On a night of legends, Dembo finds he belongs
Former Fox Tech basketball player Fennis Dembo talks with Gary DeLaune
on stage while being inducted into the SAISD Athletic Hall of Fame
at Alamo Convocation Center on Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018.
Seven stand-out coaches and athletes were inducted into the 2018 class: Dembo (Fox Tech/basketball), Tai Dillard (Sam Houston/basketball), Dolores "Delo" Dyer (Jefferson/volleyball), Darryl Grant (Highlands/football), Cliff Johnson (Wheatley/baseball), David Vela (Burbank/football) and Julius Whittier (Highlands/football) were inducted.Marvin Pfeiffer/San Antonio Express-News
Mike Finger, San Antonio Express-News, Staff Writer
Aug. 25, 2018 - Updated: Aug. 26, 2018 3 p.m.
Aug. 25, 2018 - Updated: Aug. 26, 2018 3 p.m.
If only they knew.
Saturday morning, at VIA stops up and down Nogalitos Street, they climbed onto their city bus and walked right past a driver who had made gyms full of people howl and roar 30 years ago, and was about to do it again that very night.
Those bus riders could be forgiven for not noticing, because they had other things on their minds.
Truth be told, Fennis Dembo did, too.
On the day he was to be inducted into the San Antonio ISD Athletic Hall of Fame, Dembo was feeling a bit overwhelmed. This whole week had been a frenzy, what with having to cut the grass at his home on North Pine — the same one where his late parents moved in 50 years ago — and needing to buy a new tie, and making all the other preparations for the friends and family coming to visit.
And in the middle of all of this, he found himself asking an all-too-familiar question, one that had confronted him before he soared as a basketball star at Fox Tech, and after he graced the cover of Sports Illustrated, and through a two-year struggle with depression.
“Am I worthy of this?”
Dembo, now 52, knew he was not the first person to ask himself that question. He knew that in a way, that question was emblematic of a lot of the inner-city SAISD kids who followed the proud legacies of Saturday’s other honorees — Highlands’ Julius Whittier, Jefferson’s Dolores Dyer, Highlands’ Darryl Grant, Wheatley’s Clifford Johnson, Sam Houston’s Tai Dillard and Burbank’s David Vela — and wondered if they had any hope of measuring up.
Dembo, like SAISD itself, enjoyed epic glory days but isn’t talked about so much anymore. But Dembo is a man who stared down tough times and realized his old neighborhoods — which sent Johnson to World Series championships and Grant to the Super Bowl, among other feats accomplished by SAISD alumni — was exactly where he wanted to be.
“I’m the poster child for it, from A to Z,” Dembo said Saturday after a rousing speech that brought the house down at Alamo Convocation Center. “I’ve won NBA championships. I’ve been depressed. I’ve been at the bottom and just felt hopeless.
“I’ve been to Europe. I’ve been all over the country. I’ve been everywhere. I feel better here.”
Dembo’s story is not a traditional one of rags to riches. Although his hoops exploits — with no shortage of showmanship — brought him quite a bit of fame in the 1980s at Wyoming as one of college basketball’s most dynamic players, it did not lead to any lucrative contracts nor to a long professional career.
He was drafted by the Detroit Pistons and was a member of the team that won the NBA title in 1989, but never played in another game after his rookie year. He spent a few seasons in France and a few more in the Continental Basketball Association before hanging up his sneakers for good.
“Professional basketball is a business,” he said Saturday. “I didn’t last too long with the business part of it.”
After basketball, he worked as a prison guard, as a maintenance man, and faced what he referred to Saturday as his share of “tragedies.”
“You could have never told me when I was going through my depression stage that I would have a night like this,” Dembo said.
Even when the ceremony was over, he seemed awestruck to be a part of it. He said he always had looked up to Johnson, to Grant and to Vela, and still did not feel right about being part of the same hall of fame class as men he idolized.
Johnson, the former Wheatley slugger who went on to a long Major League Baseball career with the Astros, Yankees and Blue Jays, pointed out the whole thing was cyclical. Before him, he had felt the same way about San Antonio-raised AFL-NFL champion Willie Mitchell.
“I always was inspired by people who knew what they wanted to do,” Johnson said.
Because he still lives not far from Fox Tech, Dembo knows the kids who go there now are looking for the same kinds of examples. And if they can learn anything from an event like Saturday’s, Dembo said he hopes it is that they know they can earn a plaque someday, too.
“How are you going to be the one to carry on the tradition?” Dembo said.
He has a VIA bus route now, and his riders have no idea they are being driven by a celebrity, or at least a man who used to be one. He never tells them who he is, or who he once was.
But he always has had this nagging feeling that people should know his story.
“It’s for me to tell now,” Dembo said. “I knew this was going to inspire somebody. Maybe someday it will come to pass.”
He is feeling more worthy by the day.
mfinger@express-news.net
Twitter: @mikefinger
Written By Mike Finger
Mike Finger arrived at the Express-News in 1999, and has spent more than two decades covering professional and college sports, including the San Antonio Spurs and the Texas Longhorns. The Associated Press Sports Editors have awarded him with national Top 10 honors for column writing six times, including first place in both 2018 and 2019. Email Mike at mfinger@express-news.net.
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