By Dan Geringer
Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA — When he’s not on duty at the Criminal Justice Center, Deputy Sheriff Mike Terry drives all over the city and suburbs, inviting thousands of cops and corrections officers to this weekend’s Sgt. Robert Wilson III Memorial Basketball Tournament.
Along the way, Terry honors his deep North Philly roots by giving out tournament tickets to kids on the street corners of his youth, and in GameStop stores, including the one, on Lehigh Avenue near 21st Street, where Wilson was shot dead in March while trying to stop an armed robbery.
For five weeks now, Terry, 43, has devoted his off-duty hours to making sure crowds turn out for Saturday’s 1 p.m. tournament at Chestnut Hill College, on Germantown Avenue near Northwestern Avenue, where 12 teams of law enforcement officers will play basketball all afternoon to raise education funds for Wilson’s two young children.
GameStop and the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, which have already made major contributions to the fund, are co-sponsoring the tournament.
Terry, who spent 10 years as a Philadelphia Corrections Officer before becoming a deputy sheriff in 2005, is guided by the spirit of his beloved grandmother, the late Lucille Terry, who was a mainstay in her North Philadelphia neighborhood and in Terry’s childhood.
“My grandmother was the block captain of 1500 Willington Street, and she owned a store at 17th and Oxford - Terry’s Corner Store or Miss Lucille’s,” Terry said.
“She was one of those older ladies who, if you didn’t have enough money, she would give you what you wanted anyway,” he said. “She’d tell people, ‘Oh, just take it. I’ll see you next time.’ Some people tell me, ‘You’re just like your grandmother.’ That’s what makes me do what I do.”
Terry said he grew up in North Philly around 17th and Jefferson. “I was a product of that environment and I was really bad,” he said. “I had two uncles who were bad guys - one of them had 50, 60 arrests and did everything you can name - but they didn’t want me to be a bad guy.”
Terry is sure he would have ended up dead or in jail if Miss Lucille hadn’t saved him.
“Fortunately, my grandmother took me out of the streets and made me change my ways,” he said. “Otherwise, I would’ve been one of those knuckleheads running in the streets.”
Terry said he met Wilson several times and the two hit it off.
“I work at the Criminal Justice Center, so I meet a lot of police officers in the courtrooms,” Terry said. “Officer Wilson and I talked about police stuff, motorcycles, basketball, being a father. I have children. He had younger children. We were two men talking about our kids.”
Terry was impressed with Wilson’s humble decency. “He wasn’t a cocky cop,” Terry said. “With the uniform and the badge, and without the uniform and the badge, he was just a good person and a good dad to his sons.”