Hard knocks to hardwood

By Rob Miech (contact)

Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007 | 6:59 a.m.

UNLV senior forward

Age: 27

Height: 6 feet 5 inches

Weight: 215 pounds

Hometown: Tampa, Fla.

Family: Mother Corea Bailey, father Curtis Thomas, sister Nicole Clark, brother Johnny Bailey.

Junior college: In 2005-06, as a sophomore, he led Butler Community College with 17.5 points and 6.4 rebounds a game for the 20-12 Grizzlies. He twice scored 32 points in a game.

At UNLV: Averaged 2.8 points and 1 rebound a game, shooting 58.5 percent from the field, as a junior in 2006-07; this season, he has started all nine games for the 7-2 Rebels and averages 6.9 points and 3.3 rebounds.

Unlike his basketball teammates, UNLV swingman Corey Bailey does not play video games. Mindless activity took enough of his time after he graduated from high school in Florida in 2000.

When he talks about being a 27-year-old senior on a college campus, Bailey bares his soul.

A conversation about working in the real world, for an air-conditioning company, turns when he mentions doing 45 days in jail after getting caught driving on a suspended license for a third time.

It could have been much worse, he says, because during each stop he had bags of cocaine and marijuana under the passenger seat; he was dealing drugs. Police, though, never searched his vehicles.

He came that close to charges and penalties that would have been much more severe.

"I thought, 'Three times? You need to stop!' " Bailey says. "The path I took and where I've ended up, it's like a miracle. To this day, I sit down and think, 'Wow.' "

UNLV coach Lon Kruger knew of his player's questionable past, he just didn't know specific details. Bailey has grown, the coach says, into a responsible person.

"It's a great story," Kruger says. "He's persevered and worked through some difficult and unfortunate times ... It's terrific. It's not so much about us helping him but giving him the opportunity to help himself, because it only happens if he makes it happen."

Bailey repeatedly failed to obtain minimum test scores required for college after graduating from East Lake High in Tarpon Springs, Fla., near Tampa.

The father of a close friend hired him at his company, Pelican Air, which installs and repairs commercial air-conditioning and heating units.

Bailey learned the trade and attended a technical school three nights a week to hone his craft.

His uniform was navy pants, a light-blue shirt with thin white stripes and an oval bearing his name in cursive on the left breast, and hard-soled shoes.

He began making $9.50 an hour. Eighteen months later, Bailey was up to $14 an hour when some delinquent friends coaxed him to the dark side.

Flip that money you've made at Pelican, they advised, into some serious cash.

Bailey took the bait.

He traveled with small amounts of cocaine and marijuana, but he says firearms were never involved in his deals.

"Made more money than I was at Pelican," Bailey says. "Then I got into trouble with the law."

A host of driving offenses, including three speeding violations, expired registration and no insurance, led to Bailey's license being suspended in April 2002, according to Pinellas County records.

The first time he got caught driving with that suspended license, he was driving a green Chevy Celebrity, his sister's first car, which he dubbed The Green Machine.

The second, he was in a red Buick his dad had given him. He called that one Shake 'n Bake. At speeds in the low 80s, when he let up on the gas, the rig shook, rattled and rolled like Elvis.

Finally, a ride in a blue Chevy Caprice Classic, which his sister's boyfriend had given him, landed him in Pinellas County Jail for 45 days.

Being stripped of his freedom belted Bailey.

"I got to go outside when they told me to go outside," he says. "I took a shower when they said take a shower. I ate when they said eat."

He rose at 4 a.m. to work the line in the cafeteria, slopping a potato-like substance mixed with some sort of soup onto thick plastic trays that were stacked and whisked elsewhere.

"The way they feed those convicts, man," Bailey says, "I would have an attitude and be pissed off every day, too."

It was downright sad when his mother, Corea Bailey, visited. He spoke with her via TV monitors.

"To see her crying ..." he says, his voice trailing off.

On the basketball court in the yard he dominated older inmates, who called him Slim. They respected him and laughed at why he was behind bars.

Don't worry about it, they said. Pray every night, don't start any fights and you'll be out of here in no time. Get back to school, and keep playing ball.

"I'm in jail and I'm scared, I won't lie," Bailey says. "I'm in with guys I shouldn't be with, but they were motivating. It was positive."

When he got out of Pinellas, scared straight, Bailey worked odd jobs and kept playing basketball.

A chance meeting led him to Butler Community College in Kansas, and Butler coach Randy Smithson's long relationship with Kruger led Bailey to UNLV.

Smithson raved about Bailey to Kruger. It just took a while for Bailey to feel positive about himself.

He'd walk across the UNLV campus thinking all of the younger students were looking at him.

"I'm older than half of them, and that made me think like I was a loser," Bailey says. "I was thinking how they looked at me, instead of how I looked at them."

Three times a week, Dr. Edward Klein, a psychologist who has worked with many notable sports figures and teams, has boosted Bailey's confidence.

"Dr. Klein has helped me a lot," Bailey says. "He lets me know that I have confidence in myself, that I can do anything I put my mind to. I think I have a bright future."

Bailey insists he has never used drugs, even though Las Vegas friends kid him about frequently bloodshot eyes; he says he has medical issues.

On the Rebels, Bailey is closest to Rene Rougeau. They get haircuts together, and Bailey tells Rougeau how he can rewire the entire air-conditioning system in his house if he ever needs the service.

"This is a dream come true for him," Rougeau says. "We don't look at him like he's older; he's one of the guys."

Bailey was one of several Rebels who recently recorded televised messages about their success stories that will be shown to Clark County middle school kids in February.

"He has to make his own decisions and make decisions for the right reasons, and stand on his own two feet," Kruger says, "which he didn't do, obviously, when he was being influenced by his peers."

Bailey speaks with his mother in Clearwater every other day, and those talks are joyful.

He believes his UNLV teammates and friends in Las Vegas will be surprised to read about his past because he has never talked about it with anyone.

"I'm not ashamed of it or embarrassed by it," Bailey says. "Obviously, I'm being successful now. I look at myself like I'm still a kid, still growing up.

"I just want to have fun, like everyone else."