Jim Caviezel: The Basketball Connection

Jim Caviezel

The Basketball Connection

Special Feature

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I saw Mel Gibson's movie

"The Passion of the Christ" and it moved me...

I saw Jim Caviezel playing the principal role as Jesus

and his performance shook me...

Then I learned Caviezel was once a college basketball player...

Here is the documentation of everything I could find about

the talented actor's links to basketball

Jim Caviezel and Basketball

Jim ("James Patrick") Caviezel was born in September 1968 and raised in Skagit County in Conway, near Mount Vernon (Washington State). His family was mainly of Irish Catholic origin, but the family name is actually Romansch, a language spoken primarily in Switzerland.

He was born into a basketball-crazed family.

Jim Caviezel was 6'2. His initial love was always athletics, particularly basketball. He also played American football and was very good in boxing.

His lifelong dream, he said, was to play professional basketball, and he was very serious about it. All Caviezel really dreamed about was playing in the NBA. "Most people saw me with a basketball, working on my dribbling, shooting, defense," he said in a 1999 interview.

He wanted to be a basketball player and would occasionally have outbursts of temper and get into fights caused by frustration about his dyslexia. He also had a reportedly sharp tongue. When he was a freshman at Mount Vernon High School, he declared that he was going to play in varsity. He dared to bad mouth someone in the school's football team. When the upperclassmen heard this, they retaliated by throwing him in a garbage can! Caviezel says he learned a hard lesson about ego right there and then. "I was a pretty good ball player. As the stakes got higher, there were bigger kids than me, and I came in with a bit of an attitude, a bit cocky. And I got thumped. It hurt. But I said to myself, 'I'm never going to do that again. I'm never going to be like that again.' I was blessed to learn that early in life"

He transferred to O'Dea High School and played for the Irish

Then he transferred to Kennedy High School where he played as a starting point guard in 1987 (see photo above in jersey #20). He also played American Football at Kennedy. His basketball team came sixth in the AAA school tournament.

Caviezel also played college basketball in Bellevue Community College.

In fact, his acting career may have been prompted during his University of Washington days, when he suffered a serious foot injury that put him out of play. But he still insisted on joining them on the bench and entertain his basketball teammates during games by doing impersonations. Caviezel's coach seeing him so talented in impersonations and cracking of jokes while on the bench suggested he give acting a try!

What convinced him eventually to start his acting career was the day he realized he injured his foot was serious enough to hamper his basketball dream and that he had to give up reluctantly on the sport. Only when his hopes for a career were dashed that he moved to Los Angeles and pursued a career in acting, despite limited experience in drama.

Even in acting, he didn't abandon his love of the game of basketball. Caviezel appeared in several stage roles in Seattle-area productions. Then he tried to go into movies in Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho" where he played an airline clerk.

But he is also frequently remembered for one of his earliest acting roles as a basketball player in an

episode "The Wonder Years" TV series.

Jim Caviezel's family and Basketball:

Jim Caviezel and his family

Jim Caviezel's father James, a chiropractor by profession, was an accomplished basketball high school player.

He played at Sumber, became an all-state player and then played for UCLA under coach John Wooden. In contrast, James mother Maggie was an actress and had appeared in plays.

The Caviezel home in Conway had an outdoor basketball court. It became the favorite place for all Caviezel

brothers where they would spend hours, as their father reminisces.

Jim has three sisters and one brother. All of them, played college basketball as well, just like their father

and their now-famous brother.

Jim's younger brother, Tim Caviezel played in Mount Vernon in 1991 and later in University of Washington,

Long Beach State and Western Washington.

Jim's sisters were also into basketball. Ann, Amy and Erin Caviezel played at Mount Vernon High School.

Ann and Amy also went on to play basketball for Skagit Valley College and Erin Caviezel for Loyola-Marymount.

Jim Caviezel's wife Kerri Browitt was also a basketball player at Cle Elum High School. Later on she was

on Western Washington basketball team for four full years, and one of that school's best.

She reportedly led in 5 statistical categories no less.

Testimonies to Caviezel's love and commitment to basketball:

Jim Caviezel has never shied from his basketball roots and uses every opportunity he gets to emphasize his love and

dedication to the game of basketball.

He always used basketball analogies in h is interviews: He says: "I didn't want to be an actor. I wanted to be a basketball player. God gives you a talent and you have to follow through on it. Heart will get you so far - and it got me pretty far. But everybody has what I call a "Michael Jordan talent" - something that you do that's pretty unusual or you do it better than others and you can teach them something. I think we're all here to learn from each other.

Another example: “I just wanted to play basketball, to be a pro player, but I felt like God had something else,” he explains. “My father said, ‘If God called you to do something, wouldn’t He tell you to be a priest?’ and I had to agree.

But then these roles came along, and I knew, I started to realize, that God was giving them to me. And I do

believe that He wanted me to play Jesus. He was preparing me for it all along, by giving me the other roles

that I’ve played.”

“I want people to go away with a sense of who Jesus really was,” he said. “He was a man, and he was very masculine.

What a privilege it was [for me] to play God’s son, but I don’t want people to see me. I just want them to see Jesus.”

Barbie Bailey, a childhood friend from the Immaculate Conception School says that everyone thought he was good-looking but he was never seen him dating for sport and Catholic Christian faith were his life. He had absolute faith in himself and wanted to win always, he says. Some people might have seen him as arrogant, but he was sincere.

His coach in college Ernie Woods confesses in his 30 years, he hadn't seen someone as determined and hard working like Jim. He said: "I can remember him doing a running drill almost until he passed out. He worked harder than anyone". He pushed himself beyond his physical limits. "Even when he got a bad foot injury he did not let that stop him. He's the kind of person who could have a broken leg and still want to play." (BBC interview).

The Passion of the Christ is also testimony to his zeal and reminiscent of how his coach Ernie Wooden described him.

For example he had to go through a grueling task in acting as Jesus in the movie. He hang from a cross for weeks to film the final hours in Jesus's life. He suffered bruises, had hyperthermia, was struck by lightning.

He was diagnosed with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder in 1994. He also has dyslexia.

Jim Caviezel or James Caviezel?

He was born James Patrick Caviezel. That's his full name. He is frequently identified as James Caviezel or as Jim Caviezel. His father was called James Caviezel.

But in this page, I preferred to use the name Jim Caviezel as it appears in the official cast in Mel Gibson's

"The Passion of the Christ". But both names, James and Jim, can be used interchangeably.

Jim Caviezel's agent for correspondence:

Jim Caviezel
c/o Pamela Cole
United Talent Agency
9560 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90212-2400

Links

Jim Caviezel and Basketball:

Seattle Times: Basketball Was Early Passion for Caviezel by Craig Smith

Skagit Valley Herald: Caviezel Family Prays and Plays With Conviction by Mary Evitt

General:

C aviezel Country

Jim Cavizel .cjb.net

Reel Caviezel: Jim Caviezel Story Teller