Representing Massachusetts Once Again

By Kayla Raymond

Stonehill News Blog Staff

            Dana Barros was a successful collegiate and NBA player in the mid 1980s through early 2000s. Following his career, he now owns Dana Barros Basketball Club in Stoughton, Mass.

           

            He attended Boston college where he was the first player in their program’s history to score over 2,000 career points.

            “I didn’t actually get offered a basketball scholarship. I was going to play football and walk on to the basketball team but on the last day they gave me a basketball scholarship,” he said.

            Following his collegiate basketball career, he was unexpectedly offered a contract with the Celtics after a few years of playing in the NBA.

           

            “So, I got on my motorcycle and was weaving through 93 traffic because I just wanted to sign that contract so fast and so bad that I knew I couldn’t wait until the next day. I couldn’t sleep.”

            Barros, who had basketball scholarships to other local schools, wanted to get into the Big East league and describes it “almost like a mini NBA conference.”

            Barros succeeded in his college career, playing all four years and leading the conference in scoring twice. He went on to become one of Boston College’s leading scorers finishing with 2,432 points and later got his jersey retired. This, however, was not the end of Barros’ career. After college he had decided to declare for the 1989 NBA draft.

            “I did a couple of visits and they told me I was going to be an early second-round pick. So, they asked me to come to the tryouts and I said absolutely not, you just told me I was going to be a second-round pick,” he said.

            Barros was caught by surprise when he heard his name called 16^th overall in the first round of the NBA draft.

           

             “I’m just sitting at home and was totally surprised when I was picked at 16 because I wasn’t even paying attention. I had never talked to Seattle or visited Seattle, so I didn’t even understand why they were picking me,” he said.

            Barros played in Seattle for four years before being traded to Philadelphia. He then spent two years with them before becoming a free agent once his contract was up.

            “I was getting ready to sign with Washington and my agent says, ‘Hey I’m just going to call the Celtics to see if they would be interested in signing you’,” he said.

            Larry Bird and Red Auerbach offered him a contract right after that call.

             “(His agent) was like ‘Okay we are going to sign the contract tomorrow,’ and it was probably like 4:30 in the afternoon and I was like ‘hell no, I’m going to be down there today,’ and he’s like ‘it’s rush hour.’ And I had my motorcycle,” he said.

            Barros sped into Boston on his motorcycle as fast as he could just to sign his contract and because of that piece of paper he spent a total of six years with the Celtics before retiring. Barros knew that he always wanted to stay involved with basketball come retirement.

            “I always wanted to retire and do something that I love to do. I tried full-time coaching in college, full time coaching in the NBA and just really didn’t enjoy it at all. You know, it was really restrictive,” he said.

            He then decided to open up a basketball facility, where his favorite part of managing the gym is running basketball camps for youth

             “I’ve been doing basketball camps for 30 years straight you know, and I really enjoy it,” said Barros.