Steve Hanson

AJ Dybantsa was in sixth grade when he brought home a C minus. His father called his travel team coach and told him the boy was not to play in the next game. Then he drove him six hours to the game anyway. Here is the whole thing. They went from Brockton, Massachusetts to Philadelphia. AJ got dressed. He warmed up with everybody else. Just before the tip, the coach told him he was not playing. He sat there the entire game. Then he got back in the car and cried for six hours. Here is what his father says about it. "He realized then that I wasn't messing around, and he has been on the honor roll ever since." Now here is who his father is. His name is Anicet Dybantsa. Everybody calls him Ace. He was born in Brazzaville, in the Republic of the Congo, one of eleven children. At 13 his family sent him to France to live with an older brother, because the schools were better. In his early twenties he came to Boston to learn English. He put himself through community college working as a janitor and cooking at McDonald's. He was a soccer goalkeeper good enough to get a scholarship at Massasoit Community College in Brockton and make All New England. Then he became a campus police officer at Boston University and he did that for 19 years. And here is the part nobody tweets. He turned down police jobs in the city that paid better pensions. He took the campus job and kept it, because Boston University lets the children of employees go there for free. He chose his kids' tuition over his own retirement. AJ's mother is Chelsea. She was raised by her grandmother in Hanover, Jamaica, and she came to Boston at 13 too. She got a social work degree and she runs a department for a physician organization now. Here is what she says about how they did it. "It's not about being strict. It's about discipline." And this, about her grandmother. "My grandmother taught me that's the one thing no one can take away from you." She was talking about school. Here is Ace again. "I'm his dad, not his friend. Let's make that clear." And this, which he actually said to his son. "AJ, there's only 450 players in the league. You have zero chance." He also put cameras in the kitchen to find out whether AJ was really doing his morning push ups. He was not. "I just wanted to know if you were going to lie to me." Later Ace quit his job and moved across the country to live with AJ at his prep school. Here is what AJ said about that on draft night. "He quit his job just to retire and move in with me at Utah Prep so I'd be safe." AJ is 19. He played one season at BYU and averaged 25.5 points. The Washington Wizards took him first. He is three preseason games into a career that has not actually started yet. But a sixth grader once cried for six hours in his father's car over a report card.