Oakland Tribune

October 9, 2004
by Jonathan Kaminski

Courting Democracy: Foyle trying to make it of, by, for people again

BERKELEY -- There is a nightmare Adonal Foyle can't seem to shake:

The muscular 6-foot 10-inch Golden State Warriors center is stuck at home, watching on TV as Ross Perot brings the ball down court, guarded by Bill Gates. Donald Trump and Mark Cuban, elbows flailing, as they muscle for position in the paint.

While only a bad dream, Foyle, who re-signed with the Warriors in July for $41.6 million over five years, thinks it goes a long way toward illustrating the current state of American politics.

"The system is ridiculous," he says. "If the NBA were like politics, we would not have experienced the greatness of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson or Shaquille O'Neal. Most of those who make it to the NBA come from poverty-stricken backgrounds."

But Foyle, 29, raised on the tiny Caribbean Island of Canouan with no electricity or running water, is doing more than lament the concentration of power in the hands of the wealthy and well-connected.

In 2001, he launched Democracy Matters, a rapidly expanding college campus-based organization that gets students involved in fixing the problem of "a few people with a lot of money clogging up the political system," Foyle said.

That year, there were 10 Democracy Matters chapters, all on the East Coast. Now, there are branches on 75 campuses nationwide. In California, 10 of the 17 chapters are new.

Last month, more than 60 students from 20 colleges and universities converged on the UC Berkeley campus for the organization's first West Coast Summit, projected to be an annual event.

As an ESPN "Outside the Lines" crew filmed a documentary of the Warrior and his organization (set to air Oct. 24), Foyle oversaw three days of rallies by those seeking to get money out of politics and workshops on how to fight apathy and recruit more members.

Foyle recently joined a door-knocking effort in Berkeley in support of Measure H, a city ballot initiative that would allow candidates with enough early support to have the option of accepting public campaign money instead of raising their own.

This, Foyle says, would shift focus to constituents.

Foyle, whose easygoing nature is punctuated by a lilting voice and a quick, broad smile, owes his activist tendencies in large measure to the Colgate University professors who brought him to the States at the age of 16, he said.

Joan and Jay Mandle, refereeing a basketball game in the Caribbean in the summer of 1990, immediately noticed the pencil-thin Foyle, already standing 6-foot-10.

"He wasn't very good," Joan Mandle recalls of Foyle, who had been playing for only two months. "But he was big, and he ran beautifully."

Two weeks later, to the Mandles' astonishment, Foyle had accepted their invitation and was living with them in Hamilton, N.Y., hoping to parlay his NBA size into a college education.

He stayed with the Mandles, whom he calls mom and dad, through high school, and his three years at Colgate, where he broke the NCAA record for blocked shots with 492.

Encouraged by the Mandles while at Colgate, he volunteered with other students at a soup kitchen. Surrounded by proactive young people, Foyle questioned the prevailing notion that his generation was a selfish one.

"I kept hearing that young people are apathetic, but that's not what I was seeing," Foyle said.

However, Foyle acknowledges, in speaking out politically, he is the rare exception among today's pro athletes.

Nevertheless, he says, several NBA players, whose names he won't list, have contributed to his organization. But the bulk of Democracy Matters' start-up costs and annual operating budget of roughly $500,000 has come from Foyle himself.

It's not a matter of athletes being apolitical, he says, but of being afraid to stick their necks out. "Look at Steve Nash" he says, alluding to the Phoenix Suns point guard who was widely criticized for wearing an anti-war T-shirt at the 2003 NBA All-Star Game.

Foyle takes an historical view. "Muhammad Ali was vilified during the Vietnam War for his political stand," he says. "Today, he's seen as this amazing icon. In the end, people come around."

Copyright © 2004, Oakland Tribune

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