March 5, 2007

JACKSON -- Growing up in a single-parent home as the eldest of four children wasn’t the easiest for Millsaps student-athlete Lorenzo Bailey, but the starting two-guard for the Majors soon learned that it was all apart of God’s little plan.

A native of Canton, Bailey moved to South Jackson at a young age where he and his two brothers and sister lived along the poverty line in a lower class family. While his mother went to work, Bailey was forced to play the role of big brother and father, preparing cooked meals and cleaning up around the house.

“I wasn’t Chef Boyardee,” Bailey said. “But it was enough to get by.”

Being a resident of Deer Park, one of the roughest neighborhoods in South Jackson with high crime rate, Bailey was always told that he wasn’t going to amount to much. That negative attitude only fueled the fire, as Bailey went on to prove everyone wrong while attending Jim Hill High School. He was not only a standout athlete in three different sports, but Bailey was on the top of his class academically, posting a stellar 3.9 grade point average.

Bailey had the talent and was offered scholarships to play basketball at several Junior College schools and even a pair of Division I schools straight out of high school, but chose to stay closer to home because of his mother.

“I was really leaning towards Texas Southern, but my mother wanted me to stay closer to home,” Bailey said. “I decided to go to Millsaps and make that sacrifice to stick with my family and help out in any way possible.”

Now three years into the Psychology program at Millsaps College in Jackson, Bailey balances 16 hours a semester of classes and the commitment of being a college athlete with numerous community service projects around the Jackson-Metropolitan area.

Bailey volunteers as a mentor/counselor at Mission First in South Jackson, where he started helping out in high school and has helped on and off since then. It is a K-5, non-profit organization in a low poverty environment that is incorporated through the First Baptist Church on State Street, just around the corner from Millsaps. Bailey commutes to and from South Jackson for school, and also for Mission First, where he works Monday through Thursday from 1-4 p.m. unless he has class. He also helps out with “Teen Club” on Tuesday nights, a group of junior high and high school girls.

“The organization is very short-staffed and only certain people are available to come,” Bailey said. “I started working with third and fifth grade boys, but now I help out with first and second grade girls because we only have two male and one female intern.”

Mission First is similar to the Boys & Girls Club in a way, and is need based – based on salary. They not only provide a lot of medical and dental help, but they help administer and talk about social norms. There are 20 kids in all, with the group arriving around 2:30 p.m. to start on homework.

“I notice that a lot of the kids have different weak points,” Bailey said. “My goal is to sit down with them and try and help out. For example, they always use their fingers to add and I’m trying to make them break that habit. I did the same thing at their age, but want to find a better way to help them visualize the numbers in their heads.”

A handful of volunteers from Mississippi College also help out at Mission First, including the Belhaven football team, who come out in groups every Wednesday to spend time with the kids.

Another program offered by Mission First is a sports summer camp called Oasis. Bailey spent nearly eight hours a day at the camp this past summer where he befriended a seventh grade student, Michael Woodard, along the way.

“When I met Michael over the summer, we kind of clicked,” Bailey said. “I got close with his other brother and mother, mainly because I played ball with the boys everyday.”

A hobby of Bailey’s in his awfully, spare, time is cutting hair. “I started cutting hair for five dollars just to make some extra cash,” Bailey said. “Usually if someone told me they couldn’t afford it, I would just cut it for free.”

After cutting Woodard’s hair a couple times, one thing led to another, and Bailey started getting phone calls from the boy’s mother telling them it was that time again.

“She told me the boys really enjoyed hanging out with me and asked when they could come over again,” Bailey said. “So I told her that she should bring them out to a basketball game since they were free and we could use the support. They were at nearly every home game this season and really wanted to make it to Memphis for the tournament.”

Within the last couple of months, Bailey has picked up yet another project. For his Human Services class at Millsaps, Bailey is helping out at a homeless shelter called Preparing Adolescents for Living Successfully (P.A.L.S.). He just started recently and tries to go as much as possible.

“To be able to do all those things is a privilege,” Bailey said. “For me, my main focus in life is how I can help others. “I wanted to come to college and be a dentist, but God steered me in a different direction to major in Psychology.”

Bailey resides in South Jackson with his mother, stepfather, two brothers and sister. His youngest brother, Marquise (15) and younger sister, Eunice (16) both attend Jim Hill High School while his other brother, Sedrick (18) is a freshman at Ole Miss majoring in computer science.

Upon graduation from Millsaps in the spring of 2008, Bailey has aspirations of attending graduate school outside of Millsaps where he will pursue his master’s in counseling psychology.