Dwyane Wade's Mother Brings Message To Joliet West

JOLIET, IL - There was plenty of star power inside the Joliet West Auditorium on Tuesday evening for the Will County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition's parent and youth forum. The speakers included a pair of Joliet hometown sports heroes, Tom Thayer, who played on the 1985 Super Bowl champion Chicago Bears, along with Roger Powell Jr., who made the NBA with the Utah Jazz. The panel also included current Chicago Bulls guard Cameron Payne, former Chicago Bulls coach Doug Collins as well as Jolinda Wade, mother of Chicago Bulls star Dwyane Wade.

Looking into the crowd, Roger Powell Jr. told the students he was in awe to be on the same stage as so many gifted athletes and prominent public officials, which included Will County Sheriff Mike Kelley and Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow. "How can you not eat this up?" he asked the students.

"I'm blessed to have a strong Mom and a strong Dad and I listened to them," Powell told everyone. When his basketball team at the University of Illinois was one of the best in the country, he faced several situations where he could have been tempted to make a bad decision to detract him from his goals he had written on his bathroom mirror. He wanted to play in the NBA, win a conference championship and play in the Final Four.

"I believe there is greatness in every single one of you," Powell told the Joliet West and Joliet Central teenagers.

Powell achieved his dream of playing in the NBA. These days, he's associate head coach for Vanderbilt University.

But all of us, he emphasized to his large audience, face an enemy that fights against us. It might be drugs, alcohol, bad choices and bad relationships, he rattled off.

"One bad decision ... guess what, can crush that dream," Powell told everyone.

Thayer reminded students how he and the other panelists were once high school teenagers. When he played football at Notre Dame University and later for Coach Mike Ditka, he was pushed to the limit during practice. He's grateful for those experiences.

"I want all of you guys to be somebody ... we are the City of Champions," Thayer told everyone. "We are here because we care about you guys. We do care about you."

Chicago Bulls guard Cameron Payne told students that drinking or using drugs, "does not make you cool. What's cool is walking across the stage getting a degree."

His message to students was simple and straightforward. Learn to listen. "Listen to your parents, someone older than you, someone younger than you," Payne suggested.

Dwyane Wade's mother, Jolinda Wade, delivered a strong and blunt message to the students, citing her own failings and shortcomings. These days, she is pastor of New Creation Church. But several years back, she struggled against "alcohol, cigarettes and dope" she told the teenagers.

"I was once delusional. I thought I could handle it," she told students. "If you're taking a sip so you can be popular ... in the end there is destruction ... it's death."

At one point, Jolinda Wade remarked that she sensed there might be some "party people" in the audience.

"I'm trying to save somebody in here," she remarked.

She also made it a point to thank Sheriff Mike Kelley and State's Attorney James Glasgow for helping sponsor Tuesday's event. "I compliment Glasgow," she said, turning to him and then looking back into her audience of teenagers. "Man, they care for you in Will County."

"Don't walk out of here being a statistic," she also said. "You cannot lose your focus. You'll turn into somebody you never thought existed. My decisions took me in and out of jail."

Fortunately, she has turned her life around. "The Lord cleaned me up," Jolinda Wade said proudly.

Before she finished, Jolinda Wade asked the Joliet high school students to yell the word "No!" at the top of their lungs.

"Let me hear you say no?" she repeated a few times.

Finally, the audience noise was loud enough to meet her approval.

"May God bless every last one of you," she told the teens.

Images via Joliet Patch Editor John Ferak