Mr. Parillon was an All Conference Performer for four years - during his two years in college and two in university, which is rare in college basketball.

“Both years in Clinton I earned First team All Conference honours, I led the state of Iowa in scoring for two years when I was there and was basically the best scorer in Iowa,” Parillon recalled.

At Henderson, Mr. Parillon was second team All Conference for one year, and first team All Conference and was also a first team All Region which he said is the second highest honour one can receive in college basketball with All American the highest honour which he earned at Clinton.

As far as team accomplishments, Mr. Parillon said he was honoured to play with the Brighton Bears and be a team mate with NBA legend Denis Rodman. Another personal accomplishment for him in his professional career was scoring 40 points for Sheffield Sharks against London Capital becoming the second player at that time to hit the 40 point plateau  which former England's NBA star John Amaechi did before he went off to the NBA, and when he also scored 40 for Clinton College against Black Hawk East Community College.

Another important high for his professional career was that he started his professional basketball career playing for what was then Scottish Rock in Scotland and ended his career playing for the same team which has now become Glasgow Rock. They reached the British Basketball League Championship Playoff but lost.

He also elaborated that this “feel good story” made his book "The Hills And Valleys Of Life" that he is currently writing, even more interesting.

“I think I have done pretty well in my basketball career but I cannot be selfish. At this time I think I can give more than I can play,” the humbled former pro basketball player admitted.

Now that he has returned, Mr. Parillon said he will take his strong drive and competitive basketball spirit and put that into his foundation to help as many kids as he can.

“My goal is to reach out to as many youths as I can through basketball and by building relationships with them. Everyone talking about reaching the youths but if we really look at it, we need to build relationships with get through to them,” Mr. Parillon said, “I am building relationships with the youths on the island. Now they say we know this guy we can talk to him, now they can tell me anything that they want and I can help them.”

Through his Foundation, Parillon is in the process of organising a youth gathering called “Lets Chat” where youths will have the opportunity to be involved in a social gathering to discuss various topics of interest to them and also have fun in the process.

“Not all kids have a good relationship with their parents and the way I have created this environment, there will be all kinds of games, field trips, guest speakers coming in to talk about youth issues. So we will also be educating them through this and building a relationship and comfort level with the youths. There will also be a hotline for any youth in the BVI so that they can call at any time in the night to talk to someone. People with the hotline numbers will be the ones who are competent to accept those roles,” Mr. Parillon revealed.

He also believes strongly that more parents need to more involve in their children’s life.

“Don’t ask a kid if they want to be put in a programme, stop putting the decision into a kid’s hand. There are kids that don’t want to come to my programme because of the books part. Letting kids make your decision by letting them chose their path then you can’t control them if they are doing something bad,” he pointed out.

This young professional is very concerned with the direction the young people are heading in and the high incidence of violence in the Territory.

At this juncture, the former professional player said he believes more attention need to be placed on the younger kids rather than the older ones who have to be rehabilitated and many are already bent in their ways.

“What’s burning inside of me right now is the violence. And there are some young people right now that you can’t change. They might be too far gone, but what you can't do is ignore the ones that you can prevent by trying too hard to change the ones that can’t change. A lot of people get caught up in the curing than the prevention. I am trying to prevent kids from falling into that part,” said the youth advocate.

Mr. Parillon had high praises for Karl "DUB" Scatliffe who helped him to realise the Virgin Islands needed his expertise.

“I want to thank him for sitting me down and making me realize how much my country needs me at this time, and now that he has brought his competitive drive to the BVI Hoop It Up Foundation, we are taking basketball and development of the Virgin Islands youth to the next level,” he added.