Back in the 1990s, with double rattails dyed at the tips and a stocky, albeit undersized build of 6-foot-2, Harvey Carey was one of the more distinct looking high school basketball players in San Francisco.
“That (hair) was my trademark,” Carey remembered over the phone, with the gentle hum of Metro Manila’s motorbikes in the background. “That was the style in my neighborhood (Sunset District). When we played on the other side of the Bay, people would tease us, but I loved the attention.”
Carey’s game, a unique blend of ball handling and low post banging, drew plenty of attention on its own.
At Burton Academic High School, Carey led a fledgling basketball program, only in its seventh season of competition, to a Division II Academic Athletic Association City Championship. The 1997 Championship is the only in program history.
“I went in (to high school) not even thinking of playing basketball,” said Carey, who also played varsity baseball. “Burton was never really known for sports. We were an academic school.”
Carey averaged 18 points per game his senior year, on the way to San Francisco public school player of the year honors as well as first team all-state selection.
“He seems to just take over in a way that can’t be coached,” then Burton head coach Matthew Prophet told the San Francisco Examiner in 1997.
“I was never a selfish player,” Carey said. “I didn’t play the game until high school, so I guess it was instinctive.”
Though he was never overly close with Prophet, the willingness of his coach to help him off the court has stayed with Carey decades later.
“I was kicked out of my mom’s house before senior year started,” Carey remembered. “I was commuting 45 minutes to school from my dad’s. (Prophet) said “I could live with him. I never had to, but just to know that he cared, I took that to heart. I tried to repay him every time I stepped on the court.”
After a month or so, Carey’s mom let him back in the house. The offense: a panther tattoo on his biceps.
Carey sharpened his game before and after basketball season, patrolling the city in search of the perfect pickup run. The search often led him and his Burton teammates
to Sunset Park where he’d battle local legends Winters Patterson and Marquette Alexander.
“These were guys I wanted to emulate,” Carey said. “Every weekend we’d play pickup in different parts of the city or the Bay. Playing against the guys I looked up to — even though they were kicking my (butt) — helped me get a lot better.”
Carey played at Division II Sonoma State University after graduating from Burton.
Thousands of miles from San Francisco, Carey is 40 now. The rattails are long gone and he’s a little knobbier than he was as a Puma.
Some things haven’t changed though: he’s still mixing it up on the hardwood, matching up against taller defenders.
“Ever since I picked up a ball I’ve played bigger than my height,” Carey said. “It gets a little more challenging as you get older — I’m playing against guys that tell me they saw me play when they were in elementary school. I have to do things at certain angles now, or give more space; I have to know where the help is, in case I get beat.”
On Jan. 12, Carrey announced he would be returning for his 17th and final season of professional basketball in the Philippine Basketball Association.
“From the beginning, I’ve given the game all I could,” he said.
Carrey has spent his entire career with TNT KaTropa – a subsidiary of a Philippine telecommunications company. Since turning pro in 2003, Carey has won seven championships and once led the league in rebounding.
“I would’ve loved to have seen him in his prime,” said 29-year-old PBA player Abel Galliguez. “His game is still evolving. The past two years he has become a high consistent mid-range shooter. Developing a weakness into a strength at the latter point of his career is a strong testament to his character.”
Carey, whose mother is from the Philippines and whose father is African American, considered a pro career in the PBA at the behest of Burton assistant coach Joe Payongayong.
Payongayong — who Carey calls a mentor -brought him to the Philippines shortly after he graduated from Sonoma State and helped him negotiate his first pro contract.
No running water in his apartment coupled with limited dial up Internet and the congestion of Metro Manila were culture shocks for Carey early in his career.
“It was tough in the beginning,” Carey reflected. “I didn’t know anything about the Philippines or basketball in the Philippines. I just knew my mom was Filipino and I ate Filipino food. I fell in love with the country and the people.”
Nothing surprised Carey as much as the rabid culture of basketball around the Philippines.
“I’ve driven through storms and saw kids playing barefoot or in slippers,” Carey said. “No matter what the weather is; on dirt; on beaches with a hoop nailed to a tree – there is a lot of poverty here, but you don’t need money to play the game. Just roll the ball out and go.”
Love for the game pushed Carey outside of his comfort zone early on. In the twilight of his career, it is his two sons’ love of basketball that keeps him going.
“They love to come to the games,” Carey said. “They come to practice and hang out in the locker room. Just to see their glow and to experience that – it’s something money can’t buy.”
Carey isn’t sure what life after basketball looks like, but for now, he’s savoring the game that took him 6,000 miles from home.
“I was never good enough to play anywhere else,” Carey said. “To be a role player – a guy that did the dirty work. To be with one team for this long, even though I was never the star — they saw value in me to keep me around. I am proud of that.”
