Kareem Rush looking beyond Saturday's Missouri-Kansas alumni game
About 18 months ago, long before it had been announced that the basketball teams from Kansas and Missouri would play a scrimmage in the Sprint Center last October to raise money for hurricane relief, former Missouri player Kareem Rush had an idea. He wanted to pit a team of Missouri alumni, including himself, against a team of Kansas alumni, including his brother, Brandon Rush. He wanted the game to be played in Kansas City. He wanted the proceeds to go to charity.
Saturday, Rush’s idea will become a reality, as the “Rivalry Renewed” game between former Kansas and Missouri players is set to tip off at 7:30 p.m. at Silverstein Eye Centers Arena in Independence, Mo. Proceeds will benefit three charities: the Rush Forward Foundation, a charity started by Rush, the Boys and Girls Club of Kansas City and This Too Shall Pass, a nonprofit based in Oklahoma City. Rush is expecting a packed house — he said the scrimmage played by Missouri and Kansas last season illustrated the appetite the two fan bases still have for the rivalry, which hasn’t been contested in a basketball game that counts since 2012.
But Rush is looking beyond Saturday, more than a year into the future once again. He hopes this year’s alumni matchup is a launching pad for Rivalry Renewed — that in the future, it will feature games between alumni contingents from schools across the country.
The lofty, long-term vision is typical Rush. Rush starred at Missouri from 1999-2002, averaging 21.1 points per game as a sophomore and 19.8 as a junior. He was selected 20th overall in the 2002 NBA Draft, and played in the league for parts of seven seasons. In 2009, Rush tore the ACL in his right knee, and the injury effectively ended his career. He made appearances in the NBA G League and overseas afterward, but never made his way back onto an NBA court.
Rush said the injury forced him to reevaluate his life. Prior to it, he had only thought of himself as a basketball player. He assumed he could play professionally until he was about 40 years old. Suddenly, he needed not just a way to make some additional income, but a new identity.
“Up to that point, 20 years of basketball, that’s kind of all I was known as,” Rush said. “So once I got out, I dabbled in music, which I’m still doing. … Kind of started there, and then I kind of got my experience itching and kind of took it from there.”
Rush’s first post-basketball project came as an R & B singer. In 2010, he released a single, “Hold you down.” Then, in 2015, he compiled a 16-song album titled “The Rebirth of the Renaissance Man.” Rush said he’s been working on another project lately, which he expects to be released later this fall.
“Renaissance Man” is the perfect label for Rush. Once he widened his ambitions beyond his playing career, his focus went from one thing, basketball, to any and every opportunity that presented itself. His current ventures span from suits to pool toys.
In 2014, Rush launched the Gentleman Brand, a “fashion and lifestyle brand” that includes a clothing line and other health and wellness products. He said the brand recently re-launched by releasing some new products. He has also worked to develop a line of pool toys called Water Warriors, which he described as rafts shaped like college mascots with built-in water guns. Rush has already developed a prototype, and he expects the rafts to be on sale in the next few months. Most recently, Rush has been coaching basketball at a newly formed prep school in Oklahoma City called EAI Academy.
Then, of course, there’s Rivalry Renewed.
Rush teamed up with former agent Steve Gardner to organize the game, as well as a meet-and-greet event for VIP ticketholders the night prior at Harrah’s bar in Kansas City. He said the rosters haven’t yet been finalized, but he expects the Missouri lineup to include Keyon Dooling, Rickey Paulding and Michael Dixon, among others. The Kansas team is expected to include Drew Gooden, Travis Releford and Mario Chalmers.
Rush called this year’s matchup a “test run.” Next year, he hopes to expand the event to a four-team tournament, with Missouri alumni facing off against former Illinois players and Kansas playing Kansas State in the first pair of matchups, then the two winners facing each other in a final. By 2020, he wants to expand even further. His ultimate goal is to get alumni squads from something like 16 teams around the country to play in a tournament, with the winner taking home prize money and the proceeds continuing to benefit charity. Rush compared his vision to The Basketball Tournament — a 72-team, open-entry tournament that offers a $2 million, winner-take-all purse and has been broadcast on ESPN in recent years — but with the games still featuring rivalry matchups and being played on college campuses.
“A lot of those teams are former alumni teams, so I know guys are kind of pooling up together and playing,” Rush said. “It’s really just about organizing it into a full league.”
Rush acknowledged that his platform and connections as a former NBA player have helped him in his entrepreneurial ventures, but he said it took learning an important lesson to be able to take advantage. He seeks to impart that lesson when he speaks to groups these days. The lesson is, essentially, be a Renaissance Man.
“That’s what I want to kind of relay to other players and pass down through the mentorship program at the Boys and Girls Club,” Rush said. “That, you know, you’re going to have one thing set in your mind, it’s your dream job, which the NBA was for me. I thought that was the kind of pinnacle of what I could do. But since I’ve been out, I’ve found a lot more things I’m interested in and passionate about and excited for.”
While Rush certainly has a lot on his plate, right now he’s wholly focused on making this year’s Rivalry Renewed game a success. Unlike some charity basketball scrimmages, Rush expects the participants to take the basketball game seriously. He said he’s been training lately to play in The Big 3, a televised 3-on-3 tournament, so he’s in shape. He intentionally targeted other players who are still either playing professionally or training to do so. Asked who he predicts will be the leading scorer, Rush responded, “me, of course.”
Rush predicted that the fact that the matchup pits not only rivaling schools but the two Rush brothers against one another will only add to the level of competition.
“Guys still want to play in this rivalry, in this game, and as long as the quality’s good and we get some of the well-known guys back, I think it can be a good event for years to come,” Rush said.